Guest:  Bruce Pittman;  Topics: commercial launch industry, space settlement, returning to the Moon, lunar return and settlement times, commercial Mars settlement, human factors for lunar settlement and much more.

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We welcomed Bruce Pittman back to the program for a thorough discussion about space settlement starting with the recent NSS Space Settlement meeting in November of this year. Topics discussed at this meeting came up at different times during our program but for the most part, it was an excellent and comprehensive look at space settlement with a focus to starting the journey over talking about the journey.  The first question of the day came from Todd while Bruce was talking in general about settlement and the meeting.  Todd wanted to know where the "there is" meaning where will settlement first take place given the references Bruce had been making.  After a long answer, Bruce finally suggested the Moon would be first for obvious reasons like closest to get to, easiest to get back from, more economic to get to plus a few other characteristics.  Bruce went on to say that Artemis was a step in right direction but then early on he raised the question about sustainability.  For the most part, sustainability focused on the very high cost for an SLS launch, in excess of 4 billion dollars. That said, Bruce pointed out a few more areas where sustainability might be an issue.

After the initial settlement discussion, most of our program unfolded in order and with the topics cited in our Tags.  In order to consolidate this summary and make it short and to the point, the Tags do a good job of highlighting the primary discussion points, also in the order they came up.  For your convenience, I have repeated the Tags below:

"Tags:  Bruce Pittman, NSS Space Settlement Summit, ESA Moon Village, chemical rocketry, space transportation, new heavy lift coming on line, space settlement destinations, settlement naysayers, Public Private Partnerships, Human Lunar Lander Partnership, NASA and settlement, lunar rescue with Space Force, moving to lunar development now, lunar settlement challenges, 3D habitat printing on the Moon, timeline for returning to the Moon, economics and lunar return, CLPS Mission, commercial settlement ten year timing, commercial space stations, Skycorp and orbital assembly, small lunar landers, commercial settlement on Mars, cislunar infrastructure need, recent fusion energy announcements, space mission sustainability."

A few of the highlights of our 90 minute program included a brief historical overview on NASA and space settlement. Note what our guest said about it going back to the 1990s and the 2015 ACT.  In addition, the fact that Bruce mentioned the USGS taking lunar resources seriously was news to me and very encouraging. When a listener suggested just starting a lunar development business and making the plans to go develop the Moon, while Bruce supported such an idea, he talked about timing not being right, the TRL not being just right plus a few other issues and challenges.  I thought that this was an important mini discussion.

A good part of our discussion with Bruce centered on economic issues and taking a look at the economics of different parts of the lunar development concept.  I also thought the part where Bruce was asked about ten years to settlement was most interesting.  He talked about much of that potential resting on the success of Starship.  He suggested Musk-Starship were key.  Don't miss this part when you hear it in the latter part of our program.  Yet another part of the interview that rated high on my scale was the part when private space stations came up based on a question from George.   That was followed by Paul asking about the Space Force putting together a rescue force for folks doing settlement or just space tourism.  As we were approaching the end of the program, Bruce talked at length about Skycorp and their space mission/product. That was followed by an ending discussion on the fusion energy announcement we all read in the press.

Please post your comments/questions for Bruce on our blog for this program. You can reach Bruce through The Space Show or his position on the Skycorp website.