The Future And You -- August 15, 2012

Les Johnson, Dr. Gregory L. Matloff, Stephanie Osborn, and Phillip R. Cox are today's featured speakers.

Topic: (1) The ways in which we will all suffer if we lose all of our satellites, and (2) the well-researched dangers which could destroy or disable all of our satellites.

IE: Why it is that without satellites cell phones would not function, credit card transactions could not be processed, the Internet would shut down in many areas and be slow and unreliable in places which remain online, and all GPS navigation would go dead. Also, some of the many ways we might lose our satellites such as: a repeat of the Carrington Event (a devastating solar flair in 1859), the hundred thousand pieces of space junk in earth orbit today, a catastrophic chain reaction in which the existing space junk suddenly multiplies a thousand fold, and of course satellite destruction through terrorism and space war.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 15, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 58 minutes] This panel was recorded on July 21, 2012 before a live audience in Chattanooga Tennessee at the science fiction and fantasy convention: LibertyCon. Special thanks go to Derek Spraker and John Trieber of LibertyCon who recorded this, and many other panels for me; and to the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel for having such a fine sound system.

Les Johnson serves as the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Stephanie Osborn is a former NASA payload flight controller, with over twenty years experience in civilian and military space programs. She has worked on numerous Space Shuttle flights and the International Space Station.

Dr. Gregory L. Matloff is assistant professor of physics at New York City College of Technology. He has consulted for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, is a Fellow of the British interplanetary Society, is a Hayden Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, and is a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics.

Phillip R. Cox has been an engineer in the military-industrial complex for the last thirty years. His career has included the development of many fine spacecraft and weapons of mass destruction.