#83 - May 2019 Part 2

The Discussion: Your last chance to get tickets to join Jen’s at
Pint of Science on 20-22nd May in Cardiff, a couple of
corrections for the last episode, listeners’ comments about our
Moon 2024 musings and a listener’s email takes us into classic
50s sci-fi territory.


The News: Rounding up the space exploration news this month we
have:


NASA’s new robot assistants and ‘Astrobees’ on the
International Space Station

Portugal launches its national space agency in the Azores and
plans an environmentally friendly rocket

Arianespace are to launch 42 satellites on a single rocket

NASA Administrator misses his April deadline to provide
financial figures for a retirn to the moon in 2024 :-(

Space Force will likely cost $1.5Bn more each year than
originally thought

India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission will launch to the moon in
September this year



Main news stories: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has been developing a
giant lunar landing in secret, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX have a
setback to their human spaceflight plans


The Debate: A reminder that you can influence the Best Space
Mission Ever debate season, starting next month. What do you
think is the best current or historical space mission and why?
We’ll shortlist the ten most popular and begin advocating to
reach a winner.


Q&A: Could a device, with a magnetic field, be placed at the
L1 Lagrange Point between the Sun and Mars to help to thicken the
atmosphere? And could a device be placed at Earth’s L1 Lagrange
point counteract the effect of global warming?