Guest: Lt. General Steve Kwast, USAF (Ret); Topics: Why commercial space is essential, space as the path for prosperity and peace, China, influencing our policy, Russia, Ukraine, Skycorp, innovation, orbital commercial activities, global space policies and more
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We welcomed back to the show retired AF Lt. General Steven Kwast. Note that our discussion was interrupted by a power outage but we resumed and completed it late the same day. Gen. Kwast began the discussion by letting us know he was the new CEO for Skycorp, a company founded by Dennis Wingo. Check it out at https://www.skycorpinc.com/team. Steve spent time introducing us to Skycorp, to company innovation, the approaches being used by Skycorp to accomplish the company goals. In addition, he had quite a bit to say about Dennis Wingo, the type of engineering he does and why its so important and unique. Be sure to listen to all of what our guest had to say. We will certainly be inviting Dennis back to The Space Show early this year as he has been guest on the program many times over the year.
From talking about Skycorp, we jumped to commercial space, policy, global events, and why space and in particular commercial space is now essential, both for the economy and national security. In a broader part of the discussion, Steve assessed what was going on in our country, our media, education, the war in Ukraine, always with a connection to space, in fact mostly commercial space. If you pay attention to the tags which I have repeated below, I believe you will have a good handle on this discussion. That said, if you really want to understand what our guest was talking about, listen carefully to what he had to say on all the various topics subjects that came during our time together on The Space Show.
"Tags: Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast, Skycorp, Dennis Wingo, satellite servicing, orbital manufacturing, commercial space market plans, Space Force, off the shelf purchases, transforming the supply chain, lowering prices, out of the box tech, Congress, budget cycles, gap between words and actions of congress, China, media, news reporting, education, correctly telling space story, Chinese money, Chinese fusion, history of past civilizations, the importance of space, commercial space linked to national security, technology in an open society, commercial space naysayers, electromagnetic spectrum and warfare, EMP through space, Putin and Ukraine, nuclear war threat, Elon Musk China contradictions, Musk and Twitter, free speech and transparency, educational indoctrination, U.S. Constitution, not believing news reports, behind the scenes space policy work, power is innovation, China and the Moon, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, negotiation peace with strength, truth to values, competitive capabilities, competitive power and trade."
Many times during the program I confessed to our guest that I did not understand why the media does what it does, why policy makers seem to turn an eye away from obvious developments, conditions and policies that hurt people. Steve had some answers but not all the answers. As you listen to the discussion, make a decision to post on our blog what you thought about what our guest was saying throughout this interview. We want to hear from you.
Steve received a few emails from listeners who heard the recent program with Howard Bloom. He was asked about Howard's comments regarding the general and behind the scenes working to benefit space, commercial space and us all. Regarding Musk, the listeners wanted to know if he agreed with Howard that Elon Musk was everything space, the key person and without him, space and all of us might falter. Steve had an interesting take on Howard's Musk commentary so do listen to it. Steve was also asked what he thought Musk and his Twitter activities instead of focusing on SpaceX and Tesla. Steve said many positive things as to what Musk was trying to accomplish with speech and transparency in his Twitter involvement. Other topics of interest were Steve's commentary on the Ukrainian war and Putin's nuclear war rhetoric. Our guest stressed the vital interest of Space Force being able to thwart and protect us against electromagnetic spectrum warfare. Much was said on this topic so do listen for it and note what the general was saying, especially in terms of Space Force capabilities and our congressional policy makers and budget planners. Near the end of the program, Tony wanted to know about the recent commentary by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on China getting to the Moon first and controlling it. Don't miss what our guest said about that one. We had several other topics and issues arise such as education, Chinese students here and in the west, the poor job our media does in general but specifically with space and he had lots to say about space naysayers. Even if you do not agree with our guest on what he talked about, I believe that what he offered us was very important and all of us should pay attention to the issues he put on the table and front of us.
Please post your questions/comments on our blog for this show. You can reach General Kwast through me.
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