I am a huge space geek. I truly believe that the future for humanity lies in the stars and the sooner we quit mucking about with *bleeping* faux documentaries about space aliens on the moon and instead put someone up there permanently the better off we will be. (End of Rant) Think of a Moon base as an external hard drive for humanity, and think of a self-sustaining Martian base as cloud computing for human DNA. (Second end of Rant) Because we all know it will happen sooner or later, and no one will see it coming. I mean it’s not like the dinosaurs woke up and said, “What shall I do today? Oh I know, I’d like to be melted in a six hundred degree oven as little particles of asteroid dust heat the atmosphere until it glows red and kills all life above the surface on the whole planet in somewhere around two hours.” No dinosaur said that ever! (Deep breath. OK, truly end of rant. I promise.)
Anyway, if you’re like me, and you believe that we are destined for the stars, then anything to do with space is fascinating. Like last Saturday for instance, when I spent a good chunk of the morning watching the rock star engineers at JPL hoist what can only be called a flying saucer up into the high atmosphere with a helium balloon and then let go of it, so that a rocket could take over and then spin it up even higher into the atmosphere, where it stopped spinning on a freaking dime and then plummeted back to Earth while inflating instantly, all to simulate how in the heck we will get heavy objects, e.g. humans, down on Mars safely without having to sky crane everything, which really wouldn’t work anyways. Yeah, those guys with their polos and peanuts, those guys are my heroes. (Yep, I totally freaked out Bobak Ferdowsi at PAX Prime last year when I walked up to shake his hand. I went all fanboy on him. It was awkward, but I’m a geek. I excel at awkward.)
If you’re like me, perhaps minus the awkward, then the vidcast TMRO from www.spacevidcast.com is designed for you. Every week, hosts Cariann Higginbotham and Benjamin Higginbotham catch you up on the week’s news in space including all the launches, the contracts awarded, and the experimental vehicles designed and tested during the last week. It’s a regular staple on my podcast list.
Not only do Ben and Cariann cover the news, they also take a few minutes to go in depth on a topic of interest. This last week, they had on an old friend of the GeekDad blog, Chris Radcliff, to talk about what a habitat on Mars would look like. Not only that, but their forums and their live chats are a great place to find other space geeks and connect. Here’s their latest show:
Ben and Cariann have a loyal following of interested viewers, and they are gaining more by the day. They have a great following on Patreon.com and are looking to raise more money there. They have some pretty ambitious goals. If they can get beyond $200,000 per episode, they will be buying a ticket on Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship One to give away each month. So consider your support as your way of buying a lottery ticket to space. I know I’m in.
And make sure to add TMRO to your podcast list, or subscribe to their YouTube channel, so that you can keep up with all the latest from space.
