Guest:  Dr. Louis Friedman; Topics: Lou's new book, "Planetary Adventures: From Moscow To Mars" personal space adventure stories plus thoughts on commercial space, human spaceflight, settlement, humans to the Moon and Mars.

We welcomed back to the show Dr. Louis Friedman to discuss his new book, "Planetary Adventures: From Moscow To Mars."  During our hour long discussion, Lou talked about the book which summarized not only the Planetary Society space efforts and programs from its founding up to and including when Lou retired a few years ago.  Later in the program, Lou was asked to talk about Russian space challenges, Planetary Mission projects on Soviet-Russian launchers that failed, human spaceflight, returning to the Moon, Artemis, going to Mars with humans, commercial space and space settlement.

As you will hear, Lou's new books not only provides important space history and mission information with the privately funded Planetary Society doing its own space missions with Soviet and later Russian rockets, it also details many of the problems encountered, the failures and why, plus their pioneering work with solar sails.  Lou told us many of his personal adventure stories in the Soviet Union/Russian, China and elsewhere.  Listen to what he said about solar sails, their potential for interstellar travel and his NASA experience with solar sails. 

Lou spent time talking commercial space and human spaceflight. He was skeptical of both but listen to all of what he said on these topics.  This includes going to the Moon, Mars, making money in space, space for science, government missions as compared to private or commercial space missions and projects. He was skeptical of most of the commercial and human spaceflight efforts, was skeptical about Artemis and returning to the Moon, and certainly skeptical about space settlement.  All of this and more was openly and frankly discussed during our 61 minute program.  As for human spaceflight, note what he said about using AI and robots.  At the same time, do note what he said about the early days of robots in space and NASA and others unwillingness to go off in that direction.  Before summarizing the program, Lou was asked for his thoughts on cislunar space becoming the domain of the commercial space industry.  Be sure to hear all of what he had to say about this idea.  As we came to the end of the program, Lou was asked about getting an autographed copy of his book. He directed us to the Planetary Society website for their special virtual book signing scheduled for September.  The book is also available at the usual online and local book stores.

Please post your comments/questions on the blog for this show. You can reach Dr. Friedman through me or his website, www.louisdfriedman.com.