Guest: Dr. Charles Lurio; Topics: Multiple commercial space and related topics discussed in this 100 minute program with Dr. Lurio.
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We welcomed back Dr. Lurio to the program who started the discussion by talking about SpaceX and Starship as the dominant story in space news. He talked about the long wait and anticipation for the Starship orbital test flight plus additional Raptor 33 engine testing. The majority of the first part of the program was spent on Starship and related items. Later, after we had been talking about Starship for awhile, I wanted to move to another topic so I asked Charles for his SpaceX runner up story. Pay attention as you might be surprised by how Charles responded to that question.
Marshall called to talk about the Starship engine test and brought the old Soviet Union N1 as a possible example for Starship and the 33 engines. Charles did respond to Marshall but also talked about the N33 which the Cygnus rocket was using. Charles then moved over to responding to a question about the financial and other problems for Virgin Orbit. He said the company was now in danger. We also talked about the then current tweet by Musk that the timeline for humanity to be on Mars would be 20 years.
I asked Charles to comment on other top Space Show topics, SSP and space settlement. He started off with and spent more time on SSP. He described SSP and provided us with a brief history. He talked about big assumptions for SSP, bipartisanship for it, military cislunar SSP usage and more. Listener Sharon wanted to know if SSP could provide baseload power. We then talked about various SSP studies recently completed or underway. Joe from Volcano, CA called in to talk about the rectenna and suggested nuclear with 24X7 power was in the end cheaper. Joe and Charles had a nice chat about SSP, moving the beam to desired or paying users, the rectenna and nuclear. Don't miss this mini-discussion. Ajay was then quick to call to support nuclear with some facts plus he again touted the use of thorium with the huge reserves we have of it here in the U.S. He talked about nuclear activity in other countries building new reactors and of course called for the same in the U.S.
As we were moving to the end of our program, Charles addressed space settlement and said it was premature and that economics would dictate it. Space tourism came up as did suborbital which did not get a big endorsement from anyone. As we started to summarize the program with Charles, I called out his great newsletter, The Lurio Report. Before ending, Charles talked about the new Stokes Space Vehicle company saying they would be 100% renewable.
Please post your comments/questions for Dr. Lurio on the blog for this show. You can reach him at the address he gave out on air at the end of the program.
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