The Future And You -- Dec 8, 2010

Les Johnson (NASA physicist, manager and author) is today's featured guest. Space Law is the topic. Such as the ramifications of the International Outer Space Treaty (which bans nuclear weapons in space, and specifies who is liable when satellites fall to earth.); the incident when a Russian spy satellite dropped a nuclear reactor onto Canada; the incident in which the region of Australia where Skylab fell fined the United States $400 for littering--a bill which the US Government has never paid; how the company called Sea Launch attempts to circumvent the International Outer Space Treaty; and The Moon Treaty (which the U.S. never signed). Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 8, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 38 minutes] This panel was recorded in front of a live audience on July 10, 2010 at LibertyCon in Chattanooga. Les Johnson serves as the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was the technical consultant for the movie Lost in Space. And In his spare time he writes popular science books and articles--for example. In collaboration with C Bangs (an artist) and Greg Matloff (a professor of astronomy) he wrote: Paradise Regained: The Regreening of Earth (2009); Living Off the Land in Space (2007); and with Greg Matloff and Giovanni Vulpetti he wrote Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (2008).