Podcasts about Luxembourg

Hotel Mars with Rick Fisher, Weds, 2-11-25Our special Hotel Mars guest was Rick Fisher who returned to discusses China's recent Long March 10 A test which was a very important test for the development of their lunar rocket. The Long March 10 A is planned to be a reusable rocket for China's lunar missions. The development of the Long March 10 A illustrates China's evolving moon architecture compared to U.S. efforts. Our guest, Rick Fisher who is a national security China watcher on all fronts, including space, explained China's ambitious “Tiangong Kaiu” 100-year plan to establish solar system hegemony, exploiting Moon and Mars resources to secure economic and military dominance. We also compared China's 100 year planning and the seriousness of such planning to the short term way the U.S. does its planning, even for large and very capital expensive projects lasting longer than a 4 year presidential term of office.This was a two segment Hotel Mars program.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4506 Zoom Open Lines | Sunday 15 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. David LivingstonOpen Lines discussion. All topics welcome Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

(00:00:00) Opening (00:01:38) A PIece of My Mind (00:07:12) Pancho Guero, My Insane FL Nephew (00:26:36) Man Jailed for Murder Goes Viral After Worrying He'd Miss Video Game Release (00:32:33) Chatbots Were Sent to Therapy and THIS What Came Out (00:40:04) ⅓ of College Students Scroll Phones While 'Getting Busy' (00:47:02) FDA Recalls “Horny” Honey—Because It's Loaded with Cialis (00:52:17) Olympic Officials Investigate Penis Injection Doping Claims In Ski Jumping (00:59:31) Booty From A Dead Person? Women Chasing the Perfect Body Are Pumping ‘Ethically Sourced' Cadaver Fat Into Boobs and Butt (01:08:34) A Man Will Be Charged After Sticking a World War One Bomb Up His Butt (01:12:46) Ask Pancho (01:26:34) Insane Game Show (01:43:53) Coming Next Episode (01:52:42) Closing Have you wondered what it would be like if all the AI chatbots got together for a therapy session? Well, someone made it happen at the University of Luxembourg where researchers decided to put ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, & Grok on the couch. My Insane FL Nephew, "Pancho Guero", has the details on just how intrusive screens are getting...in the bedroom. And there's now a "natural" replacement for Botox to use in boobs and butts...and it's fat from a dead stranger. Can things get more stupid. Yes. Yes, they can. And it ends up on this podcast.In this Weekend Episode...[A Piece of My Mind…] America Is In The Grips Of A Dystopian “Bill Maher Disorder”Man Jailed for Murder Goes Viral After Worrying He'd Miss Video GTA 6 ReleaseChatbots Were Sent to Therapy and THIS What Came Out⅓ of College Students Scroll Phones While 'Getting Busy'FDA Recalls “Horny” Honey—Because It's Loaded with CialisOlympic Officials Investigate Penis Injection Doping Claims In Ski JumpingBooty From A Dead Person? Women Chasing the Perfect Body Are Pumping ‘Ethically Sourced' Cadaver Fat Into Boobs and ButtsA Man Will Be Charged After Sticking a World War One Bomb Up His ButtWe have a couple of relationship questions that "Pancho" will answer that might settle the dispute over whether a husband should know his wife's dress size and is a mom over-reacting to her ex's influence over their 6-y/o son wanting to get an earring. There's 5 challening Mindbenders in this week's Insane Game Show that "Pancho" will have to solve--can you solve them, too? Put your sanity to the test with all the stupidity in this week's wild episode!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/insane-erik-lane-s-stupid-world--6486112/support.Real-time updates and story links are found on the TELEGRAM Channel at: https://t.me/InsaneErikLane  (Theme song courtesy of Randy Stonehill, ”It's A Great Big Stupid World”. Copyright ©1992 Stonehillian Music/Word Music/Twitchin' Vibes Music/ASCAP) Order your copy on the Wonderama CD from Amazon!This episode includes AI-generated content.

The Space Show Presents Steve Wolfe, Tyler Bender, & The Beyond Earth Institute, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026Quick Summary:This Space Show program focused on promoting the upcoming Beyond Earth Symposium, scheduled for February 24-25 in Washington, D.C., which will explore creating a clear pathway to a space town and discuss Artemis program developments. The discussion covered NASA's authorization bill, commercial space station development, and the need for infrastructure to support a sustainable lunar presence. Key speakers included Steve Wolfe and Tyler Bender from Beyond Earth, who explained their organization's focus on policy and strategic thinking for human expansion into space. The conversation also touched on Jared Isaacman's leadership at NASA, the potential impact of China's space program, and the importance of developing cislunar space infrastructure. The symposium will feature approximately 50 speakers and include meals in the registration package, with a 30% discount available for attendees using the promo code BES30.Detailed Summary:Our program focused on the upcoming Beyond Earth Symposium, which will take place in Washington, D.C., at the Law School for American University from February 24th to 25th. Tyler Bender, the space policy industry analyst for Beyond Earth, introduced the symposium's theme of creating a clear pathway to a space town, discussing the evolution from space habitats to more permanent lunar settlements. Steve Wolfe, president and Co-founder of Beyond Earth, elaborated on the symposium's speakers, including George Whitesides, and highlighted the importance of the NASA authorization bill amendment supporting human expansion into space. The discussion also touched on the challenges of organizing a diverse group of speakers from different regions and the need for policy discussions on advancing a human space migration agenda.The symposium will feature discussions on lunar exploration, focusing on sustainable lunar presence rather than the race to be the first to return to the moon. Steve mentioned that the event will include audience Q&A sessions and panels led by experts who will explore lunar development plans and compare different lander systems. Tyler confirmed that meals are included in the symposium package. Space Show Wisdom Team participant Dallas emphasized the importance of the SpaceX Starship for establishing a lunar community due to its larger capacity compared to the Blue Origin HLS. David raised a question about the development of cislunar space, which Tyler and Steve noted would be addressed in the first panel.The Beyond Earth Institute, a non-profit think tank, aims to provide thoughtful policy and strategic guidance for human space exploration, focusing on creating permanent communities on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Steve explained that while the Institute is policy-focused, it also considers technology and economic aspects, such as funding mechanisms and commercial development, to support space migration. He mentioned that the Institute has developed papers on financing options and has been advocating for a large-scale public-private partnership lunar research and development facility capable of housing up to 50 people.Wisdom Team member Ajay shared insights from his recent op-ed in the Space Review about lunar cargo transportation, highlighting the need for infrastructure development by 2028 and the limitations of current launch systems like Falcon Heavy and Starship. The group discussed the importance of focusing on infrastructure elements such as power, communications, navigation, and prospecting for building a lunar community, with Steve noting the recent commitment to a lunar space station. David inquired about trending shifts in congressional attitudes towards space policy, prompting Steve to reflect on the potential for policy to align with rhetoric and the support of constituents.The group discussed the increasing congressional interest in returning to the moon, driven by concerns about China's potential to surpass the US in lunar presence. They noted a shift towards commercial space activities, with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin making vocal commitments to lunar missions. Dallas shared insights from an upcoming AIAA paper series on lunar sustainability, highlighting the importance of ISRU (In Situ Resource Utilization) and the need for practical applications rather than experimental tech demos. The conversation also touched on the process of selecting speakers for conferences, with Steve explaining their leadership council and working groups approach.Space Show program participants discussed funding challenges for mining robots, with Dallas explaining that their development was funded by mining companies but now they need to generate revenue through product sales. Steve clarified that the Beyond Earth Symposium is primarily a forum for discussion and networking rather than a workshop with specific outputs, though they have provided advice to the White House in the past. Ajay shared that he had received a call from Senator Rick Scott's office regarding his recent op-ed, and will meet with a staffer to discuss space policy and the Artemis program. The discussion concluded with an assessment of Jarod Isaacman's NASA leadership, with Tyler noting that while he started late, he shows genuine commitment to the Beyond Earth mission and NASA.The group also discussed NASA Administrator Bill Nelson's leadership and initiatives, including his efforts to bring more civil servants back into NASA and reduce reliance on contractors. They also discussed the recent elimination of the National Space Council by President Trump, with Michael Kratsios serving as the current space policy point man as he is the Trump administration Science Advisor. The conversation concluded with an announcement about the upcoming Beyond Earth Symposium in two weeks.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4504 Zoom: Frank Pietronigro | Friday 13 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Frank PietronigroZoom: Frank discusses the Zero Gravity Arts Commission and moreBroadcast 4506 Zoom Open Lines | Sunday 15 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. David LivingstonOpen Lines discussion. All topics welcome Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

The Eurovision season is officially exploding into life, and we are here for every single second of it! The road to Vienna 2026 is finally paved with music as we catch up on a massive wave of brand-new song choices. We are sitting down to comment on the official entries from Luxembourg, Cyprus, and Ukraine, while sharing our reactions to the big news that Bulgaria is back in the mix with Dara. From Eva Marija's "Mother Nature" and Antigoni's "Jalla" to Leléka's "Ridnym," the Class of 2026 is starting to take shape and we have so much to discuss.The best part is that the party is only just getting started because we are officially on the countdown to the first Super Saturday of the year! We are previewing the big final showdowns for Denmark's DMGP, Latvia's Supernova, and Estonia's Eesti Laul, where the trophies are waiting at the finish line. Plus, we check in on the latest progress from Croatia's Dora and Greece's Sing for Greece. It's a non-stop marathon of music, and we're breaking down the latest news as we head toward the 70th anniversary of the contest!Cookie points (in our hearts!) for subscribing on⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! And make sure to follow us on⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for daily updates. 

De Weltbiodiversitéitsrot IPBES ass fir d’Biodiversitéit dat, wat de Weltklimarot IPCC fir d’Klima ass. Een neie Rapport vun dësem Expert*innengremium beschäftegt sech mat der Relatioun tëscht Ekonomie an Ökologie. Wien elo mengt, datt et jo souwisou kloer ass, datt d’Wirtschaft d’Ëmwelt zerstéiert, läit zwar net ganz falsch, mä ganz korrekt ass et och net: Vill Beräicher vun eiser Ekonomie hänken direkt oder indirekt vum Zoustand vun der Natur of. Am Podcast diskutéieren d’Melanie Czarnik an d’María Elorza Saralegui iwwert dës Zesummenhäng. Si schwätzen awer och kuerz iwwert dem US-Präsident Trump seng nei Politik zu den Zäregasen. Den Artikel, iwwert dee mir geschwat hunn: Die Wirtschaft schießt sich ins KnieThe post Wat Wirtschaft a Biodiversitéit mateneen ze dinn hunn first appeared on Radio ARA.

Why learn Luxembourgish — when everyone already speaks English?It's a question I hear often from expats in Luxembourg.And honestly, on the surface, it makes sense.Luxembourg is multilingual.English, French, and German are part of everyday life.Almost half of the population is foreign.So why invest time and energy in learning Luxembourgish?Because learning a language has never really been about efficiency.Yes, vocabulary and grammar matter. But they're only the starting point.Learning a language is about people.It's about connection.It's about feeling less like an outsider and more like you belong.And this is especially true when it comes to Luxembourgish.In today's podcast episode, I explore what learning Luxembourgish really means beyond grammar and vocabulary:• how language creates connection at work• how it supports integration in everyday life• and why Luxembourgish still matters — even in a multilingual country

This week we welcome our first two members of the class of 2026 to join us on the podcast this season as we cross to Luxembourg and Malta. First up we hear how Eva Marija has made her childhood dream come true by represening her country, and how her love of the contest inspired her to take up music in the first place.Later on Aidan shares his pride at the opportunity to take to the stage for his Eurovision crazy home nation, and we do our best to round-up another crazy week of National Final season.Got a question for Rob and Callum and their Ask Me Anything bonus episode? Send us an email or leave a comment on Patreon.This year we're delighted to be teaming up with the Europarty app to help you bring even more enjoyment to this year's Eurovision season.You can click here to purchase your tickets for the London Eurovision Festival.Click this link to sign up to The Euro Trip + on Patreon for just £4.99 a month.To support the podcast, head to Buy Me A CoffeeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram & TikTok or email hello@eurotrippodcast.com, and find us online at eurotrippodcast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Space Show Presents Dr. Scott Solomon, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026Quick Summary:The Space Show program focused on Dr. Scott Solomon's new book “Becoming Martian,” which explores the biological and evolutionary challenges of human space settlement, particularly on Mars. Our discussion covered key concerns about reproduction in space, medical care for astronauts, and the genetic diversity needed for a successful Mars colony. Solomon emphasized that while technology for space travel is advancing rapidly, biological research and medical care capabilities need to develop in parallel to ensure human survival and reproduction in space. The Space Show Wisdom Team discussed various challenges including radiation effects, gravity prescription, and the potential for evolutionary changes in humans and animals living off Earth. Our conversation concluded with thoughts on how space settlement could impact Earth's ecosystems and the psychological effects of living in space.Detailed Summary:I introduced Dr. Scott Solomon, a biologist and science communicator from Rice University, who discussed his new book, “Becoming Martian,” which explores the potential effects of living in space on the human body and mind. The Space Show Wisdom Team also touched on the topic of gravity prescription and the challenges of having children in space, with Dr. Solomon suggesting that significant changes could occur in as few as 10 generations of space settlers.Scott, an evolutionary biologist, discussed his book “Future Humans” which explores scenarios for human evolution, including the possibility of people adapting to life in space settlements. He explained his research process, which involved studying how space conditions affect the human body, particularly focusing on Mars as a potential first destination for long-term human settlement. Scott emphasized his approach of not only presenting known facts but also describing the scientific process and the people involved in space exploration.Scott discussed the potential impacts of living in space, using Mars as an example, and highlighted the lack of data on how partial gravity affects the human body. He emphasized that factors such as the founder effect and evolutionary changes would be relevant regardless of the location, whether on Mars, the Moon, or a space station. Scott also proposed conducting experiments using bacteria as a proxy to study evolutionary changes in space, predicting that evolution might proceed faster in space due to higher radiation exposure.David and Scott discussed the potential for conducting non-profit driven scientific research on commercial space stations, emphasizing the importance of understanding the biological and psychological impacts of living in space for long-term human habitation. Scott highlighted the need for more research on human reproduction in space, citing a Dutch company's efforts to study this using in vitro fertilization technology that can simulate different gravitational environments. They also discussed the rapid advancement of technology for space travel but agreed that biological and ethical considerations need to be addressed before long-term human settlements on Mars can be considered viable.Our team discussed ethical considerations of bringing children into extreme environments, particularly focusing on Mars. Scott explained that while Earth has challenging situations, Mars presents unique risks including potential health issues from lower gravity and limited microbial exposure. Marshall raised questions about genetic changes in animals brought to space, referencing historical dog breeding as an example. The discussion concluded with Scott suggesting that minimizing infectious diseases could be achieved by avoiding mammals and birds in space colonization efforts, as many human diseases originate from animal spillovers.We also discussed potential animals to bring on a space mission, with Scott advocating for insects over mammals and birds due to their resource efficiency and lower risk of infectious disease transmission. Marshall suggested a mix of goats, chickens, mealworms, and fish, while David expressed concerns about the cultural acceptance of insect-based diets among potential space tourists. Scott shared his experience with insect-based cuisine, including Mexican ant larvae, and explained the nutritional benefits of insects compared to other animal proteins. The discussion touched on the potential effects of an insect diet on human reproduction and microbiome, with Scott noting that a vegan diet might be most energy-efficient for space settlements.Scott discussed the challenges of sending humans to Mars, including the need for a stable food supply for a two-and-a-half-year-round trip. He expressed interest in participating in a Mars mission but emphasized the importance of ensuring a safe return. John Jossy raised concerns about reproduction in space, highlighting the need for mammalian reproduction experiments in variable gravity environments. Scott acknowledged this issue in his book and mentioned ongoing rodent embryo studies by Spaceborne United as a first step in addressing these challenges.Our guest outlined the steps needed to make space settlement a reality by 2026, emphasizing the need for parallel research in technology, biology, and ethics. He highlighted the importance of studying reproduction in space, exploring genetic modifications, and understanding ethical challenges. Dr. Solomon noted that current investments in space life sciences research are insufficient and called for increased funding, both in the U.S. and through international collaboration. John Hunt asked about the potential impact of humans visiting exoplanets with Earth-like biospheres, to which Scott replied that he had explored such scenarios in a recent astrobiology class, emphasizing the importance of understanding the ecological impacts of human visits.The group discussed the challenges of human reproduction and medical care in space environments, focusing on the potential risks and unknowns of extraterrestrial life support systems and ecological interactions. Solomon emphasized the importance of applying Earth-based ecological knowledge to predict and prepare for space environments, while Marshall highlighted the complexity of allergies and the vast number of potential allergens in new environments. John Jossy noted that NASA's current priorities do not include reproduction or variable gravity research, and David raised concerns about the advancement of medical care for long-duration space missions. Doug Plata suggested that medical needs should be anticipated and planned for in the different phases of space settlement, advocating for accelerated animal studies to address reproduction before 2055.As a group and with our guest, we discussed the importance of genetic diversity and a large starting population for a successful human settlement beyond Earth, emphasizing the need for a genetically diverse population even if it's smaller. Doug and Marshall raised questions about the feasibility of selecting specific traits in the starting population, with Marshall suggesting that smaller, subsistence-based individuals might be advantageous. They also discussed the potential for evolutionary changes in isolated populations, with Solomon highlighting the role of gene flow between Earth and Mars. David asked about public interest in human spaceflight, to which Scott responded that interest varies but that space exploration can inspire a sense of interconnectedness and environmental stewardship.Scott continued discussing his book “Becoming Martian,” which explores the challenges of rebuilding civilization in space, including the basics like toilet paper and pencils, as well as the need to understand and potentially rebuild Earth's ecosystems. Doug raised questions about the role of ecology in space settlements, suggesting that complex biospheres might not be necessary and that agriculture could be simplified. Our guest agreed that agriculture could be simplified but emphasized the importance of ecological interactions, even in space. The group discussed the potential of using ant and termite nest structures as inspiration for designing habitats on Mars. They also touched on the concept of paraterraforming Mars, with Doug suggesting that it could be a quick way to produce Earth-like air using local resources.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4504 Zoom: Frank Pietronigro | Friday 13 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Frank PietronigroZoom: Frank discusses the Zero Gravity Arts Commission and moreBroadcast 4506 Zoom Open Lines | Sunday 15 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. David LivingstonOpen Lines discussion. All topics welcome Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Those who hope to honor God and advance Jesus' Kingdom face powerful opposition from spiritual, physical, and psychological enemies. Successful launching and long term fruitfulness depends on recognizing and, in dependence on the Holy Spirit, waging war against those enemies.

The Space Show Present Dr. Greg Autry, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026Quick Summary: The group explored various aspects of the Artemis program, including its challenges, timeline concerns, and comparison with China's space efforts, while discussing the importance of maintaining U.S. leadership in space exploration. The conversation concluded with discussions about space policy, commercial space activities, and educational challenges facing the U.S., with emphasis on the need to generate public enthusiasm for space exploration initiatives.Detailed SummaryDavid introduced Dr. Greg Autry, a space policy expert and economics professor at UCF, to discuss his work and recent developments in space exploration. They touched on the Artemis II mission, commercial space launches in Florida, and concerns about the U.S. moon landing timeline. Greg expresses skepticism about the political commitment to space exploration under potential new leadership, noting that candidates like Vance and Harris may not prioritize space initiatives. The conversation concludes with a brief overview of Greg's background and upcoming programs at UCF.Dr. Autry discussed his role at the University of Central Florida, where he helped launch the world's first space MBA program in collaboration with Professor Zahir Ali. He highlighted the program's space-relevant curriculum, notable faculty, and upcoming guest speakers, including Pam Melroy and Jim Bridenstine. Autry also introduced the Space Ideation Challenge, a competition offering $125,000 in prize money for innovative space policy ideas. Greg also mentioned the delay of the Artemis launch due to cold weather affecting the hydrogen seals. He expressed pride in contributing to the decision to return to the moon in 2016 and shared his thoughts on the public's perception of the Artemis program.Our Wisdom Team group discussed the challenges and potential of the Artemis program, particularly focusing on the Starship mission and the complexities involved. They expressed concerns about the timeline for meeting 2028 deadlines, given the complexity of the technology and the need for political appointments. Despite these challenges, Greg expressed optimism about Administrator Jared Isaacman's leadership and the potential for a sustainable and permanent presence on the moon. Greg also compared the U.S. approach to the moon with China's simpler program, viewing the U.S. effort as a more ambitious but worthwhile endeavor.Our team discussed the Artemis program and space exploration strategy, with Phil sharing insights from a space historian's video that criticized NASA's approach as being too focused on quick wins rather than long-term scientific objectives. Greg noted that Americans typically prefer a “poker” approach to waiting for lucky breaks rather than the Chinese “Go” style of careful long-term planning, but emphasized that the Orion capsule and Space Launch System have been under development since 2003 and 2010 respectively, with continuity through multiple administrations. The discussion concluded with Marshall raising questions about launch facility readiness, which Autry addressed by explaining that the United States has three human-rated launch pads, with facilities at Cape Canaveral and the Space Force side being prepared for Starship launches.Our team discussed the need for infrastructure and base building on the moon, with Ajay emphasizing the importance of starting construction to save face for the Trump administration and prevent future program cancellations. Autry noted that while Artemis II will be significant, they need to generate public enthusiasm. Ajay proposed using Falcon Heavy to transport 14 tons of payload to the moon's surface. David questioned the likelihood of private companies alone achieving these goals, to which Greg responded that while private companies could theoretically fund it, they might be reluctant to make donations to a government program.The group discussed space policy and commercial space activities, with Dr. Greg Autry emphasizing that NASA's Artemis program should continue while exploring additional initiatives like Ajay's proposed lunar lander concept, which Autry suggested could be an addition rather than replacement for existing programs. The discussion covered concerns about China's space program and the importance of maintaining U.S. leadership in space, with Autry noting that completing the Artemis moon program is crucial to avoid having China claim superiority over the U.S. The conversation also touched on educational challenges facing the U.S. and the need to better prepare students for science and engineering careers, while David highlighted growing public interest in space science among younger generations.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4502 Zoom Steve Wolfe, Elizabeth Change | Tuesday 10 Feb 2026 700PM PTGuests: Steven WolfeZoom: Steve Wolfe , Elizabeth Change on the Beyond Earth Upcoming Symposium and more BE newsBroadcast 4503: Hotel Mars with Rick Fisher | Wednesday 11 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Rick Fisher, John Batchelor, Dr. David LivingstonRick Brings us news regarding United States and China are also locked in a contest regarding Solar System domination between China and the USBroadcast 4504 Zoom: Frank Pietronigro | Friday 13 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Frank PietronigroZoom: Frank discusses the Zero Gravity Arts Commission and moreBroadcast 4506 Zoom Open Lines | Sunday 15 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. David LivingstonOpen Lines discussion. All topics welcome Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

The Space Show Presents Mark Whittington, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026Quick Summary:Our program began with followed by conversations about the Artemis II mission and space technology advancements. The group explored various aspects of space exploration, including Iran's space program, lunar missions, and the development of space suits and launch systems. The discussion concluded with conversations about AI in journalism, nuclear reactor technologies, and the upcoming Artemis II mission, including its potential for public celebration and media coverage.Detailed SummaryOur Zoom program Wisdom Team discussed the Artemis II mission, with Mark expressing confidence in its success. They also talked about the challenges of keeping up with rapidly advancing technology and the stock market, particularly in the space industry. David expressed interest in doing a show about space-related ETFs but felt that Andrew, who focuses on his own ETF, might not be the best person for it given there now a plethora of space focused ETFs.After introducing Mark Whittington as the guest for the Sunday space show, we discussed Iran's space program. Mark explained that while Iran's space program is not robust by global standards, it serves dual purposes, potentially threatening global security. He suggested that if Iran were to transition to a more freedom-oriented regime, preserving and developing their space program could be beneficial for economic growth and inspiring young Iranians to pursue STEM subjects.Mark continued talking about Iran's space program, highlighting its development of launch vehicles and satellites, and its potential to support a nuclear program. He suggested that a post-Islamic Republic Iran could benefit economically from continuing its space program and joining international initiatives like the Artemis Accords. David inquired about the U.S. government's perspective on Iran's space program, and Mark noted that concerns primarily focus on its nuclear capabilities. They briefly touched on the potential for military action against Iranian spaceports and the possibility of Reza Pahlavi returning as a stabilizing figure in Iran. The conversation concluded with a brief mention of the upcoming Artemis II mission.Mark discussed the Artemis II mission in some detail, addressing concerns about the heat shield and NASA's confidence in its workarounds. He highlighted the mission's potential impact on American society, comparing media coverage then and now, and expressed hope that Artemis II would be a significant story. Mark also noted the mission's duration of 10 days, including a loop around the moon, and emphasized the diversity of the crew. David shared a question from a listener about potential lunar payload or surface interaction during Artemis II, which Mark clarified does not involve landing on the moon but rather a loop around it.We continued focusing on the Artemis program and lunar exploration. Mark explained that CubeSats will launch with Orion but won't be lunar landers, and SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing lunar landers. The next Starship test is expected in 5 weeks, aiming to refuel in low Earth orbit and land on the moon. John Jossy inquired about ESA's life support system test, which Mark confirmed is part of the systems test in low Earth orbit. Marshall asked about reusability of the Space Launch System's solid rocket boosters, to which Mark replied they are not planned to be reusable due to the infrequent use of the system.Our team discussed public excitement and historical significance of the Artemis II mission, with Mark noting that while Artemis II should be the story of the year, public awareness and support may be lower than during the Apollo missions. They discussed the upcoming Starship test in 5 weeks as a potential rival for public attention, and explored the possibility of live TV coverage during the mission, including the crew's perspective of Earth rise. Mark suggested that the crew should be allowed to express their personal thoughts and experiences during the mission rather than following a pre-determined script.Our team also discussed the inspirational impact of Earthrise, with Marshall sharing his perspective on the spiritual connection to celestial objects. Mark and Marshall exchanged views on the role of mathematics and physics in understanding the universe, while David inquired about public perceptions of space exploration versus Earth's economic concerns. Mark highlighted the potential economic benefits of space travel and SpaceX's upcoming IPO, as well as Elon Musk's plans for AI data centers in orbit, powered by a network of satellites. The conversation concluded with a discussion on the development of space-based solar power and its potential to overcome the limitations of solar energy on Earth, with our guest emphasizing the importance of diverse energy sources like nuclear and natural gas.Mark discussed the development of lunar spacesuits, noting that Axiom Space is the prime contractor and progress is ongoing, with suits expected to be ready by 2028. He also addressed the potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla, suggesting it would create a holding company with separate divisions, and discussed the development of Optimus robots for space exploration. Mark highlighted the success of NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who was confirmed after a tumultuous process, and expressed optimism about Artemis II's upcoming launch and its potential to generate momentum for future space missions. He also touched on the challenges of transitioning from SLS to commercial systems for future Artemis missions, noting that while there are concerns about delays, the goal remains to build a lunar base.Our group discussed historical SpaceX launch operations, particularly focusing on the Falcon 1 rocket launches from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. David explained that while Kwajalein offered advantages like reduced orbital velocity requirements due to its equatorial location, the 8,000-mile supply line and classified military operations at the site ultimately led SpaceX to shift operations to other locations including Vandenberg and Boca Chica. The discussion concluded with Marshall recalling the Celestas Memorial payload incident, where a Falcon 1 rocket failed to reach orbit and instead crashed into the Marianas Trench, though the exact crash location was never publicly disclosed by SpaceX.John Hunt proposed a fallback plan for Starship's on-orbit refueling, involving an unmanned variant with an exploration upper stage as a third stage, to reduce costs for lunar missions. Mark and David discussed the potential of nuclear power and propulsion in space, as well as the integration of such technologies into Starship for Mars missions. David emphasized the importance of having a plan for implementing new ideas, cautioning against presenting alternatives without a clear path forward. The conversation also touched on the role of AI in managing information overload for executives like Elon Musk, with Marshall sharing insights from his experience with AI in research and business.Mark described the limitations and potential of AI in journalism, emphasizing the need for human oversight in verifying sources. Ajay shared information about advanced nuclear reactor technologies, including Generation 4 reactors and molten salt reactors, highlighting their safety features and reduced waste production. Mark expressed interest in learning more about these reactors. The group agreed to continue the discussion if time permitted, with Mark mentioning his upcoming focus on the Artemis II mission and other space-related stories.Mark continued promoting the upcoming Artemis II mission, which is scheduled for a wet dress rehearsal followed by a potential launch on February 8th, after the Super Bowl. He shared his experience as a space writer and author, mentioning his books about lunar exploration. The group discussed the potential for a ticker tape parade and public celebration if the mission is successful, with Mark agreeing to write about this possibility in his Sunday newsletter. Dr. Ajay and others expressed interest in subscribing to Mark's newsletter, which is distributed through The Hill newspaper. David did not think a ticker tape parade was in the cards, so to speak.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4502 Zoom Steve Wolfe, Elizabeth Change | Tuesday 10 Feb 2026 700PM PTGuests: Steven WolfeZoom: Steve Wolfe , Elizabeth Change on the Beyond Earth Upcoming Symposium and more BE newsBroadcast 4503: Hotel Mars with Rick Fisher | Wednesday 11 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Rick Fisher, John Batchelor, Dr. David LivingstonRick Brings us news regarding United States and China are also locked in a contest regarding Solar System domination between China and the USBroadcast 4504 Zoom: Frank Pietronigro | Friday 13 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Frank PietronigroZoom: Frank discusses the Zero Gravity Arts Commission and moreBroadcast 4506 Zoom Open Lines | Sunday 15 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. David LivingstonOpen Lines discussion. All topics welcome Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

** Réserve ton coaching gratuit de 30 minutes ici pour faire le point sur ta vie pro : https://cal.com/oser-la-reconversion/30min **REDIFFUSION - Oser la Reconversion est en vacances et revient fin février avec de nouveaux invités.- Episode diffusé initialement le 6 février 2023 (épisode #81)J'accueille dans Oser la Reconversion, Amandine Maroteaux. Après avoir été avocate d'affaires au Luxembourg, Amandine est devenue architecte d'intérieur et a créé l'agence Atelier Compostelle avec une équipe d'une dizaine de personnes spécialisée dans les rénovations de prestige au Luxembourg et en France.   Après le bac, Amandine se dirige en fac de droit à Paris, à Assas, puis à Science Po avec pour objectif de devenir avocate lobbyiste. Brillante élève, elle passe le barreau et devient finalement avocate d'affaires au Luxembourg sans trop se poser de questions. Pourtant, elle admire son amie, architecte d'intérieur, qui aménage des boutiques de luxe et des yachts. Elle lâche à son mari "Un jour, j'aimerais bien faire ce qu'elle fait". Il lui répond qu'il l'avait senti et qu'il la pré-inscrite dans des écoles d'architecture d'intérieur. Amandine démissionne et reprend ses études à CREAD à Lyon.  Aujourd'hui, Amandine dirige l'agence Atelier Compostelle qu'elle a fondé en 2014. Dix ans après sa reconversion, Amandine dirige une équipe d'une dizaine de personnes, exclusivement de femmes, et s'occupe de rénovations de prestige au Luxembourg et en France. Ancienne avocate, Amandine rénove notamment aujourd'hui les cabinets d'avocat et cabinets d'expertise comptable. Avec Amandine, on a évoqué sa carrière d'avocate au Luxembourg, comment financer sa reconversion lorsqu'on n'a pas le chômage, sa passion pour les rénovations, son engagement pour les femmes, le club Féminin Pluriel et comment équilibrer vie de maman et de chef d'entreprise.  Notes & Références : - Instagram de Atelier Compostelle @atelier_compostelle : https://www.instagram.com/atelier_compostelle/- Instagram de Amandine @amandine_maroteaux : https://www.instagram.com/amandine_maroteaux/- Site internet de Atelier Compostelle : https://www.ateliercompostelle.com/Contactez-moi !Si le Podcast vous plait, le meilleur moyen de me le dire, ou de me faire vos feed-backs (et ce qui m'aide le plus à le faire connaître), c'est simplement de laisser un avis sur Apple Podcast, un commentaire sur Youtube et d'en parler autour de vous. ça m'aide vraiment alors n'hésitez pas.  Pour me poser des questions, participer au podcast ou suivre mes aventures, c'est par ici :- Sur Instagram @clervierose : https://www.instagram.com/oserlareconversion et @clervierose : https://www.instagram.com/clervierose- Sur Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/clervie-rose-boennec-a09065102/- Sur Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Qzm4HrS5OdmdXoY344vqA- Par mail : partenariats@oserlareconversion.com

Eric Berger of Ars Technia joined both John and me on this one segment Hotel Mars program to discuss thre details regarding NASA's urgency in acquiring a new Mars telecommunications orbiter. The debate seems to be between traditional public (government) builds or commercial partnerships to meet the critical 2028 launch window for future missions. Note that this was a one segment Hotel Mars program.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4501 Zoom Dr. Scott Solomon | Sunday 08 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. Scott SolomonZoom: Settlement, humans in space, reproduction and more Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

The Space Show Presents Marc Berte & Paul Jaffe of the Overview Energy Co. Friday, 2-6-26Quick SummaryThe Space Show hosted a discussion about space solar power with Marc Berte, CEO of Overview Energy, and Paul Jaffe, Vice President of Systems Engineering at Overview. The conversation focused on Overview's innovative approach to space solar power, which involves beaming near-infrared light from geosynchronous orbit to existing large-scale solar projects on Earth. Marc explained how their system could potentially provide utility-scale power at a lower cost than other space solar concepts, with a target of delivering the first megawatt to the grid by 2030 and a gigawatt by the mid-2030s. The discussion covered technical details such as efficiency, launch costs, and regulatory considerations, with Marc emphasizing that their approach could complement rather than replace existing energy sources. The conversation also touched on potential challenges like debris impact and maintenance in space, with Marc noting that the distributed nature of their satellite constellation would make the system more resilient.Detailed Summary:The Space Show team with our two guests discussed a new space solar power technology that uses existing solar panels to collect energy beamed via infrared/near-infrared radiation. David expressed skepticism about the logistics and regulatory challenges, particularly regarding the potential to bypass utility companies like PG&E. The conversation then shifted to introducing both Marc Berte a nuclear engineer from MIT who is now involved with the space show, along with Dr. Paul Jaffe. Marc and Paul discussed space solar power and Marc's company's work on building space energy for delivery to Earth.Marc presented the Overview Energy innovative approach to space solar energy, focusing on wide-beam near-infrared energy transmission from geosynchronous orbit to existing large-scale utility solar projects. He explained that the system requires no modifications to existing solar panels, as it uses near-infrared light matched to the bandgap of common PV materials, achieving up to 60% efficiency compared to 20% with sunlight. Marc addressed regulatory concerns by highlighting that the system operates within Class 1 laser safety regulations worldwide, making it passively safe and compliant with FAA, OSHA, and FDA standards. David inquired about the feasibility of weaponizing the beam, to which Marc responded that it is physically impossible due to the spatially incoherent nature of the laser light used.The Wisdom Team discussed space solar power systems, with Marc explaining that cloud cover only slightly affects beam availability due to site diversity across different geographical locations. Paul shared his experience at NRL researching various power beaming methods, including microwave and optical systems, before transitioning to commercial projects. The discussion clarified that the satellite system uses geosynchronous orbit (GEO) rather than geostationary orbit (GSO), with each satellite having a 200-meter array capable of delivering about a megawatt of power. Marc noted that while the system is not designed for small, mobile military applications, it could potentially support large military installations like Anderson Air Force Base on Guam.The discussion focused on the economic and technical considerations of space solar energy, particularly the challenges of small-scale expeditionary power systems. Marc explained that while small, logistically constrained units may not be ideal customers due to concerns about being laser-designated from space, larger bases and power distribution systems are more promising markets. The conversation also covered power density considerations, with Paul and Marc emphasizing that moving vehicles require higher power density than stationary applications, and that Overview's approach of using existing solar farms offers advantages in terms of safety and cost-effectiveness. Marc concluded that space solar energy, along with other methods like fission, fusion, and terrestrial solar plus storage, will be needed to meet the world's growing energy demands over the next 25 years.Marc explained the concept of using solar power satellites to beam energy to Earth, addressing questions about safety, intensity, and market viability. He clarified that each satellite delivers about a megawatt of power, with multiple beamlets aggregated to focus on specific targets, ensuring safe and efficient energy delivery. The system aims to provide a stable power source by filling in energy gaps caused by clouds, night, and seasonal variations, potentially reducing reliance on peak power plants and backup power. Marc also discussed the economic model, noting that contracts would be based on megawatt photons, and the system could reduce overall electricity costs by optimizing power distribution across different regions and times of day.Marc talked about plans for a satellite constellation plan for global solar power distribution, explaining how the system would use ground-based beacons to direct satellites to specific locations for energy transmission. He outlined a timeline with a low Earth orbit test scheduled for January 2028 and first megawatt deployment in 2030, with TRL levels ranging from 4 to 6 across different system components. When asked about timeline acceleration with increased funding, Marc explained that while some aspects could be accelerated by a year or two, space development involves serial negative learning that makes rapid scaling challenging.Our guest explained how his company's space-based solar power system could complement terrestrial solar installations by providing peak power when needed, without the need for storage. He discussed the economics of launching satellites into orbit, noting that with current technology and pricing, they could be profitable at launch costs of $800 to $1,000 per kilogram. Phil raised concerns about the efficiency of the system, particularly the conversion of solar photons to electricity, but Marc claimed their DC-to-DC efficiency was better than 20-25%. The discussion also touched on the potential for using electric propulsion to move satellites from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit.Our conversation zeroed in on the technical and economic aspects of space-based solar power systems. Marc discussed the efficiency of solar panels and lasers, emphasizing that while efficiency is important, cost per watt is the critical factor. He encouraged participants to research the DARPA Sheds program and look up published efficiencies of diode and fiber-coupled pump lasers. The group also discussed the impact of debris on satellite systems and the need for latitude-adjusted panel angles. Paul, representing Overview, highlighted the importance of economics in space solar power projects and noted the need for collaboration between the space and energy industries.We also talked about space solar power technologies, with Paul explaining their approach of deploying large satellites (200 meters) that can self-deploy without in-space assembly. The conversation covered the trade-offs between multi-junction cells and silicon-based cells, with Paul noting that while multi-junction cells are more efficient, they are too expensive for ground-based applications. The group discussed the challenges of solar power beaming, including the need to track the beam over long distances and the potential variations in solar cell performance across different wavelengths. David emphasized that while the theoretical business case exists, it remains unproven until operational demonstrations are completed.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4501 Zoom Dr. Scott Solomon | Sunday 08 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. Scott SolomonZoom: Settlement, humans in space, reproduction and more Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Fluent Fiction - French: Winter's Muse: Love and Inspiration in Paris's Snowy Garden Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/fr/episode/2026-02-08-23-34-02-fr Story Transcript:Fr: Les flocons de neige dansaient doucement sur Paris.En: The snowflakes danced gently over Paris.Fr: C'était un matin d'hiver tranquille, et le Jardin du Luxembourg était couvert d'une fine couche de neige.En: It was a quiet winter morning, and the Jardin du Luxembourg was covered with a thin layer of snow.Fr: Les statues semblaient veiller silencieusement sur les visiteurs rares.En: The statues seemed to watch silently over the few visitors.Fr: Clément déambulait lentement, les mains enfoncées dans les poches de son manteau.En: Clément strolled slowly, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat.Fr: Il cherchait l'inspiration.En: He was seeking inspiration.Fr: Écrivain en proie au doute, il espérait que la beauté du jardin l'aiderait à surmonter sa panne d'écriture.En: A writer plagued by doubt, he hoped the beauty of the garden would help him overcome his writer's block.Fr: Il s'arrêta près d'une fontaine gelée et soupira.En: He stopped near a frozen fountain and sighed.Fr: Non loin de là, Elodie, une botaniste passionnée, se promenait, prenant une pause de son travail intense.En: Not far from there, Elodie, a passionate botanist, was taking a break from her intense work.Fr: Elle esquissait des dessins de plantes hivernales, fascinée par la vie qui persistait même dans le froid.En: She was sketching drawings of winter plants, fascinated by the life that persisted even in the cold.Fr: Elle était absorbée par ses pensées quand Clément la remarqua.En: She was lost in her thoughts when Clément noticed her.Fr: Curieux, Clément s'approcha d'Elodie.En: Curious, Clément approached Elodie.Fr: "Excusez-moi," dit-il avec hésitation.En: "Excuse me," he said hesitantly.Fr: "Ce que vous dessinez est très joli.En: "What you're sketching is very pretty.Fr: Vous aimez les plantes ?"En: Do you like plants?"Fr: Elodie leva les yeux, surprise mais souriante.En: Elodie looked up, surprised but smiling.Fr: "Oui, je suis botaniste.En: "Yes, I am a botanist.Fr: J'adore observer la nature, même en hiver."En: I love observing nature, even in winter."Fr: Leurs mots se mêlaient avec la brise fraîche.En: Their words mingled with the fresh breeze.Fr: Clément, moins nerveux, partagea qu'il était écrivain.En: Clément, feeling less nervous, shared that he was a writer.Fr: Il espérait que le jardin lui offrirait une nouvelle perspective.En: He hoped the garden would offer him a new perspective.Fr: Elodie, intriguée, demanda ce qui l'inspirait.En: Elodie, intrigued, asked what inspired him.Fr: Ils découvrirent rapidement une passion commune pour la nature et la littérature.En: They quickly discovered a shared passion for nature and literature.Fr: Leurs conversations se prolongeaient, riches et animées.En: Their conversations flowed on, rich and lively.Fr: Clément parla de ses livres préférés, et Elodie de ses plantes adorées.En: Clément talked about his favorite books, and Elodie about her beloved plants.Fr: Ils se rendaient compte qu'ils partageaient plus qu'ils ne le pensaient.En: They realized they shared more in common than they initially thought.Fr: Après avoir ri et discuté, ils décidèrent de quitter le jardin ensemble.En: After laughing and talking, they decided to leave the garden together.Fr: L'idée de découvrir Paris côte à côte les enchantait.En: The idea of discovering Paris side by side delighted them.Fr: Avant de partir, ils se donnèrent rendez-vous pour un autre jour, promesse d'une nouvelle aventure.En: Before leaving, they arranged to meet again another day, a promise of a new adventure.Fr: Clément, le cœur léger, se sentit enfin inspiré.En: Clément, with a light heart, finally felt inspired.Fr: Elodie trouvait dans cette rencontre une évasion bienvenue.En: Elodie found in this encounter a welcome escape.Fr: Ensemble, ils ouvrirent une nouvelle page, mêlant leur amour commun pour la beauté du monde.En: Together, they opened a new page, blending their shared love for the beauty of the world.Fr: Le Jardin du Luxembourg se tenait là, témoin silencieux d'une histoire naissante, sous un manteau de neige éclatant.En: The Jardin du Luxembourg stood there, a silent witness to a budding story, beneath a dazzling coat of snow. Vocabulary Words:snowflake: le flocon de neigewriter: l'écrivaindoubt: le doutewriter's block: la panne d'écriturefountain: la fontainebotanist: le/la botanisteinspiration: l'inspirationlayer: la couchestatue: la statueperspective: la perspectivesilently: silencieusementfascinated: fasciné(e)breeze: la brisesketch: esquisseradventure: l'aventurepage: la pagecoat (of snow): le manteaupassionate: passionné(e)stroll: déambulercurious: curieux/curieuselinger: se prolongerto mix: mêlerto arrange: se donner rendez-vousto realize: se rendre compteabsorbed: absorbé(e)persistent: qui persisteviewpoint: le point de vueshared: partagé(e)lively: animé(e)delight: enchanter

What if pushing harder isn't strength—but the start of disconnection? This live episode explores the hidden cost of “powering through” and why endurance without awareness can quietly erode well-being. Hosted by Yusuf on Healthy Waves, this conversation is for leaders, founders, and high achievers who look strong on the outside but feel stretched within. You'll hear how redefining strength can restore clarity, connection, and sustainable resilience—without killing ambition. About the Guest: Alain Luxembourg works with leaders and high performers to rethink success, identity, and family integration. Based in the Netherlands, he brings lived experience of rebuilding identity after pressure and loss. Key Takeaways: Mental strength without awareness often leads to burnout and emotional absence Real resilience begins with honest conversations and asking for help Progress works best when goals are broken into small, achievable steps Relationships thrive when attention and gratitude replace comparison Ambition and mental health can coexist with intentional pacing How to Connect With the Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alainluxembourg/    Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life? DM on PM - Send me a message on PodMatch DM Me Here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avik Disclaimer: This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed are the personal opinions of the guest and do not reflect the views of the host or Healthy Mind By Avik™️. We do not intend to harm, defame, or discredit any person, organization, brand, product, country, or profession mentioned. All third-party media used remain the property of their respective owners and are used under fair use for informational purposes. By watching, you acknowledge and accept this disclaimer. Healthy Mind By Avik™️ is a global platform redefining mental health as a necessity, not a luxury. Born during the pandemic, it's become a sanctuary for healing, growth, and mindful living. Hosted by Avik Chakraborty, storyteller, survivor, and wellness advocate. With over 6000+ episodes and 200K+ global listeners, we unite voices, break stigma, and build a world where every story matters.

How do you show up in your own body, to yourself? What's your own internal dialogue? And how does that manifest as confidence?
 Confidence is a trainable skill, which is a good thing as it can influence so many aspects of our lives from work to personal relationships, even to the relationship we have with our own body and mind. It's shaped by mindset, nutrition, hormones and fluctuates through the various changes and challenges of life. Confidence as a Skill: how to Build Self-Belief Founded by Natalia Wrona, Confidence House was created in response to a recurring pattern Natalia observed over nearly two decades of working closely as a make-up artist and photographer with clients: many people appear confident externally, yet feel deeply disconnected internally. Through guided make-up lessons, image advice, and ‘self-confidence photography', clients are offered a safe space to reconnect with themselves. These sessions are about reclaiming a connection to your own external-facing body. “Caring for one's appearance is not superficial. It can be a powerful act of self-respect. When we treat ourselves with intention, we begin to rebuild confidence from the inside out.” But confidence is built on the inside, some of which we have control over (nutrition, sport, sleep) and some of which is outside of our control to some degree (life events, hormonal fluctuations). Menopause, Hormones and Confidence For many women (and men - something we speak about less at the moment), hormonal transitions play a major role in confidence. That reality is at the heart of Lëtz Menopause, a non-profit association raising awareness around perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause in Luxembourg. Dr. Susanne Folschette, explains that confidence loss during hormonal transitions is often misunderstood or misdiagnosed. Anxiety, sleep disruption, brain fog, and self-doubt can begin years before menopause itself, frequently without women realising what is happening. Education is transformative. Understanding the biological changes at play reduces fear, restores self-trust, and allows women to advocate for themselves. Menopause is a natural transition that deserves informed support, evidence-based care, and open conversation. ‘Mr. Breakfast' on Nutrition, the Brain and Emotional Confidence Confidence is also biochemical. University lecturer and micro-nutrition specialist Anthony Sternotte highlights how nutrition directly influences mood, emotional regulation, and resilience. Micro-nutrient deficiencies, including iron, zinc, B-vitamins, and amino acids, can impair neurotransmitter production, affecting serotonin, dopamine, and melatonin. Skipping meals, particularly breakfast and lunch, may feel efficient, but over time it undermines energy, focus, and emotional stability. Nutrition supports confidence by supporting the brain. A well-nourished body creates the conditions for calm, clarity, and self-belief, especially during periods of stress or hormonal change. Confidence Development Is Multidimensional and Trainable Confidence as a skill can grow when we: - understand what is happening in our bodies and take care to listen - nourish ourselves properly - set boundaries and protect our energy - invest time in self-care and self-knowledge - allow ourselves to be seen, imperfectly and honestly Confidence is about trusting yourself even when things feel uncertain. To just keep going. Suggested Reading on Confidence and Self-Esteem To deepen the journey of confidence development, our guests recommend these books: - Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway — Susan Jeffers - The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem — Nathaniel Branden - The Gifts of Imperfection — Brené Brown

In episode 234, Max is joined by Washington Wizards NBA scout Ivan Mitrovic for a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how elite talent is identified, evaluated, and projected at the highest level of basketball. Ivan takes us through his journey from growing up in Belgrade and playing across Serbia, the US, and Luxembourg, to building his own Balkan-based scouting service and earning a call-up to the NBA in 2023. He opens up on how his early playing experiences shaped his eye for the game and why scouting is about projecting who a player will become, not who they are today. We dive deep into the realities of modern talent identification - how scouting has changed with social media, NIL, and increased access to film and data, why early physical dominance can be misleading, and the traits scouts value most when assessing long-term upside. Ivan breaks down how risk is evaluated, why basketball IQ and decision-making are often undervalued, and how personality, competitiveness, and cultural fit can separate prospects at the highest level. Ivan also reflects on scouting generational talents like Luka Dončić and Nikola Jokić, shares insight into Alex Sarr's development path through Perth, and explains what NBA teams are really looking for when projecting international prospects across Europe, Australia, and beyond. A fascinating, inside look at global scouting, player development, and the decisions that shape the future of the NBA. All this and much more in episode 234 of Sporting Max! www.instagram.com/sportingmax.podcast/

Fluent Fiction - French: Artistic Sparks: A Winter Encounter in Jardin du Luxembourg Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/fr/episode/2026-02-06-23-34-02-fr Story Transcript:Fr: En ce bel après-midi d'hiver, le Jardin du Luxembourg est calme.En: On this beautiful winter afternoon, the Jardin du Luxembourg is calm.Fr: Les arbres nus projettent des ombres élégantes sur les allées gelées.En: The bare trees cast elegant shadows on the frozen paths.Fr: Une fine couche de neige recouvre les bancs.En: A thin layer of snow covers the benches.Fr: Au centre, une statue se dresse, attirant l'attention des passants et des artistes.En: In the center, a statue stands, drawing the attention of passersby and artists.Fr: Luc se promène lentement dans le jardin.En: Luc walks slowly in the garden.Fr: Il sent un blocage dans sa créativité depuis des semaines.En: He has felt blocked in his creativity for weeks.Fr: Ses toiles restent blanches, et l'inspiration fuit son esprit.En: His canvases remain blank, and inspiration evades his mind.Fr: Fatigué, il s'installe sur un banc près de la statue.En: Tired, he settles on a bench near the statue.Fr: Il sort son carnet de croquis, espérant que ce changement de décor l'aidera.En: He takes out his sketchbook, hoping this change of scenery will help him.Fr: À quelques pas de lui, Sophie est déjà assise, son carnet ouvert sur ses genoux.En: A few steps away from him, Sophie is already seated, her notebook open on her lap.Fr: Elle observe la statue avec attention.En: She observes the statue with attention.Fr: Sa concentration est intense, mais elle se sent seule.En: Her concentration is intense, but she feels alone.Fr: Son mémoire sur l'art public à Paris la passionne, mais elle désire aussi échanger avec d'autres passionnés.En: Her thesis on public art in Paris excites her, but she also desires to engage with other enthusiasts.Fr: Leurs regards se croisent, et un sourire timide se dessine sur leurs lèvres.En: Their eyes meet, and a shy smile forms on their lips.Fr: Sophie se redresse et commence la conversation.En: Sophie sits up and starts the conversation.Fr: "Bonjour.En: "Hello.Fr: Vous aussi, vous dessinez la statue ?"En: Are you also drawing the statue?"Fr: demande-t-elle.En: she asks.Fr: "Oui, j'essaie au moins," répond Luc avec un petit rire.En: "Yes, I'm trying at least," replies Luc with a small laugh.Fr: "Je cherche l'inspiration."En: "I'm looking for inspiration."Fr: Sophie acquiesce.En: Sophie nods.Fr: "Moi, je travaille sur un mémoire.En: "I'm working on a thesis.Fr: Parfois, c'est difficile de rester isolée avec ses idées."En: Sometimes, it's hard to stay isolated with one's ideas."Fr: Ils parlent de l'art, de Paris, des défis qu'ils rencontrent.En: They talk about art, Paris, the challenges they face.Fr: Luc se sent compris.En: Luc feels understood.Fr: Sophie trouve chez Luc un espace de partage.En: Sophie finds in Luc a place for sharing.Fr: Le froid mord, mais ils restent là, discutant avec animation.En: The cold bites, but they remain there, animatedly discussing.Fr: "L'art, c'est aussi partager nos émotions," dit Sophie doucement.En: "Art is also about sharing our emotions," says Sophie softly.Fr: "Oui, et parfois, on oublie cela," admet Luc.En: "Yes, and sometimes we forget that," admits Luc.Fr: Un doux silence les enveloppe.En: A gentle silence envelops them.Fr: La statue devant eux semble les écouter.En: The statue before them seems to listen.Fr: Le soleil commence à descendre, le jardin se teinte d'or et de gris.En: The sun begins to set, the garden tinted with gold and gray.Fr: Luc sent son esprit s'éclaircir.En: Luc feels his mind clearing.Fr: Il a de nouvelles idées.En: He has new ideas.Fr: Il sent une flamme ravivée par la présence de Sophie.En: He feels a flame rekindled by Sophie's presence.Fr: "Sophie, merci.En: "Sophie, thank you.Fr: J'aimerais continuer ces discussions avec vous," dit Luc, moins timide.En: I would like to continue these discussions with you," says Luc, less timid.Fr: "Ça m'aide beaucoup."En: "It helps me a lot."Fr: "Moi aussi, Luc," répond Sophie avec enthousiasme.En: "Me too, Luc," responds Sophie enthusiastically.Fr: "Ça m'éclaire pour mon mémoire."En: "It enlightens me for my thesis."Fr: Ils se donnent rendez-vous au même endroit la semaine suivante.En: They arrange to meet at the same place the following week.Fr: Luc sent renaître la confiance.En: Luc feels a rebirth of confidence.Fr: Sophie sent son esprit nourri par ces échanges.En: Sophie feels her mind nourished by these exchanges.Fr: Sur le chemin du retour, Luc pense à sa nouvelle exposition.En: On the way back, Luc thinks about his new exhibition.Fr: Il se sent prêt, inspiré par chaque mot partagé avec Sophie.En: He feels ready, inspired by every word shared with Sophie.Fr: Sophie, de son côté, réfléchit à comment intégrer leurs conversations dans son mémoire.En: Sophie, on her side, reflects on how to integrate their conversations into her thesis.Fr: Elle ne se sent plus seule.En: She no longer feels alone.Fr: Ainsi commence une nouvelle amitié, un partenariat enrichissant.En: Thus begins a new friendship, a rewarding partnership.Fr: L'art et l'amitié s'entrelacent, offrant à Luc et Sophie un nouvel élan.En: Art and friendship intertwine, offering Luc and Sophie a new momentum.Fr: Dans le jardin semi-nuit, une connexion est née, durable et lumineuse.En: In the semi-night garden, a connection is born, enduring and bright. Vocabulary Words:afternoon: l'après-midigarden: le jardinshadow: l'ombrepath: l'alléelayer: la couchebench: le bancstatue: la statuepasserby: le passantcreativity: la créativitécanvas: la toilemind: l'espritsketchbook: le carnet de croquisscenery: le décornotebook: le carnetlap: les genouxobservation: l'observationthesis: le mémoireenthusiast: le passionnésmile: le sourireinspiration: l'inspirationacknowledge: acquiescerchallenge: le défianimation: l'animationemotion: l'émotionsilence: le silencesunset: le coucher de soleilrebirth: la renaissanceexhibition: l'expositionenthusiasm: l'enthousiasmepartnership: le partenariat

Many professionals working in Luxembourg tell me this:“My job isn't the problem, but social conversations at work are hard.”The fast speech.The slang.The lunchroom noise.The cultural codes no one ever explains.That's exactly why I recorded the next episode of my podcast:

The Space Show Presents Sarah Scoles, Friday, 1-30-26Quick Summary”Our program initially focused on discussing the status and challenges of the Breakthrough Starshot project, including its cancellation and implications for interstellar travel research through Sarah's Oct 2025 Scientific American story. Participants explored the technical and financial aspects of space exploration, including the development of laser propulsion technology, the importance of mechanical engineering in different gravity environments, and the role of commercial space companies in pharmaceutical development and national security. The group also discussed space budget allocation, the challenges of evaluating space companies, and the geopolitical implications of space exploration, with participants expressing optimism about space's potential contributions to global progress.SummaryDavid and Sarah discussed the status of the Breakthrough Starshot project, which Sarah had recently written about in Scientific American. David noted that several previous guests who had been involved with Breakthrough, including Worden, Phil Lubin, and Zach Manchester, had been unable to return for updates. Sarah's article revealed that the project had become dormant, which came as a surprise to David, who had been discussing it as a real possibility for years on his Space Show program.In introduced the Wisdom Team for this program including Dr. James Benford, who argued that the Breakthrough Starshot project was successful in achieving its Phase 1 objectives, which involved investing in high-risk, high-reward research to de-risk technology and identify potential showstoppers. Others highlighted the importance of designing equipment that functions in microgravity or zero-gravity environments, a topic that is often overlooked in space exploration discussions. Later in the program the team discussed the need for mechanical engineering specialists tailored to different gravity conditions, such as those on Mars, and considered the possibility of writing an article on this topic.David discussed the cancellation of Breakthrough's interstellar flight project and its impact on the show's guests, noting that Pete Worden and others had not been Space Show guests in the past few years. He introduced Sarah Scoles, a science journalist who wrote an article about the project's demise in Scientific American. Sarah explained that Breakthrough's plan to send wafer-sized spacecraft to Alpha Centauri at a quarter the speed of light had been abandoned, highlighting the risks of billionaire-funded science projects. David and Sarah discussed the reasons behind the project's cancellation and its implications for future interstellar missions.Sarah's article explored the demise of Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million project aimed at developing laser propulsion technology for interstellar travel. Despite significant progress in laser and spacecraft technology, the project faced challenges such as high costs and technical difficulties, leading to its quiet discontinuation. Jim Benford, a key figure in the project, clarified that the concept predates Breakthrough Starshot and has a long history, including his own laboratory work on microwave sails in the 1990s. He criticized the article for not consulting with major project participants and emphasized the secretive nature of the Breakthrough team.Jim discussed the Starshot project's Phase 1, which aimed to assess the feasibility of interstellar travel using a sail propelled by a laser. The phase was successful in determining that there are no showstoppers to the concept, which is technically and financially viable. The project addressed four key challenges, including building a coherent laser array, finding a suitable material for the sail, ensuring stable beam riding, and transmitting data over vast distances. Phase 2, which would involve laboratory and in-orbit demonstrations, is now seeking funding to continue the work, with an estimated cost of $100 million.The group discussed Sarah's article about Breakthrough Starshot, with Jim and David expressing appreciation for her thorough coverage of the project's four main challenges and progress made. Jim, who is 85 years old, explained that Breakthrough Starshot's communication issues have been a significant problem, particularly regarding the final report that was completed over a year ago but has not been released. Jim announced he would be writing a two-part series on Centauri Dreams about Breakthrough Starshot, with the first part focusing on Sarah's article and the second part providing a technical review of the project's achievements.The group continued discussing Sarah's recent article about the Breakthrough Starshot project, with Sarah defending her reporting approach and acknowledging she spoke to key researchers but not top executives due to their secrecy. Jim explained that Yuri Milner, the project's financier, is secretive and avoids public attention, which contributes to the organization's poor internal and external communications. Marshall inquired about the appropriate budget allocation for R&D project publicity, and Jim shared that Kevin Parkin had modeled the system's costs, estimating $10 billion for construction if laser costs decrease, with half the budget going to the beamer and the rest split between the aperture and power.Sarah discussed her overall experience covering space and technology, highlighting the rapid development of low Earth orbit satellite constellations for communications and Earth observation. She noted that companies are increasingly using space data for various applications, including national security and weather monitoring. David inquired about Sarah's views on the progress of space development, particularly in areas like human spaceflight and the shift of commercial space companies towards defense and national security work.The group discussed the current state of space companies and their funding. David expressed concern about the high failure rate of entrepreneurial space ventures, noting that many companies may not be able to sustain themselves due to technological limitations or financial constraints. Joe agreed, emphasizing that founders often focus more on technology than fundraising. The discussion also touched on the challenges of distinguishing between credible and fraudulent space companies at conferences, with Sarah and David sharing their approaches to evaluating potential stories or investments.Sarah discussed her experience covering space news, including her interest in space policy and UAP topics. Ajay brought up Russia's development of a nuclear-powered missile, which sparked a debate between Ajay and Jim about the feasibility and implications of such a weapon. John suggested that Russia's development might be a response to the U.S. pulling out of the ABM Treaty and deploying its own missile defense system.The group discussed the development and implications of nuclear-powered cruise missiles, with Ajay emphasizing their strategic significance regardless of whether they have a “Golden Dome” capability. Marshall raised concerns about evaluating economic claims and technical feasibility of such projects, leading to a discussion about methods to verify claims, including Sarah's approach as a physics-major journalist and Phil's description of the Atlantis Project's evidence ledger system for crowdsourced peer review. The conversation concluded with David inquiring about Sarah's media work, learning that she primarily focuses on print media and is developing a podcast called “What I Left Out” about journalists' omitted article content.The group discussed the state of medical research and drug development in space, with David expressing skepticism about private space stations replacing the ISS's national lab. Sarah shared her experience writing about the major private space station projects, noting limited transparency and detailed information from the companies. Jim and Ajay agreed with David's concerns about the technical challenges of building and maintaining private space stations, particularly regarding power requirements and vibration control. The conversation concluded with a brief discussion about fusion research, where Sarah noted that while fusion companies often receive significant funding, technical progress remains uncertain.The group discussed the status of commercial space tourism, with David noting that true commercial space tourism is still 2 years away as it requires tickets to be sold without specific reservations. Joe shared his investments in Axiom and Voyager, highlighting VAST as an interesting single-purpose space station company that aims to launch in 2027 and is entirely privately funded without federal money. Jim shared his expertise on fusion, predicting that Tri-Alpha Energy will succeed with a 100-megawatt reactor in the early 2030s, while most tokamak-based fusion companies are unlikely to succeed. The discussion concluded with Sarah expressing interest in space stations for pharmaceutical development, while Marshall mentioned potential uses for satellite maintenance and astronomy.The program addressed the allocation of space budgets between commercial and scientific endeavors, with Sarah and Jim agreeing that commercial space activities, including pharmaceutical development in orbit, are important alongside scientific research. David highlighted the geopolitical implications of space exploration and emphasized the need for a balanced approach that considers both commercial and scientific interests. The discussion concluded with Jim and David expressing optimism about space's potential to contribute to global peace and progress, while acknowledging challenges posed by political leaders and educational systems.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4498: Zoom Dr. Greg Autry | Tuesday 03 Feb 2026 700PM PTGuests: Dr. Greg AutryZoom: Dr. Autry on policy, economics, commercial and space missions/projectsBroadcast 4499 Hotel Mars TBD | Wednesday 04 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: John Batchelor, Dr. David LivingstonHotel Mars TBDBroadcast 4500: Zoom Overview Energy with Dr. Paul Jaffe | Friday 06 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Dr. Paul JaffeZoom: Dr. Jaffe with others talks about Overview EnergyBroadcast 4501 Zoom Dr. Scott Solomon | Sunday 08 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. Scott SolomonZoom: Settlement, humans in space, reproduction and more Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Medical missionaries often feel powerful emotional burden from moral injury, and it is a leading cause of departure from the mission field. But we have learned proven methods of preventing and dealing with moral injury. Use God’s powerful methods to protect yourself and your team, and to grow in wisdom and spirit!

Hotel Mars Dr. Paul Kalas for Weds, Jan. Jn. 28, 2026, #4495Quick SummaryJohn Batchelor and I presented Professor Paul Kalas of the University of California at Berkeley, who discussed his groundbreaking observations of the Fomalhaut star system using the Hubble Space Telescope. Kalas explained how he discovered evidence of asteroid collisions creating massive dust clouds, which occur approximately every 100,000 years and last only 5-10 years. The discussion explored how planetary systems form through collisions between smaller objects, with Fomalhaut serving as a “time machine” to Earth's early history when similar collisions shaped our own solar system. The conversation concluded with a broader discussion about the uniqueness of our solar system and the ongoing search for Earth-like planets around other stars, with David Livingston and Dr. Space highlighting their show's focus on both space science and commercial space development.Detailed SummaryProfessor Paul Kalas from the University of California at Berkeley discussed his recent discovery using the Hubble Space Telescope of a star system called Fomalhut Dr. Pau, which is 25 light years away. He explained how they used techniques to cancel out the star's bright light and revealed the presence of dust belts and a planet with a ring system, initially thought to be similar to Saturn. However, a new point of light appeared in 2023, challenging their previous understanding of the system, as planets are not supposed to suddenly appear.Dr. Kalas discussed the formation of Earth and the moon, explaining that a collision with a Mars-sized object created the moon and that Earth was subject to frequent impacts during the Great Bombardment. He mentioned ongoing research into a debris belt around a star 25 million light years away, suggesting a planet might be responsible for the belt's structure. Our guest said his colleagues have imaged the star with the James Webb Space Telescope but have not yet detected any planets as large as Jupiter. He noted that smaller planets, like Uranus and Neptune, might exist but are beyond current detection limits.This was a one segment Hotel Mars program but after Dr. Kalas spoke, John talked with me about The Space Show, Hotel Mars and more. Continue listening for this short discussion.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4498: Zoom Dr. Greg Autry | Tuesday 03 Feb 2026 700PM PTGuests: Dr. Greg AutryZoom: Dr. Autry on policy, economics, commercial and space missions/projectsBroadcast 4499 Hotel Mars TBD | Wednesday 04 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: John Batchelor, Dr. David LivingstonHotel Mars TBDBroadcast 4500: Zoom Overview Energy with Dr. Paul Jaffe | Friday 06 Feb 2026 930AM PTGuests: Dr. Paul JaffeZoom: Dr. Jaffe with others talks about Overview EnergyBroadcast 4501 Zoom Dr. Scott Solomon | Sunday 08 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. Scott SolomonZoom: Settlement, humans in space, reproduction and more Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Allen, Joel, and Yolanda discuss the North Sea Summit where nine European countries committed to 100 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity and the massive economic impact that comes with it. They also break down the federal court ruling that allows Vineyard Wind to resume construction with a tight 45-day window before installation vessels leave. Plus GE Vernova’s Q4 results show $600 million in wind losses and Wind Power Lab CEO Lene Helstern raises concerns about blade quality across the industry. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com. And now your hosts, Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxum, and Yolanda Padron.  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Alln Hall. I’m here with Yolanda Padron and Joel Saxum. Rosemary Barnes is snorkeling at the Greek Barrier Reef this week, uh, big news out of Northern Europe. Uh, the Northeast Summit, which happened in Hamburg, uh, about a week or so ago, nine European countries are. Making a huge commitment for offshore wind. So it’s the, the countries involved are Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, question Mark Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Norway. That together they want to develop [00:01:00] 100 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in shared waters. Uh, that’s enough to power about. 85 million households and the PAC comes as Europe is trying to wean itself from natural gas from where they had it previously and the United States. Uh, so they, they would become electricity in independent. Uh, and this is one way to do it. Two big happy, uh, companies. At the moment, Vattenfall who develops s lot offshore and Siemens gaa of course, are really excited by the news. If you run the numbers and you, you, you have a hundred gigawatts out in the water and you’re using 20 megawatt turbines, then you’re talking about 5,000 turbines in the water total. That is a huge offshore wind order, and I, I think this would be great news for. Obviously Vestas and [00:02:00] Siemens cesa. Uh, the, the question is there’s a lot of political maneuvering that is happening. It looks like Belgium, uh, as a country is not super active and offshore and is rethinking it and trying to figure out where they want to go. But I think the big names will stay, right? France and Germany, all in on offshore. Denmark will be Britain already is. So the question really is at the moment then. Can Siemens get back into the win game and start making money because they have projected themselves to be very profitable coming this year, into this year. This may be the, the stepping stone, Joel.  Joel Saxum: Well, I think that, yeah, we talked about last week their 21 megawatt, or 21 and a half megawatt. I believe it is. Big new flagship going to be ready to roll, uh, with the big auctions happening like AR seven in the uk. Uh, and you know, that’s eight gigawatts, 8.4 gigawatts there. People are gonna be, the, the order book’s gonna start to fill up, like [00:03:00]Siemens is, this is a possibility of a big turnaround. And to put some of these numbers in perspective, um, a hundred gigawatts of offshore wind. So what does that really mean? Right? Um, what it means is if you, if you take the, if you take two of the industrial big industrial powerhouses that are a part of this pact, the UK and Germany combine their total demand. That’s a hundred gigawatt. That’s what they, that’s what their demand is basically on a, you know, today. Right? So that’s gonna continue to grow, right? As, uh, we electrify a lot of things. And the indus, you know, the, the next, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 or whatever we’re calling it now is happening. Um, that’s, that’s a possibility, right? So this a hundred gigawatts of offshore wind. Is gonna drive jobs all up all over Europe. Right. This isn’t just a jobs at the port in Rotterdam or wherever it may be. Right? This is, this is manufacturing jobs, supply chain jobs, the same stuff we’ve been talking about on the podcast for a while here with [00:04:00] what the UK is doing with OWGP and the, or e Catapult and all the kind of the monies that the, the, the Crown and, and other, uh, private entities are putting in there. They’re starting to really, they’re, or this a hundred gigawatts is really gonna look like building out that local supply chain. Jobs, all these different things. ’cause Alan, like you, you mentioned off air. If you look at a hundred gigawatts of offshore wind, that’s $200 billion or was to put it in Euros, 175 billion euros, 170 billion euros, just in turbine orders. Right. That doesn’t mean, or that doesn’t cover ships, lodging, food, like, you know, everything around the ports like tools, PPE, all of the stuff that’s needed by this industry. I mean, there’s a, there’s a trillion dollar impact here.  Speaker 2: Oh, it’s close. Yeah. It’s at least 500 billion, I would say. And Yolanda, from the asset management side, have we seen anything of this scale to manage? It does seem like there’d be a lot of [00:05:00] turbines in the water. A whole bunch of moving pieces, ships, turbines, cables, transformers, substations, going different directions. How, what kind of infrastructure is that going to take?  Yolanda Padron: You know, a lot of the teams that are there, they’re used to doing this on a grand scale, but globally, right? And so having this be all at once in the UK is definitely gonna be interesting. It’ll be a good opportunity for everybody to take all of the lessons learned to, to just try to make sure that they don’t come across any issues that they might have seen in the past, in other sites, in other countries. They just bring everything back home to their countries and then just make sure that everything’s fine. Um, from like development, construction, and, and operations.  Joel Saxum: I was thinking about that. Just thinking about development, construction, operations, right? So some of [00:06:00] these sites we’re thinking about like how, you know, that, that, that map of offshore wind in, in the Northern Atlantic, right? So if this is gonna go and we’re talking about the countries involved here, Norway, Germany, Denmark, France, Belgium, you’re gonna have it all over. So into the Baltic Sea. Around Denmark, into the Norwegian waters, uk, Ireland all the way over, and Iceland is there. I don’t think there’s gonna be any development there. I think maybe they’re just there as a, as cheerleaders. Um, offtake, possibly, yes. Some cables running over there. But you’re going to need to repurpose some of the existing infrastructure, or you’re not, not, you’re going to need to, you’re going to get the opportunity to, and this hasn’t happened in offshore wind yet, right? So. Basically repowering offshore wind, and you’re going to be able to look at, you know, you’re not doing, um, greenfield geotechnical work and greenfield, um, sub c mapping. Like, some of those things are done right, or most of those things are done. So there, I know there’s a lot of, like, there’s a, there’s two and [00:07:00] three and six and seven megawatt turbines all over the North Atlantic, so we’re gonna be able to pop some of those up. Put some 15 and 20 megawatt machines in place there. I mean, of course you’re not gonna be able to reuse the same mono piles, but when it comes to Yolanda, like you said, the lessons learned, Hey, the vessel plans for this area are done. The how, how, how we change crews out here, the CTVs and now and SOVs into port and that stuff, that those learnings are done. How do we maintain export cables and inter array cables with the geotechnic here, you’re not in a green field, you’re in a brown field. That, that, that work. A lot of those lessons learned. They’re done, right? You’ve, you’ve stumbled through them, you’ve made those mistakes. You’ve had to learn on the fly and go ahead here. But when you go to the next phase of Repowering, an offshore wind farm, the the Dev X cost is gonna go way down, in my opinion. Now, someone, someone may fight back on that and say, well, we have to go do some demolition or something of that sort. I’m not sure, but [00:08:00] Yolanda Padron: yeah. But I think, you know. We like to complain sometimes in the US about how some of the studies just aren’t catered toward us, right? And so we’ve seen it a lot and it’s a lot of the studies that are made are just made in Europe where, where this is all taking place. So it’s gonna be really, really interesting to see such a massive growth where everything’s being developed and where the studies are localized from where. You have this very niche area and they can, they’ve studied it. They know exactly what’s going on there. And to your point, they’ve seen a lot of, they’ve minimized the risk, like the environmental risks as much as they could. Right. And so it’s, it’s going to be really, really interesting to have them  Joel Saxum: ensuring and financing these projects should be way easier  Speaker 2: when Europe is saying that the industry has pledged to cut costs by 30% between. 20, 25 and 2040. So you would think that the turbine [00:09:00] costs and the installation costs would have to be really cost conscious on the supply chain and, uh, taking lessons learned from the previous generations of offshore wind. I think that makes sense. 30% is still a lot, and I, I think the, the feeling I’m getting from this is, Hey, we’re making a hundred gigawatt commitment to this industry. You have to work really hard to deliver a efficient product, get the cost down so it’s not costing as much as, you know. Could do if we, if we did it today, and we’re kind of in from an offshore standpoint over in Europe, what a generation are we in, in terms of turbines three? Are we going into four? A lot of lessons learned. Joel Saxum: Yeah. The, the new Siemens one’s probably generation four. Yeah. I would say generation four in the new, because you went from like the two and three megawatt machines. Like there’s like Vesta three megawatts all over the place, and then you went into the directive [00:10:00] machines. You got into that seven and eight megawatt class, and then you got into the, where we’re at now, the 15, the 12 and 15 megawatt units, the Docker bank style stuff, and then I would say generation four is the, yeah, the Siemens 21 and a half machine. Um, that’s a good way to look at it. Alan four we’re on the fourth generation of offshore wind and, and so it’s Generation one is about ready to start being cycled. There’s some, and some of these are easier, they’re nearer to shore. We’ll see what, uh, who starts to take those projects on. ’cause that’s gonna be an undertaking too. Question on the 30%, uh, wind Europe says industry has pledged to cut cost by 30% by 20. Is that. LCOE or is it devex costs or is it operational costs or did they, were they specific on it or they just kinda like cut cutting costs?  Speaker 2: My recollection when that first came about, which was six months ago, maybe a little longer, it was LCOE, [00:11:00] right? So they’re, they’re trying to drive down the, uh, dollars per, or euros per megawatt hour output, but that the capital costs, if the governments can help with the capital costs. On the interest rates, just posting bonds and keeping that down, keeping the interest rates low for these projects by funding them somehow or financing them, that will help a tremendous amount. ’cause if. Interest rates remain high. I know Europe is much lower than it is in the United States at the minute, but if they interest rates start to creep up, these projects will not happen. They’re marginal  Joel Saxum: because you have your central in, in, in Europe, you have your central bank interest rates, but even like the f the, the Indi Individual nation states will subsidize that. Right? Like if you go to buy a house in Denmark right now, you pay like 1.2%. Interest  Speaker 2: compared to what, six and a half right now in the states? Yeah, it’s low.  Speaker 4: Australia’s wind farms are [00:12:00] growing fast. But are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Pullman on the park for Wind energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at WMA 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and m Australia is created by wind professionals for wind professionals because this industry needs solutions, not speeches,  Speaker 2: as we all know. On December 22nd, the federal government issued a stop work order. On all offshore winds that included vineyard wind up off the coast of Massachusetts, that’s a 62 turbine, $4.5 billion wind farm. Uh, that’s being powered by some GE turbines. Uh, the government [00:13:00] has, uh, cited national security concerns, but vineyard went to court and Federal Judge Brian Murphy rolled the, the administration failed to adequately explain or justify the decision to shut it down. Uh, the judge issued a stay, which it is allowing Vineyard went to immediately resume work on the project now. They’re close to being finished at a vineyard. There are 44 turbines that are up and running right now and creating power and delivering power on shore. There are 17 that are partially installed. Uh, when the stop order came. The biggest issue at the moment, if they can’t get rolling again, there are 10 towers with Noels on them, what they call hammerheads. That don’t have blades. And, uh, the vineyard wind. Last week as we were recording this, said you really don’t want hammerheads out in the water because they become a risk. They’re not assembled, completed [00:14:00] items. So lightning strikes and other things could happen, and you really don’t want them to be that way. You want to finish those turbines, so now they have an opportunity to do it. The window’s gonna be short. And Yolanda listening to some GE discussions, they were announcing their Q4 results from last year. The ships are available till about the end of March, and then the ships are gonna finally go away and go work on another project. So they have about 45 days to get these turbines done. I guess my question is, can they get it done work-wise? And I, I, I guess the, the issue is they gotta get the turbines running and if they do maintenance on it, that’s gonna be okay. So I’m wondering what they do with blade sets. Do they have a, a set of blades that are, maybe they pass QC but they would like them to be better? Do they install ’em just to get a turbine operational even temporarily to get this project quote unquote completed so they can get paid?  Yolanda Padron: Yeah. If, if the risk is low, low [00:15:00] enough, it, it should be. I mean a little bit tight, but what, what else can you do? Right? I mean, the vessel, like you might have a shot of getting the vessel back eventually, or being able to get something in so you can do some of the blade repairs. And the blade repairs of tower would require a different vessel than like bringing in a whole blade, right? And so just. You have a very limited time scope to be able to do everything. So I don’t know that I would risk just not being able to pull this off altogether and just risk the, you know, the rest of the tower by not having a complete, you know, LPS and everything on there just because not everything’s a hundred percent perfect. Joel Saxum: There’s a weird mix in technical and commercial risk here, right? Because. Technically, we have these hammerheads out there, right? There’s a million things that can happen with those. Like I, I’ve [00:16:00] personally done RCAs where, um, you have a hammerhead on this was onshore, right? But they, they will get, um, what’s called, uh, Viv, uh, vortex induced vibration. So when they don’t have the full components out there, wind will go by and they’ll start to shake these things. I’ve seen it where they shook them so much because they’re not designed to be up there like that. They shook them so much that like the bolts started loosening and concrete started cracking in the foundations and like it destroyed the cable systems inside the tower ’cause they sat there and vibrated so violently. So like that kind of stuff is a possibility if you don’t have the right, you know. Viv protection on and those kind of things, let alone lightning risk and some other things. So you have this technical risk of them sitting out there like that. But you also have the commercial risk, right? Because the, the banks, the financiers, the insurance companies, there’s the construction policies and there’s, there’s, you gotta hit these certain timelines or it’s just like if you’re building a house, right? You’re building a house, you have to go by the loan that the bank gives you in, you know, in micro [00:17:00] terms to kind of think about that. That’s the same thing that happens with this project, except for this project’s four and a half billion dollars and probably has. It’s 6, 8, 10 banks involved in it. Right? So you have a lot of, there’s a lot of commercial risk. If you don’t, if you don’t move forward when you have the opportunity to, they won’t, they’ll frown on that. Right? But then you have to balance the technical side. So, so looking at the project as a whole, you’ve got 62 turbines, 44 or fully operational. So that leaves us with 18 that are not. Of those 18, you said Alan? 10 needed blades.  Speaker 2: 10 need blades, and one still needs to be erected.  Joel Saxum: Okay, so what’s the other seven?  Speaker 2: They’re partially installed, so they, they haven’t completed the turbine, so everything’s put together, but they haven’t powered them up yet.  Joel Saxum: I was told that. Basically with the kit that they have out of vineyard wind, that they can do one turbine a day blades. Speaker 2: That would be, yeah, that would make sense to me.  Joel Saxum: But, but you also have to, you have 45 days of vessel time left. You said they’re gonna leave in March, but you also gotta think it’s fricking winter in. The, [00:18:00] in the Atlantic  Speaker 2: they are using jackass. However, there’s big snow storms and, and low uh, pressure storms that are rolling through just that area. ’cause they, they’ve kind of come to the Midwest and then shoot up the east coast. That’s where you see New York City with a lot of snow. Boston had a lot of snow just recently. They’re supposed to get another storm like that. And then once it hits Boston, it kind of hits the water, which is where vineyard is. So turbulent water for sure. Super cold this time of year out there,  Joel Saxum: but wind, you can’t sling blades in, in probably more than what, six meters per second’s? Probably your cutoff.  Speaker 2: Yeah. This is not the best time of year to be putting blade sets up offshore us.  Joel Saxum: Technically, if you had blue skies, yeah, this thing can get done and we can move. But with weather risk added in you, you’ve got, there’s some wild cards there.  Speaker 2: I It’s gonna be close.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. If we looked at the, the weather, it looks like even, I think this coming weekend now we’re recording in January here, and [00:19:00] this weekend’s, first week in February coming, there’s supposed to be another storm rolling up through there too. Speaker 2: It was pretty typical having lived in Massachusetts almost 25 years. It will be stormy until April. So we’re talking about the time span of which GE and Vineyard want to be done. That’s a rough period for snow. And as historically, uh, that timeframe is also when nor’easters happened, where the storms just sit there and cyclone off the shore around vineyard and then dump the snow back on land. Those storms are really violent and there’s no way they’re gonna be hanging. Anything out in the water, so I think it’s gonna be close. They’re gonna have to hope for good weather. Don’t let blade damage catch you off guard. OGs, ping sensors detect issues before they become expensive, time consuming problems from ice buildup and lightning strikes to pitch misalignment and internal blade cracks. OGs Ping has you covered The cutting edge sensors are easy to install, giving you [00:20:00] the power to stop damage before it’s too late. Visit eLog ping.com and take control of your turbine’s health today. So while GE Ver Nova celebrated strong results in its Q4 report, in both its energy and electrification business, the company’s wind division told a different story. In the fourth quarter of 2025, wind revenue fell 24% to $2.37 billion. Uh, driven primarily by offshore wind struggles, vineyard, wind, uh. The company recorded approximately $600 million in win losses for the full year up from earlier expectations of about $400 million. That’s what I remember from last summer. Uh, the, the culprit was. All vineyard wind, they gotta get this project done. And with this work stoppages, it just keeps dragging it on and on and on. And I know GE has really wanted to wrap that up as [00:21:00] fast as they can. Uh, CEO Scott Straza has said the company delivered strong financial results, which they clearly have because they’re gas turbine business is taking orders out to roughly 2035, and I think the number on the back order was gonna be somewhere in the realm of 150 billion. Dollars, which is an astronomical number for back orders. And because they had the back orders that far out, they’re raising prices which improves margins, which makes everybody on the stock market happy. You would think, Joel? Except after the, the Q4 results today, GE Renovo stock is really flat,  Joel Saxum: which is an odd thing, right? I talk about it all the time. Um, I’m always thinking they’re gonna drop and they go up and they go up and they go up. But today was just kind of like a, I don’t know how to take it. Yeah. And I don’t know if it’s a, a broader sentiment across what the market was doing today because there was some other tech earnings and things of that sort, but it’s always something to watch, right? So. Uh, there, [00:22:00] there’s some interesting stuff going on on in the GE world, but one thing I want to touch on here, we’re talking like vineyard wind caused them this, these delays right there is a, a, a larger call to understand why there was these delays and because it’s causing. Havoc across the industry. Right. But even the, like, a lot of like, uh, conservative lawmakers, like there were some senators and stuff coming out saying like, we need more transparency to understand these 90 day halts because of what it’s doing to the industry, right? Because to date there hasn’t been really any explanation and the judges have been just kind of throwing ’em out. Um, but you can see what it’s done here to ge. Recording $600 million in win losses. I mean, and that is mostly all vineyard wind, right? But there’s a little bit of Dogger bank stuff in there. I would imagine  Speaker 2: a tiny bit. Really? ’cause Dogger has been a lot less stressful to ge.  Joel Saxum: But it is, yeah. The, the uncertainty of the market. And that’s why we kind of said a little bit, I said a little bit ago, like when this thing is done, when Vineyard [00:23:00] Point is like, and when you can put the final nail in the coffin of construction on that, it is gonna be agh sigh of relief over at GEs offices For sure.  Speaker 2: Our friend Alina, Hal Stern appeared in Energy Watch this week and she’s spent a long time in the wind industry. She’s been in it 25 years, and, uh, she commented that she’s seeing some troubling things. Uh, she’s also the new CEO of Wind Power Lab over in Denmark, and they’re a consultancy firm on wind turbines and particularly blades. Uh, Lena says that she’s watched some. Really significant manufacturing errors in operational defects and wind turbine blades become more frequent. And in 2025 alone, Windpower lab analyzed and provided repair recommendations for over 700 blades globally. And I assume, or Blade Whisperer Morton Hamburg was involved in a number of those. Uh, the problem she says is that the market eagerly, uh, [00:24:00] demanded cheap turbines, which is true. And, uh. Everything had to be done faster and with lower costs, and you end up with a product that reflects that. Uh, we’ve had Lena on a podcast a couple of times, super smart. Uh, she’s great to talk to, get offline and understand what’s happening behind the scenes. And, uh, in some of these conference rooms between asset managers, operators, and OEMs, those are sometimes tough. Discussions, but I, I think Lena’s pointing out something that I, the industry has been trying to deal with and she’s raising it up sort of to a higher level because she has that weight to do that. We have some issues with blades that we need to figure out pretty quickly. And Yolanda, you ran, uh, a large, uh, operator in the United States. We’re dealing with more than a thousand turbines. How locked in is Lena, uh, to [00:25:00]some of these issues? And are they purely driven just by the push to lower the cost of the blades or was it more of a speed issue that they making a longer blades in the same amount of time? Where’s that balance and, and what are we going to do about it going forward as we continue to make larger turbines?  Yolanda Padron: She’s great with, with her point, and I think it’s. A little bit about the, or equally about the OEMs maybe not being aware of these issues as much, or not having the, the bandwidth to take care of these issues with limited staff and just a lot of the people who are charge of developing and constructing these projects at a very short amount of time, or at least with having to wear so many hats that they. Don’t necessarily have the, the bandwidth to do a deep dive on what the potential risks could be in [00:26:00] operations. And so I think the way I’ve, I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it. It’s almost like everybody’s running a marathon. Their shoe laces untied, so they trip and then they just kind of keep on running ’cause you’re behind, ’cause you tripped. And so it just keeps on, it’s, it’s, it’s a vicious cycle. Um. But, uh, we’ve also seen just, just in our time together and everything, that there’s a lot of people that are noticing this and that are taking the time to just pause, you know, tie those releases and just talk to each other a little bit more of, Hey, I’m the one engineer doing this for so many turbines. You have these turbines too. Are you seeing this issue? Yes. No. Are, how are you tackling it? How have you tackled it in the past? How can we work together to, to use the data we have? Right? That, I mean, if you’re not going to get a really great answer from your OEMs or if you’re not going to get a lot of [00:27:00] easily available answers just from the dataset that you’re seeing from your turbine, it’s really easy now to to reach out to other people within the industry and to be able to talk it over, which I think is something that Lena. Is definitely encouraging here.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I mean, she, she makes a statement about owners needing to be technically mature, ensure you have inspections, get your TSAs right. So these are, again, it’s lessons learned. It’s sharing knowledge within the market because at the end of the day, this is a new, not a new reality. This is the reality we’re living in. Right. It’s not new. Um, but, but we’re getting better at it. I think that’s the, the important thing here, right? From a, from a. If we take a, the collective group of operators in the world and say like, you know, where were you two, three years ago and where are you today? I think we’re in a much better place, and that’s from knowledge sharing and, and understanding these issues. And, you know, we’re, we’re at the behest of, uh, good, fast, cheap pick. [00:28:00] Right. And so that’s got us where we are today. But now we’re, we’re starting to get best practices, lessons learned, fix things for the next go around. And you’re seeing efforts at the OEM level as well to, uh, and some, some of these consultants coming out, um, to, to try to fix some of these manufacturing issues. You know, Alan, you and I have talked with DFS composites with Gulf Wind Technology. Like there, there’s things here that we could possibly fix. You’re starting to see operators do. Internal inspections to the blades on the ground before they fly them. That’s huge. Right? That’s been the Wind Power lab has been talking about that since 2021. Right. But the message is finally getting out to the industry of this is what you should be doing as a best practice to, you know, de-risk. ’cause that’s the whole thing. You de-risk, de-risk, de-risk. Uh, so I think. Lena’s spot on, right? We know that this, these things are happening. We’re working with the OEMs to do them, but it takes them a technically mature operator. And if you’re, if you don’t have the staff to be technically mature, go grab a consultant, [00:29:00] go grab someone that is to help you out. I think that’s a, that’s an important, uh, thing to take from this as well. Those people are out there, those groups are out there, so go and go in, enlist that to make sure you’re de-risking this thing, because at the end of the day, if we’re de-risking turbines. It’s better for the whole industry.  Speaker 2: Yeah. You want to grab somebody that has seen a lot of blades, not a sole consultant on a particular turbine mine. You’re talking about at this point in the development of the wind industry, you’re talking about wind power labs, sky specs kind of companies that have seen thousands of turbines and have a broad reach where they’ve done things globally, just not in Scandinavia or the US or Australia or somewhere else. They’ve, they’ve seen problems worldwide. Those people exist, and I, I don’t think we as an industry use them as much as we could, but it would get to the solutions faster because having seen so many global [00:30:00] issues with the St turbine, the solution set does vary depending on where you are. But it’s been proven out already. So even though you as an asset manager. May have never heard of this technique to make your performance better. You make your blades last longer. It’s probably been done at this point, unless it’s a brand new turbine. So a lot of the two x machines and three X machines, and now we’re talking about six X machines. There’s answers out there, but you’re gonna have to reach out to somebody who has a global reach. We’ve grown too big to do it small anymore,  Yolanda Padron: which really should be a relief to. All of the asset managers and operations people and everything out there, right? Like. You don’t have to use your turbines as Guinea pigs anymore. You don’t have to struggle with this.  Speaker 2: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast, and if today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. [00:31:00] And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show for Rosie, Yolanda and Joel. I am Alan Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

The Space Show Presents Dr. Ethan Siegel, Tuesday, 1-27-26Quick Summary:The Space Show featured a 90-minute discussion with theoretical astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, who shared his vision for space exploration and scientific research. The conversation covered the James Webb Space Telescope's revolutionary capabilities, the potential for breakthrough propulsion technologies, and the importance of investing in large-scale space telescopes despite budget constraints. Ethan emphasized that while private sector involvement in space exploration is valuable, government funding remains crucial for ambitious scientific endeavors. The discussion also touched on the current state of NASA's budget and workforce, as well as the broader implications of funding decisions for both space science and education.Detailed SummaryDavid hosted The Space Show featuring Dr. Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist, and other guests. They discussed the James Webb Space Telescope's groundbreaking capabilities and its potential to extend our understanding of the universe for decades. Ethan highlighted the telescope's ability to see further and more clearly than ever before, offering new insights into the early universe and potentially solving long-standing mysteries. The show also touched on the democratization of science, with new discoveries being made accessible to a global audience. David noted the overwhelming amount of new scientific material being published, which he attributed to the golden age of astronomy and astrophysics.Ethan discussed the feasibility of private sector involvement in building a large space telescope, noting that while it's possible with sufficient funding, it would traditionally require government involvement. He expressed skepticism about claims of breakthrough propulsion technologies, explaining that current proposals either rely on unproven physics or the use of antimatter as fuel, which remains challenging to store and contain. David inquired about human space exploration and settlement, to which Ethan responded that while there are potentially habitable worlds in our solar system, current propulsion technologies make human travel to these locations extremely challenging, with nuclear propulsion and Starship offering only modest improvements over existing capabilities.Ethan discussed the three main approaches to searching for alien life: SETI, exoplanet exploration, and investigating other worlds in our solar system. He emphasized the importance of exploring our own solar system, particularly Mars, Europa, and other moons, to search for past or present life. David noted the constraints of budget and imagination in pursuing such missions. Phil suggested that transforming humans into robot cyborgs might be a more feasible approach than developing interstellar travel. The group agreed on the need to prioritize scientific exploration over other projects, with Ethan highlighting the National Academy of Sciences' recommendations for missions to the outer solar system and Mars.The group discussed the challenges and funding requirements for space exploration and scientific research. Ethan emphasized the need for a significant investment in space exploration, comparing it to the Apollo program's budget, and highlighted the decline in U.S. scientific funding and workforce over the past year. Joe questioned the importance of building telescopes in specific locations, while Ethan stressed the value of maintaining U.S. leadership in scientific research to prevent a brain drain and preserve global scientific contributions. The discussion underscored the need for increased funding and support for scientific endeavors to remain competitive on the global stage.Ethan and Marshall discussed the potential of a large space telescope, similar in size to the James Webb Telescope, which could provide unprecedented views of the universe. Ethan explained that the telescope's capabilities would depend on its size, the wavelength of light observed, and the instruments used. He envisioned the telescope revealing detailed images of galaxies, exoplanets, and faint objects in the universe, potentially leading to new scientific discoveries. Ethan emphasized the importance of curiosity-driven exploration in science, highlighting past discoveries that were not anticipated before observations were made.Ethan and Joe discussed the potential for detecting intelligent life on Earth from afar, exploring the technological requirements for such observations. They considered the capabilities of current and future telescopes, including the Event Horizon Telescope and the Habitable Worlds Observatory, to image Earth-like features from distant locations. Ethan emphasized the need for sustained commitment across multiple presidential administrations to develop the necessary technologies, highlighting the challenges of long-term space policy planning. David shifted the conversation to discuss the practical applications of space research, including the development of medical treatments and pharmaceuticals enabled by space technology, and asked Ethan to prioritize these real-world benefits against grand space exploration visions.Ethan discussed the importance of investing in science and education, emphasizing that funding for projects like NASA and the National Science Foundation should be guaranteed and non-discretionary to ensure long-term success. He highlighted the need for a balanced science portfolio that includes both existing and frontier research, as well as the value of public education and the role of teachers in society. The group also discussed the challenges and opportunities in space exploration, including the potential for commercial space ventures and the importance of public support for scientific endeavors.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4497 Zoom Mark Whittington | Sunday 01 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Mark WhittingtonZoom: Author, Journalist, Writer Mark Whittington returns a discussion about his latest O-Eds and space opinions. Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Luxembourg depends on international talent and launched Work in Luxembourg this week to attract, integrate and retain global skills. Luxembourg is competing in a global race for talent. With the launch of Work in Luxembourg, a national portal and brand, the country is reshaping how international professionals discover, choose and settle in the Grand Duchy. Talent attraction, integration and retention is central to Luxembourg's economic future. This week, I was joined by Muriel Morbé, Director of Talents & Skills at the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, to unpack what Luxembourg is doing differently to attract the best talent. Around 75% of Luxembourg's workforce is international, including residents and cross-border workers. At the same time, demographic shifts, digital transformation and accelerating retirements are reshaping the labour market. Despite unemployment figures, many sectors, from digital and finance to healthcare, engineering and technical trades, face acute skills shortages. The challenge is to both attract people and ensure they stay. Luxembourg is trying to attract about 335,000 new recruitments by 2040 to meet its workforce requirements, according to estimations from the General Inspectorate of Social Security (IGSS) and the Chamber of Commerce. The Work in Luxembourg portal is designed as a single national entry point for both international talent and companies of all sizes recruiting globally. It brings together job opportunities, practical guidance on living in Luxembourg, immigration pathways and relocation support all under one coherent national narrative. Alongside the digital portal, a new physical Talent Desk has been launched. This human touchpoint recognises that ‘talent' does not arrive alone. International professionals arrive with partners, children and real lives, and if families fail to integrate, talent leaves. The Talent Desk supports both individuals and employers with administrative guidance, integration pathways and access to the right networks. A standout element of the initiative is the forthcoming Spouse Programme, developed with partners including the Ministry of Family Affairs and the House of Training. It helps partners of international recruits understand Luxembourg's economy, explore career or volunteering opportunities, and build social and professional networks. “Integration is not a ‘nice to have', it's an economic imperative.” As work evolves through AI, automation and multigenerational workplaces, Luxembourg is also focusing on lifelong learning, re-skilling and talent development. Through initiatives such as the House of Training and the Chamber's Talents 4 Luxembourg recommendations, the emphasis is on preparing for today's jobs, and roles that don't yet exist. Luxembourg is no longer just competing for jobs is competing for people, for families, and for long-term commitment. The success of Work in Luxembourg will not be measured by whether people choose to build a life here and stay. Work in Luxembourg portal
 https://workinluxembourg.com/ Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce
 https://www.cc.lu Talent Desk (via Chamber of Commerce / House of Entrepreneurship)
 https://www.cc.lu/house-of-entrepreneurship/ Talents 4 Luxembourg https://www.cc.lu/toute-linformation/actualites/detail/34-recommandations-pour-renforcer-lattractivite-le-developpement-et-la-retention-des-talents-au-luxembourg

The Space Show Presents Dr. Ajay Kothari, Sunday, 1-25-26.Quick summaryThe meeting focused on Dr. Kothari's presentation of a cargo delivery concept to the moon using multiple Falcon Heavy upper stages docked together, which he proposed as an alternative to NASA's current Artemis program. Ajay argued this method could be implemented more quickly and cheaply than the Starship program, with the potential to establish a permanent lunar presence before China's planned International Lunar Research Station. While the Trump administration aims to land humans on the moon by 2028, several participants expressed skepticism about meeting this timeline, with Bill suggesting this concept could be better aligned with later Artemis missions. The discussion included technical details about fuel requirements, landing capabilities, and cost comparisons, with Marshall proposing a stacked configuration as an alternative design approach.Detailed SummaryDr. Ajay Kothari started his discussion by sharing his recent experience presenting at an international conference on sustainable energy propulsion in India, where he was the only speaker focused on space. He emphasized the importance of not underestimating the technical capabilities of other countries, particularly India and China, and highlighted the impressive work being done at Indian Institutes of Technology. Ajay presented the paradigm for space exploration and discussed the potential of thorium nuclear energy for various applications, including data centers and small modular reactors. The presentation was well-received, and he plans to share some slides during the meeting.After sharing his experience at a conference in India, where he was impressed by the hospitality and technology, and received an award for his presentation, Ajay then discussed the importance of establishing a sustainable and cost-effective lunar settlement, criticizing the current plans for Artemis missions as they do not address the need for permanent infrastructure. Ajay emphasized that the real competition is not about the first human landing, but about creating a permanent presence on the Moon with habitats and outposts, which was not adequately addressed in recent congressional actions.Our guest presented a proposal for a lunar cargo mission using Falcon Heavy, emphasizing its cost-effectiveness and potential to beat China to a permanent lunar presence. He highlighted the need for reusable booster stages and low-drag upper stages to reduce mission costs and mass requirements. David questioned the funding and necessity of the cargo mission, to which Ajay explained the urgency due to China's plans for an International Lunar Research Station and the importance of establishing a presence on the moon. Bill inquired about Artemis baseline architecture, and Dr. Kothari acknowledged familiarity with Artemis 4 and 5 but noted uncertainty about later missions.Ajay and Bill discussed the timeline for the Artemis 8 mission, which is currently scheduled for 2033 but is likely to be delayed to the mid-2030s. Ajay emphasized the need for an earlier presence on the moon to compete with China's space station plans by 2030. Bill presented details on the Artemis 8 module, which can house up to four astronauts for short stays. Ajay calculated the delta V required for lunar missions and discussed propellant fractions and payload capacities for different launch vehicles, including the Falcon Heavy and New Glenn.Ajay presented a comparison of different rocket systems for cargo transport, focusing on the cost-effectiveness of Falcon Heavy and New Glenn compared to the SLS. He demonstrated that using Falcon Heavy for four flights could save up to 80% compared to the SLS, while New Glenn was also competitive with similar cost savings. He emphasized that these proven systems should be preferred over the unproven SLS for cargo missions, and suggested that TSS should push for this approach, particularly for missions up to Artemis V.Ajay and Bill discussed the implications of using cargo components in a human mission to the moon, with Bill raising concerns about potential risks to human safety if cargo missions fail. Ajay clarified that cargo missions would occur before human missions, minimizing risk. Bill also inquired about propellant loss in upper stages for the Falcon Heavy, to which Dr. Ajay explained that redesigns would be necessary to accommodate additional fuel and cargo, including potentially larger tanks and increased dry weight. Ajay emphasized the importance of repurposing upper stages for missions beyond Earth, contrasting this with Elon Musk's focus on reusability.The group discussed NASA's Artemis mission plans, with David explaining that the current administration's goal is limited to landing humans on the moon by 2028 before China does, rather than establishing a permanent presence. Ajay emphasized the importance of building a permanent lunar base, suggesting it could be achieved within two years with additional funding from Congress, though he acknowledged this might not be realized until after 2028. The discussion highlighted a disconnect between long-term planning needs and current budget constraints, with David noting that future mission planning would likely depend on the next administration's priorities.Ajay proposed a plan to establish a permanent lunar presence before Artemis 3, suggesting the construction of structures on the moon with a budget of $500-600 million and the capability to transport 15 tons of cargo. He emphasized the importance of this initiative for the country and suggested that it could be implemented alongside SpaceX's Starship program. The group discussed the challenges of convincing Elon Musk to shift from the Starship plan, with Phil highlighting the political and logistical obstacles. Marshall suggested setting a baseline design for a lunar station and challenging SpaceX to improve upon it, while John proposed this plan as a potential alternative if Starship encounters technical difficulties.The group discussed a proposal for a moon landing mission using multiple Falcon Heavy upper stages. Ajay presented his concept of using four stages, with one in the center and three at 120-degree intervals, connected and fired together for translunar injection. Bill suggested creating drawings to better illustrate the concept, while Philip proposed an alternative architecture involving fuel transfer between stages before landing. The discussion highlighted concerns about the feasibility of completing the mission within the proposed timeline of 2028, with David expressing skepticism about the three-year timeline given the complexity of testing and approvals.Our guest discussed his ongoing efforts to publish a detailed mission architecture proposal, including a recent contact with the White House and an upcoming meeting with Trump's political advisors. He is awaiting publication confirmation from Jeff Faust, who has previously published several of Ajay's articles. The group discussed the likelihood of reaching the moon in 2028, with Dr. Sherry Bell and others expressing doubt about government timelines, while noting that China has its own lunar ambitions. The conversation ended with updates on upcoming Space Show guests and a call for ISDC presenter submissions, with Dr. Bell offering priority to meeting participants.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4494 ZOOM Dr. Ethan Siegel | Tuesday 27 Jan 2026 700PM PTGuests: Dr. Ethan SiegelZoom: Dr. Siegel talks with us on the latest factual science, science plus, terrific cosmic story telling, astrophysics and moreBroadcast 4495: Zoom: Hotel Mars TBD | Wednesday 28 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: John Batchelor, Dr. David LivingstonHotel Mars TBDBroadcast 4496 Zoom Sarah Scoles | Friday 30 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: Sarah ScolesZoom Sarah Scoles, top space journalist returns with lots of space new stories to discussBroadcast 4497 Zoom Mark Whittington | Sunday 01 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Mark WhittingtonZoom: Author, Journalist, Writer Mark Whittington returns a discussion about his latest O-Eds and space opinions. Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

The national finals are about to hit us like a tidal wave, but not quite yet - for now, it's the gentle rain of Luxembourg's eight-song national final, and its excellent lineup of interval acts and guests. It's nice to have the time to discuss a pretty fun show, as things will get much trickier next month! Jeremy dreams of a physicist-pop star girlfriend, Dimitry spots another Rybak devotee in the wild, and Oscar wants to pitch on the Sweet Tooth stage show. Watch the Luxembourg Song Contest on RTL's website with English commentary here: https://play.rtl.lu/shows/lb/luxembourg-song-contest/episodes/r/3445727 Watch the Luxembourg Song Contest on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1GO6mqAGqQ This week's companion playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5NsXAcg3PhHYTa4D0ZNlPX The Eurovangelists are Jeremy Bent, Oscar Montoya and Dimitry Pompée.The theme was arranged and recorded by Cody McCorry and Faye Fadem, and the logo was designed by Tom Deja.Production support for this show was provided by the Maximum Fun network.The show is edited by Jeremy Bent with audio mixing help was courtesy of Shane O'Connell.Find Eurovangelists on social media as @eurovangelists on Instagram and @eurovangelists.com on Bluesky, or send us an email at eurovangelists@gmail.com. Head to https://maxfunstore.com/collections/eurovangelists for Eurovangelists merch. Also follow the Eurovangelists account on Spotify and check out our playlists of Eurovision hits, competitors in upcoming national finals, and companion playlists to every single episode, including this one!

The Space Show Presents Dr. Antonino Del Popolo, Friday, 1-23-25Quick summaryThe Space Show hosted Dr. Antonin o del Popolo, an Italian astrophysicist, to discuss his book “We Are Not Alone: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life.” Dr. del Popolo explained the various theories on the origin of life, including panspermia and abiogenesis, and discussed the challenges in detecting extraterrestrial life, such as the distance between stars and the lack of confirmed signals from other civilizations. He highlighted the potential for microbial life on exoplanets and the importance of future telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope in confirming its existence. The discussion also touched on the Fermi Paradox and the possibility of advanced civilizations, though Dr. del Popolo expressed skepticism about the likelihood of contact with such civilizations anytime soon.Detailed SummaryDavid and Antonino discussed the possibility of extraterrestrial life, with Antonio explaining that while there have been claims of life on other planets, such as the detection of dimethyl sulfide on an extrasolar planet, these claims have been discredited. He suggested that future telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope might provide clearer evidence of life in the next 10 years. David mentioned his listeners' interest in UAP phenomena and the possibility of alien visitation, but Antonino dismissed these ideas as not supported by the scientific community.We formally started with introductions and small talk about volcanoes, with participants discussing locations like Sicily, California, and Idaho. David introduced the main guest, Antonino del Popolo, a physicist from Sicily with a new book on extraterrestrial life. Antonio explained that he would summarize the book's contents rather than use slides to save time for discussion. The host announced upcoming guests and programs, including Dr. Kothari, Dr. Ethan Siegel, and Greg Autry. The conversation ended with David introducing Antonio to discuss his book, “We Are Not Alone.”Antonino discussed his book on the origins of life, exploring two main theories: panspermia, where life originated elsewhere in the universe and was brought to Earth by comets, and abiogenesis, which posits that life arose from non-living matter on Earth. He also covered the iron-sulfur world hypothesis and the lipids world theory, highlighting the challenges in replicating cellular life in laboratories. Antonio concluded by discussing the potential for life in our solar system, particularly on moons like Europa and Enceladus, as well as on exoplanets, noting the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1991 and the ongoing search for habitable conditions beyond Earth.Antonino discussed the potential for microbial life on exoplanets, noting that while many planets in the habitable zones of their stars might support liquid water, confirming the presence of life is challenging due to the distance and limitations of current technology. David inquired about the difficulty in detecting life, to which Antonino explained that while spectroscopy can identify biosignatures like water and oxygen, only one exoplanet, K218b, has shown such signs, and it will take time to confirm life on more planets. Antonino also highlighted the challenges in detecting advanced civilizations, citing the “Great Silence” and the Fermi Paradox, which suggest that either civilizations are extremely rare or there are significant barriers to communication across vast interstellar distances.Antonino discussed the possibility of extraterrestrial life and civilization, mentioning Fermi's paradox and various theories such as the Great Filter and Kardashev's scale. He explained that recent studies, including work by Frank and Sullivan in 2016, suggest that technological civilizations have likely existed in the universe, based on statistical calculations of astrophysical and biological factors in the Drake Equation. John Jossy asked about the certainty of these studies, and Antonino clarified that while the calculations are statistically sound, the unknowns in biology could potentially invalidate the results.Antonino discussed the probability of life evolving on planets similar to Earth, noting that calculations for our galaxy suggest a high likelihood of inhabited planets, especially those orbiting red dwarfs. He explained that while exact probabilities are difficult to determine, estimates indicate around 6 billion such planets in our galaxy and potentially 10^22 in the universe. Antonino also addressed the perspective of believers, suggesting that the existence of life beyond Earth aligns with religious beliefs, while non-believers might find it harder to accept.The Space Show Wisdom Team discussed the probability of life and civilizations in the universe, with Antonino presenting estimates of 6 billion Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars, though Joe noted that only super-Earths have been discovered so far. They explored the concept of biosignatures, including carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane, as indicators of life, with Antonino mentioning the discovery of dimethyl sulfur on the exoplanet K218b. The conversation concluded with a discussion about the possibility of past life on Mars, based on Viking lander experiments and recent findings of organic matter and water on the planet.Antonino talked about the presence of methane in the universe, explaining that while methane can be found on Jupiter and Saturn, its presence alone is not sufficient to prove the existence of life. He emphasized the need for precise biosignatures to confirm life and noted that microbial life could still exist despite the Fermi Paradox, which questions why we haven't detected any extraterrestrial civilizations. Dr. Ajay inquired about the historical context of the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, and Antonino clarified that the paradox preceded the equation, though the exact timeline was not fully discussed.The team discussed the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations and the Kardashev scale, which measures a civilization's ability to harness energy. Antonino explained that while the Fermi Paradox suggests no advanced civilizations in our galaxy, microbial life could still exist. Marshall proposed a theory about civilizations moving to galactic arms with more stars, and Antonino mentioned the concept of Dyson spheres as a way for advanced civilizations to harness energy from stars. Dr. Sherry Bell asked about the next steps if biosignatures were found, and Antonino explained that the James Webb Space Telescope would be used, with a more powerful telescope called Ariel planned for the future. He also noted that it would take a long time to confirm the existence of life on a distant planet, even with current technology.Antonino mentioned the time it takes to observe potential biosignatures with James Webb, explaining it could take several months to a year, and highlighted that the existence of life on K218b remains uncertain despite observations starting in 2023. He explored theoretical possibilities of faster-than-light travel using general relativity, though he considered such advancements unlikely within 50 years. The discussion also covered alternative chemistries for life, with Antonino noting that while silicon-based life is possible, carbon remains the most probable basis for life as it forms stable and complex structures. He concluded that microbial life likely exists in the universe, with intelligent life potentially following as evolution progresses, though he expressed skepticism about the likelihood of detecting extraterrestrial civilizations.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4496 Zoom Sarah Scoles | Friday 30 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: Sarah ScolesZoom Sarah Scoles, top space journalist returns with lots of space new stories to discussBroadcast 4497 Zoom Mark Whittington | Sunday 01 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Mark WhittingtonZoom: Author, Journalist, Writer Mark Whittington returns a discussion about his latest O-Eds and space opinions. Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Craig joins the podcast to take us through the Luxembourg Song Contest while our European correspondent Laura takes us through the experience of being on the ground at national finals. Patreon vote at: https://www.patreon.com/c/aussievision

In this talk delivered in Luxembourg in November 2025, Dr. Mufti Abdur-Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera reflects on the theme “My Career is to Help People” through an Islamic lens. He explores how choosing a path of service aligns with sincerity (ikhlāṣ), purpose, and accountability to Allah, reminding listeners that true success lies in benefiting others while seeking the pleasure of Allah—whether through one's profession, skills, or everyday actions.

About Rasmus Holst:Rasmus Holst is the CEO of Zensai (formerly LMS365), where he built a learning management business from $0–30M ARR, bootstrapped, completed three acquisitions, and pioneered the “Human Success” category as a replacement for Human Resources. He has been part of management teams delivering exits just shy of $1bn, raised +$50m for companies like Wire and Huddle, and worked across PE-backed (Carlyle, Warburg Pincus) and VC-funded (General Atlantic, Index, Vertex, Morpheus, Iconical) environments.His experience spans scaling start-ups from zero revenue, operating +$300M Lines of Business at Syniverse, and leading branding and B2B storytelling efforts, including Zensai's Red Dot Award and Great Place to Work recognition. Rasmus has managed global teams across 14 countries, traveled to +100 nations, and lived in Denmark, Luxembourg, and San Francisco, making him a leader with a uniquely international view on culture, growth, and balance. In this episode, Dean Newlund and Rasmus Holst discuss:Turning HR into Human Success and redefining what organizations measureLinking performance, learning, and engagement into one real-time scoreFeedback rituals and kudos culture as engines of team identityMeasuring soft skills through sentiment and peer behaviorAI as a teammate that amplifies human contribution instead of replacing it Key Takeaways:Replace annual HR lag metrics with weekly human success check-ins tied to learning, performance, and engagement.Institutionalize positive feedback (e.g., weekly kudos) to normalize critique, build confidence, and surface soft-skill leaders.Track soft skills through peer sentiment and recognition patterns rather than relying solely on manager evaluations.Use generationally agnostic baselines (showing up as a good human and delivering success) to align multicultural/global teams. "There's a high correlation between people who get a lot of kudos and those who are really good at a lot of soft skills.” — Rasmus Holst Connect with Rasmus Holst:  Website: https://zensai.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmusholst/    See Dean's TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I Connect with Dean:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkwWebsite: https://www.mfileadership.com/The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.comPhone: 1-800-926-7370 Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Ecoutez Le Cave' réveil avec Philippe Caverivière du 27 janvier 2026.Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Bulgaria returns to Eurovision following a three-year absence. We take a look at the country's history at the Contest: a rough start in its initial tenure, a renaissance after its first hiatus, and looking ahead to how Bulgaria's next tenure may go. Rough Summary Selection Season So Far: Moldova, Malta, Luxembourg, Georgia, Israel, Switzerland (0:40) Join the EuroWhat? AV Club (4:29) Bulgaria's History at Eurovision (6:30) How is Bulgaria selecting for 2026? (28:32) Subscribe The EuroWhat? Podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Find your podcast app to subscribe here. Comments, questions, and episode topic suggestions are always welcome. You can shoot us an email or reach out on Bluesky @eurowhat.bsky.social. Join the EuroWhat AV Club! If you want even more EuroWhat? in your life, join the EuroWhat? AV Club on Patreon! You can join for free to get virtual high fives and a monthly newsletter featuring: previews of upcoming episodes, North America tour dates for Eurovision alumni National Selection dates Tidbits we can't get to on the main show We also have the EuroWhat? AV Club Podcast, a monthly bonus episode for paid members exploring Eurovision-adjacent TV, movies, books, and more. And if there is a season 2 of the American Song Contest... well... :::monkey's paw intensifies:::

Ecoutez Le Cave' réveil avec Philippe Caverivière du 27 janvier 2026.Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Broadcast 4491, Hotel Mars with Doug Messier, 1-21-26John Batchelor and I welcomed back Doug Messier to discuss the global launch industry from 2025 plus the expectations of said industry for 2026. Doug called out SpaceX, the US, China, Russia, India and a few other launching nations. He talked about many of the private companies either developing their launchers or actually starting to launch rockets. He provided the statistics for the companies and launching nations as well. All of this jampacked into one Hotel Mars segment.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4494 ZOOM Dr. Ethan Siegel | Tuesday 27 Jan 2026 700PM PTGuests: Dr. Ethan SiegelZoom: Dr. Siegel talks with us on the latest factual science, science plus, terrific cosmic story telling, astrophysics and moreBroadcast 4495: Zoom: Hotel Mars TBD | Wednesday 28 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: John Batchelor, Dr. David LivingstonHotel Mars TBDBroadcast 4496 Zoom Sarah Scoles | Friday 30 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: Sarah ScolesZoom Sarah Scoles, top space journalist returns with lots of space new stories to discussBroadcast 4497 Zoom Mark Whittington | Sunday 01 Feb 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Mark WhittingtonZoom: Author, Journalist, Writer Mark Whittington returns a discussion about his latest O-Eds and space opinions. Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Allen covers Equinor’s Hywind Tampen floating wind farm achieving an impressive 51.6% capacity factor in 2025. Plus nine nations commit to 100 GW of offshore wind at the North Sea Summit, Dominion Energy installs its first turbine tower off Virginia, Hawaii renews the Kaheawa Wind Farm lease for 25 years, and India improves its repowering policies. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! There’s a remarkable sight in the North Sea right now. Eleven wind turbines, each one floating on water like enormous ships, generating electricity in some of the roughest seas on Earth. Norwegian oil giant Equinor operates the Hywind Tampen floating wind farm, and the results from twenty twenty-five are nothing short of extraordinary. These floating giants achieved a capacity factor of fifty-one point six percent throughout the entire year. That means they produced power more than half the time, every single day, despite ocean storms and harsh conditions. The numbers tell the story. Four hundred twelve gigawatt hours of electricity, enough to power seventeen thousand homes. And perhaps most importantly, the wind farm reduced carbon emissions by more than two hundred thousand tons from nearby oil and gas fields. Production manager Arild Lithun said he was especially pleased that they achieved these results without any damage or incidents. Not a single one. But Norway’s success is just one chapter in a much larger story unfolding across the North Sea. Last week, nine countries gathered in Hamburg, Germany for the North Sea Summit. Belgium, Denmark, France, Britain, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and their host Germany came together with a shared purpose. They committed to building one hundred gigawatts of collaborative offshore wind projects and pledged to protect their energy infrastructure from sabotage by sharing security data and conducting stress tests on wind turbine components. Andrew Mitchell, Britain’s ambassador to Germany, explained why this matters now more than ever. Recent geopolitical events, particularly Russia’s weaponization of energy supplies during the Ukraine invasion, have sharpened rather than weakened the case for offshore wind. He said expanding offshore wind enhances long-term security while reducing exposure to volatile global fossil fuel markets. Mitchell added something that resonates across the entire industry. The more offshore wind capacity these countries build, the more often clean power sets wholesale electricity prices instead of natural gas. The result is lower bills, greater security, and long-term economic stability. Now let’s cross the Atlantic to Virginia Beach, where Dominion Energy reached a major milestone last week. They installed the first turbine tower at their massive offshore wind farm. It’s the first of one hundred seventy-six turbines that will stand twenty-seven miles off the Virginia coast. The eleven point two billion dollar project is already seventy percent complete and will generate two hundred ten million dollars in annual economic output. Meanwhile, halfway across the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii is doubling down on wind energy. The state just renewed the lease for the Kaheawa Wind Farm on Maui for another twenty-five years. Those twenty turbines have been generating electricity for two decades, powering seventeen thousand island homes each year. The new lease requires the operator to pay three hundred thousand dollars annually or three point five percent of gross revenue, whichever is higher. And here’s something smart: the state is requiring a thirty-three million dollar bond to ensure taxpayers never get stuck with the bill for removing those turbines when they’re finally decommissioned. Even India is accelerating its wind energy development. The Indian Wind Power Association welcomed major amendments to Tamil Nadu’s Repowering Policy last week. The Indian Wind Power Association thanked the government for addressing critical industry concerns. The changes make it significantly easier and cheaper to replace aging turbines with modern, more efficient ones. So from floating turbines in the North Sea to coastal giants off Virginia, from island power in Hawaii to policy improvements in India, the wind energy revolution is gaining momentum around the world. And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 26th of January 2026. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Industry Podcast.

Trees are a major cause of power outages. They're also a wildfire risk—when branches hit a conductor, a small spark can become a big blaze. Lynn Petesch of Overstory joins thinkenergy to talk trees, exploring how AI, satellite imagery, and vegetation intelligence help utilities prevent outages and reduce wildfire threats. Including Hydro Ottawa, who saw a 44% drop in tree-related outages since partnering with Overstory. Listen in for how we work together to keep the grid safe in an era of extreme weather.   Related links  Overstory: https://www.overstory.com/ Lynn Petesch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnpetesch/  Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114  Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en    To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod ----- Transcript: Welcome to thinkenergy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com, Hi everyone. Welcome back. Today on thinkenergy, we're going to be talking about trees. Yes, you heard that correctly. Trees. I know this is a show about energy, but there's actually a very real connection between our electricity grid and those slow growing, majestic givers of shade, lumber, fruit and so many more benefits. Honestly, who doesn't love trees? But I'm not just kicking this episode off in my capacity as a tree hugger. Let's take a look at this through a utility lens, and I will use Hydro Ottawa as an example. Hydro Ottawa service territory includes some very rural and very forested areas. Even our urban territory has a fairly extensive tree canopy. As a result, Hydro Ottawa trims about 60,000 trees each year. Why? Because trees contracting power infrastructure is a big problem. Tree interference remains a leading cause of power outages for us. Strong winds force them onto our wires. Heavy snow or freezing rain builds up and weighs down branches, breaks limbs, and increases the risk that part of a tree may touch a line, and in some extreme cases, heavy storms can even send trees or branches crashing into our poles, damaging the poles. The struggle between power lines and trees, which, again, don't get me wrong, we all love trees, has been going on for years. There is a constant struggle between trimming enough and getting the right trees trimmed and maintaining as much tree coverage as we can. In 2022 we identified a disruptor in this dance, the solution came through a partnership with Overstory, a company that uses satellite imagery, infrared technology and artificial intelligence to help utilities manage vegetation and trim trees more efficiently. And the timing could not have been better. Just days after we started working with Overstory in the spring of 2022 the derecho hit Ottawa. Our Ottawa based listeners will remember this storm well. It was monumental in the history of our city, and indeed for us as utility, winds reached 190 kilometers an hour. For our non-metric listeners, that's nearly 120 miles per hour. The storm ripped through poles houses and cause considerable damage to our city's urban forests. Overstory played a crucial role during the cleanup and in helping us level up our vegetation management strategies moving forward, we realized that the insights we got from Overstory would help improve our proactive approach to tree encroachment and hazard identification, and this is essential in this era of extreme weather events. We know that climate change is causing more frequent and more extreme weather events. According to Climate Central, the number of weather related power outages in the United States increased by 78% between 2011 and 2021 and severe weather accounted for over 1000 outages across Nova Scotia just in the year of 2024 we want to keep you connected during these heavy storms, and that's why we're looking to organizations like Overstory. So what does Overstory do to help us keep the lights on? Well, without giving away too much, because we're going to get into the details shortly, Overstory through a detailed analysis of the scans they do of our entire grid, identifies high risk areas, which we can then prioritize and better focus our resources when it comes to vegetation management, this level of monitoring and focus reduces the risk of trees from coming into contact with our poles and disrupting Your connection to the grid, the results speak for themselves. Since partnering with Overstory, we've reduced vegetation related outages by 44% and that's only part of the story, as we'll discuss further, Overstory also plays a crucial role in helping utilities prevent wildfires in high risk areas across North America, similar to extreme weather, wildfire frequency and intensity is also increasing, in part due to climate change expanding cities and many other factors. And when wildfires do happen, these stories are heartbreaking. What many people don't realize is that lots of wildfires are sparked by trees making contact with power lines, and that is why Overstory plays a key role in tagging areas where those fires are most likely to ignite and spread, making it easier for utilities to prioritize trimming work and vegetation management in those areas. To dive more into how Overstory is helping us here at Hydro Ottawa and. And other utilities helping us identify and act to mitigate risk associated with vegetation. I'm really excited to have Lynn Petesch on the show today. Lynn is Overstory's, Head of Customer Success, and has spent the past 10 years building customer facing teams with a specific focus on technologies that tackle the climate crisis. She began her career working for the United Nations and the diplomatic service of her home country, Luxembourg, before moving into the tech sector to really work in environments where she could drive impact more quickly and at greater scale. Lynn Petesch, welcome to the show.   Lynn Petesch  05:34 Thank you. Thanks for having me.   Trevor Freeman  05:36 Okay, so let's start at the very top with a high level look at what Overstory does and how the organization came to be.   Lynn Petesch  05:45 Yeah, let me tell you about Overstory. I mean, we are a vegetation intelligence platform. We use remote sensing and AI to give electric utilities, including Hydro Ottawa and others, a clear, system wide view of their risk. They always do it because they want to address three things, or sometimes more, but kind of, there's always a few goal posts, and it's either improving reliability, reducing wildfire risk, if that is if they're in an area where there is a concern, and or improving operational efficiencies. So Overstory very much becomes a decision-making tool for their programs were used mostly by the vegetation management people, operations people, wildfire mitigation teams, and they each time they want to either use a program that exists, prioritize it, reshape their work. They might be preparing for storm. They might be working on a wildfire mitigation risk so the company, more broadly, was founded in 2018 by Anniek Schouten and Indra den Bakker. This was back in the Netherlands, and they were leveraging, or getting really interested in satellite imagery, and were very initially using it for deforestation purposes. So, the climate resilience DNA has always been with us. But like any startup, we were looking at that kind of target audience that was most interested in what we had to offer. And pretty quickly, we landed on the electric utilities. They had the most pressing need to use remote sensing at scale to solve very big problems, honestly. And so we pivoted into that space of electric utilities, and then in 2020 Fiona Spruill, who's our CEO right now, she joined us. She shaped the company into what it is today, and that is really around building safer and more reliable operations.   Trevor Freeman  07:33 That's great, and I want to dive into some of the details. Our listeners will know that we talk a lot about grid modernization here and talk a lot about better intelligence of what's happening on the grid in all aspects, and something we haven't really talked about, and I'm excited to talk to you about today is the sort of vegetation management side of it. So really excited to get into the details. But before we do that, I'm always really curious to understand, you know, the people behind the conversations. How did you get into this area of, you know, high tech vegetation management? I touched a little bit on your bio in the intro, but give us a sense of, you know, how did Lynn come to be in the space that you're in right now?   Lynn Petesch  08:12 Yeah, I wouldn't say I grew up thinking I was going to work in this space, but I love working in it now. So actually, right out of college, I went to work for the United Nations, but then in the last 15 years, I started working at high growth tech companies, startups, and I've always been focused on leading and building CS operations, which is basically the customer success teams. They're the ones that are in front of the customers, implementing these software programs, kind of working very closely with customer solving problems. And about four years ago, I decided that I did want to focus the rest of my career on solving the climate crisis more broadly. And I remember very clearly that I came across Overstory. And there was two things that really resonated with me. One was hearing that utility caused wildfires could be as thing of the past, like they are preventable. And the other thing was learning about this world where vegetation is the biggest cause of outages, which is, you know, I did not know before. And so I think, you know, having these very clear goals is very compelling to kind of work on something where it's so easy to understand what the big problems are. So I joined Overstory, and for the last couple of years, I've been building a team that gets really deeply embedded in these utilities, specifically with the vegetation management and the WiFi mitigation teams. And we work on their programs. We understand their programs, we help them reshape their programs. We roll out, obviously, the software element that is Overstory. It's been very fun and rewarding work   Trevor Freeman  09:40 That's great. And I really love, you know, talking to people from a variety of areas that they touch on climate change and the climate crisis. And I think there's a bunch of us who share that passion of wanting to do something. I spoke with a group of you know, recent grads about what is a green. In career. What is it? What does a career in climate change look like? And really it looks like whatever you want it to look like. There are so many aspects that touch on this. So kind of neat to hear how that was your passion, and then you figured out where it made sense for you to enter into the climate sphere. So that's great.   Lynn Petesch  10:15 Yeah, I guess when I was young, I thought you had to be a scientist to work on time, yeah. And I think now anyone can find an angle on how to contribute to it. And I think it needs everyone to help contribute.   Trevor Freeman  10:24 Yeah, any job can be a green job if you care about it and if you make it that okay. So let's get back to Overstory. Tell us a little bit about the evolution of the company. You talked about it kind of founding about seven years ago. Tell us how it's evolved and progressed over those seven years.   Lynn Petesch  10:41 Yeah, so when we started working with utilities, I think at that point, everyone was kind of assessing whether satellites could be kind of good use case for analyzing vegetation. We're now talking about 30 centimeter imagery. So the resolution of satellites has become incredible. You can really see branches. You can detect species of trees. You can see if they're healthy or not. So initially, that was kind of our m-o we really were the leading provider to find out, where are the trees, how close are they, in terms of proximity to your network, so to the conductor, which is the risk. You know, we're looking at the terrain. If you're looking in the mountains and in Colorado, you have very different terrain than maybe in Ottawa. So detecting tree species has been really interesting, detecting the health of trees, how that decline is furthering. A lot of utilities are experiencing a lot of tree decline die off right now. So that was how we started. And then we started working with the really big utilities. And you had to think about this problem at scale. Now, we might be scanning with satellites, hundreds, 10s of 1000s of miles at a time, and some of these utilities, they might have 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s, of trees that could pose a risk to their network. They might have had a really big, large weather event, a storm that knocked over some of their system. So at that point, it all becomes about that decisioning tool. Everything starts becoming a prioritization, and I think that's now where we're really leaning into is making not just surfacing the data, but making it very actionable. Utilities have a lot to deal with. They deal with very tight budgets, they deal with crew constraints. They might have an aging workforce, their regulatory pressure, they're really vulnerable to storms. Increasingly, there's a lot of wildfire exposure. So everything becomes a decision of, where should I focus my intention? Where can I get the biggest bang for my buck? What should I do? What should I not focus on? And that decisioning is where we really want to be a key player in.   Trevor Freeman  12:44 Absolutely. And looking forward, I know I'm kind of we're jumping the gun here. We haven't gotten into the details of what you do. But looking forward, what is your vision for, kind of the future of this space and how it's going to continue to evolve? Are you mature as a company yet, or as a sector, or is it still a lot of growth to happen?   Lynn Petesch  13:01 Yeah, I think vast majority utilities are now leveraging remote sensing. It could be lighter, it could be drones, it could be satellites. So that has become a pretty established tooling within the sector. I think what our vision really is, is providing utilities that shared resilience, first picture of risk. So you know, we imagine a world where you can, kind of like, see the emerging risks, and you can start becoming proactive. Being proactive in the space of vegetation management has been really challenging. You never know where the next tree is going to fall. And over the last couple of years, customers suddenly have access to this risk across their territory so that they can start being proactive about it. As a matter of fact, that was a key use case, also with the team at Hydro Ottawa, is to start launching these proactive programs. And I think when we think about it, we get very excited about the world in which anyone from the field crews to the vegetation managers to the operation folks to the execs, to the regulators, the community partners who think about the safety of their communities, the regulators all have that kind of shared view of risk. Just imagine, they all understand the same risk. They operate off the same sheet, and they make the same data driven decisions that could solve a lot of problems, because now the data is often scrambled across different people. Certain people have access to it and certain people don't.   Trevor Freeman  14:25 Great. Okay, so let's get into the specifics here. I want to actually talk about specifically what you what Overstory does. How do you find we've kind of talked about vegetation management, obviously, you're supportingHydro Ottawa and other utilities in our vegetation management programs. How do you find and tag high risk vegetation? What is high risk like? What do you actually do on a day to day basis?   Lynn Petesch  14:47 Yeah, that's the part that I deal with the most often. So excited to get into specifics. Implementing with Overstory is actually pretty easy. I mean, when we start working with a customer, we need to know where is your grid. So we need to understand where your power lines are. Planning. We need to understand the main configurations of them. How tall are the poles, etc, so we can really compute that whole focus of where the trees in relation to your power lines, to your conductors. That's all ultimately that we're focusing on. Increasingly, we're all seeing focusing on the ground. I'll be talking about that as well. We then task these satellites over your territory. We do that during the leaf on season, so that will be the summer, essentially. And then we run all these models. So we are first needing to understand, where are the trees, what is their height, what is their health? An unhealthy tree is much more likely to fall and cause damage to your power lines. We're looking at the fuels on the ground. We can help you determine what type of equipment you might need to attack certain types of vegetation. And we always compute it to that risk to the conductor. And we look at your right of ways. Now, I think the interesting part about your question is the what is high risk? And that is, can be very different across different utilities, and I think that's the maybe the unique part with Overstory is that we can configure it to your standards. So every utility has very unique components. If you're on the West Coast and you're concerned about wildfires, your tolerance to risk will be very different. And if you're on the East Coast, where you're mostly concerned about not causing too many outages, including that you might have specific trimming specifications. The crews running around with chainsaws, they know exactly how far out they need to trim, how much they can trim, and there's a bit of a risk tolerance thing. So we built very configurable risk frameworks for all of our utility partners, so high means one thing to hydro Ottawa means something different to a customer in California that is facing a very different type of risk.   Trevor Freeman  16:49 So you're out there assessing, essentially, just for the context of our listeners, you know, we've got power lines that run overhead. They run through residential neighborhoods, commercial areas, but also forested areas, treed areas where there's lots of vegetation near our equipment, your company really gets an understanding of the the interaction between the vegetation and our lines, and says, these ones are too close, or this is a tree that's, you know, not healthy, and could come in contact with your lines based on your analysis. So help us, like, let's paint that picture a little bit more detailed. How do utility companies take the information that you are coming up with, that your analysis is coming up with, and use that to run a vegetation management program more effectively? What does the utility do with that information?   Lynn Petesch  17:37 Yeah, so we always center it around four main use cases. One is optimizing a program that already exists. It's creating a targeted program for you. It's quantifying your work and risk reporting. And I'll dive into each and every one of them a little bit to illustrate a bit more what that could mean. So when we think about program optimization, a lot of utilities, they have existing vegetation management cycle. They might have a regulatory obligation to visit their territory every four years, for example. Now, a lot of times they've been doing their program the same way for the last 10 maybe 20 years, but the conditions in their territory are different, right? I mean, the things we're seeing, the storms are heavier. There's more tree decline that we're seeing right now. So they know they need to adapt and they need to adjust it. But it's big programs with lots of budgets attached to it, a lot of crews running around. So starting to think about how you can start pulling a socket that you're meant to trim forward, or starting to tackle an area where you say, is more residential, there's fewer trees, focusing on your high risk areas. First re managing these programs is one key component that we work with a lot of companies on. And thinking about Oklahoma, Gas and Electric, for example, that they have a budget, and they can only do that much with the budget, and it was really about reinventing where they can get the biggest impact. The other one, the second use case, is this targeted program creation, and I'll use the Hydro Ottawa use case for that. You know, they had suddenly a view about where are all of their hazard trees? Hazard trees are these trees that are declining, they're dying, or they're dead, and they could have an impact on your system. Now, suddenly you know where they are, so you can start building a targeted program about dedicating some time and budget and crews to actually going and addressing those trees that has a big impact on your reliability and on reducing tree cost outages. And there's many others, sort of like hotspotting, is a very common term about starting to become proactive and doing something for a specific program. And the third one is work quantification. And I think there, when you think about it again, there's large contractors that are running around, managing your territory. And now we utilities, for the first time, often have that data to actually assess how much work there is. So that's really helpful in terms of negotiating your contracts, getting better bids. Some utilities say it's really hard to find contractors that want to work on their system, because it's very hard to estimate how much work there is, or they might have a budget to mow certain vegetation along a transmission corridor. Just knowing how much vegetation there is is a really helpful tool to address it and prioritize it in the right way. And then the fourth use case is the risk reporting, and that is about getting that baseline view about your risk and tracking it year over year. And this is really where we want utilities to have that data to report it out to their boards, insurers, regulators, and often it's used to defend your budgets, secure your budgets, or really have some data to kind of back you up on what the problems are that you're facing.   Trevor Freeman  21:05 Great. So you talk about data, and you know, each of those use cases that you mentioned, or strategies that you mentioned really are about getting the right information in the hands of the right people to make decisions and sort of more efficiently and effectively make decisions, but it's a lot of data. And so Hydro Ottawa has over 6000 kilometers of lines. You know, this, of course, as our partner, we have a big territory, and we have a fairly treed territory. That's a lot of data points. You're collecting a lot of data from your satellites. You're doing analysis on that. How are you doing that analysis? Is it, you know, AI is kind of a buzzword, and every sector right now, and the utility sector is no different. Are you using some form of AI or machine learning analytics? What are you doing in terms of, you know, crunching the numbers and coming up with the right actions?   Lynn Petesch  21:59 Totally, yeah, AI is a buzzword, but it's also very exciting. I think utilities have really embraced it already. They're using it for demand forecasting. They're using it for customer service. They're using it for asset planning. I mean, at the core, Overstory has been using AI to turn remote sensing data into operationally useful intelligent about their vegetation. So when you say yes, Hydro Ottawa has that many 1000s of kilometers of overhead lines, we need to a rank it to them. This is your worst circuit. This is your worst area. This is the area where you have the most hazard trees, for example. So we can really rank order on a span level, from the worst to the best, right? So that could be one thing, it's still an overwhelming amount of data. So where we started by using AI to kind of predict that whereas the trees How tall are, they were and they were relation to the conductors. Now what we're really excited about, or kind of leaning into, with AI, is how to intelligently, kind of assess and prioritize risk. So not every hazard tree has the same impact. If a hazard tree falls on a line where more houses are dependent on you will knock out the power of more people. So it's always a prioritization exercise, and leveraging AI for that is what is most exciting to us right now. And I think it's important to note that we also don't just want it to be a black box. All of the models we've built, they're always validated by certified arborists and kind of our utility partners. And I think at this stage, this is very important, because every tree that we find exists in the real world, and so validating this, AI in the with ground truthing, has been really important for us to also build that trust in the technology.   Trevor Freeman  23:42 That's great. And I do think it's helpful for our listeners to kind of understand the context before this, this work is sort of done, you know, in the absence of a tool like yours, it's, it's sort of done. You know, there's a degree of manual effort here. There's a degree of patrolling the lines. There's a cycle of vegetation management. So if you've done a line this year in three years or four years or five years, you want to be looking at it again. This takes a little bit of that, I don't want to call it guesswork, but it takes a little bit of that manual effort out of the equation, and really focuses efforts in the right way. And it's only with the tools that you know you folks are using that you're able to do that volume of analysis and get that pinpoint accuracy. So that's fantastic. Let's, let's get into kind of the success of it at all, like the big picture. We've obviously talked a couple times here that you're our partner here at Hydro Ottawa, so I know that the success that we're having with you, but you know, tell us some of the great success stories with other utility partners. Are you, you know, are you actually reducing weather related outages? Are you seeing the impact of using the overstory tools and methodology to support utility partners?   Lynn Petesch  24:58 Yeah, I mean weather related outages can mean many things. You have trees knocking over, like the pole might crack, etc, you know, those there's a lot of things that can happen during a storm. And I've heard a lot of stories about side of some of the storms that Ottawa has experienced in the past years, where, you know, you could have had anything, and they're just heavier, and that the consequences are really strong, but what we can impact is the tree cost outages, right? And that we've proven with Hydro Ottawa, where, within a year, by focusing that targeted program on going to an area where you had a massive amounts of these trees that were dying off and they at any point, was just a little bit too heavy wind could be toppled over and fall on the line, we had a 44% reduction in tree cost outages. That's a real, tangible number. You can see, I'm thinking about utility as well. In the on the East Coast, a co op that runs through very rural areas. In those areas, you have a trees outside of the right of way that are toppling over on two lines. So tree cost outages are a huge issue for them, and it's really impacting their safety and safety those key, key KPIs that utilities are always tracking and by us just giving them a rank order of which has a tree they had so many of them, which has a tree to even go to first, because if that has a tree were to fall on a line, a ton more people are going to be out of power than if the other one were to fall the line, you will have, like one rural cabin that will not have power. And that led to a reduction of something around 90% of tree cause outages is to 70% it's still a long way to go, but it was a really tangible number that you can see, and it shows that if you then do that proactive work, you have real impact on your tree cost outages. And it's if I think about our customer in California, Pacific Gas and Electric, for example, it's a lot around helping them understand where they don't need to go. So it's kind of doing something of a visual inspection and actually skipping certain spans, that can be itself a really big use case. Because right now, if you don't have an understanding about where your risks are, you might be spending trucks to roll for hours around areas where there is not really any tangible work to be done. So redirecting them to the right areas is where we've seen a lot of success there, and that obviously leads to budget wins, right? You'll be saving a lot of money by doing that. And those are kind of the use cases that we chase and that we kind of help prove the cases on.   Trevor Freeman  27:29 Absolutely, yeah, there's, there's only so many resources you can you can throw at this, and making sure that we prioritize and focus those resources in the right spot is absolutely critical. You were just talking about the West Coast, and you mentioned this earlier. I know wildfires is is an area that is obviously of great interest for your organization. We're fortunate here at Hydro Ottawa, and that we haven't really had to deal with that much. But anybody who's you know following the news knows this is a major problem for us. So how, what is your role in helping those utilities prevent wildfires? Maybe give us, like, a very quick primer on why utilities are a factor when it comes to wildfires first, and then how your organization is supporting that.   Lynn Petesch  28:13 So unfortunately, utility cost wildfires tend to be the most catastrophic wildfires because they're critical infrastructure, and we've obviously seen that happen across the world, in in the US recently, again and again. But utility cost wildfires, as I said at the beginning, are also the actual wildfires that are preventable. So that's really where we're lying to lying into a lot of the forests right now. They've become Tinder boxes. That is obviously because of fire suppression policies? That's because of forest management techniques that have been leveraged in the last couple of 100 years that are slowly changing at different paces? Canada's had some, unfortunately, some really bad fire seasons recently as well. And so where overstory wanted to place itself as a net prevention space to even not add to the point where you have a spark, because there's a lot of tools out there that focus on mitigation and what is, what do you do when you see that first plume of smoke coming up? And so we've landed in kind of really focusing on the prevention side, so that utilities are hopefully in the future, not the ones that spark any of those catastrophic wildfires we've already always been looking at that the vegetation that could touch your conductor, right? That's I've been speaking about that a lot, but now we're really excited for the first time, and we recently announced that we launched a fuel detection model. So that's us looking at the ground fuel conditions, and those are actually usually the key contributors to the spark that spreads the fire. We're now providing that to utilities as a much higher resolution than ever before. For me, it's interesting because I've spent a lot of time looking at trees, and now I'm going into the field and I'm looking at the ground, and it's a new perspective. But yet again, we could just, you know, we don't want to overwhelm our customers. A lot of maps and showing the fuel conditions, necessarily, we can really help them identify those spans where a single failure would have the greatest consequence. So yet again, it's about how to make that data that, you know, there's a lot of wildfire risk map out there, but make it a very actionable list of spans that if they were to tackle those they are very proactively reducing the risk of igniting a fire. And as a result of the protecting their communities.   Trevor Freeman  30:29 Got you so it's not just about the overhead trees, branches, etc, contacting the line. It's, you know, if a switch goes, if an insulator pops, if, if something happens that will cause sparks. What's happening on the ground below that line, and how do we make sure it is able to withstand sparks? That might happen.   Lynn Petesch  30:49 Exactly if you have dry grasses, if you have sagebrush, if you have certain types of fuels, they're just much more likely to spark a fire and then spread, spread out without there even be any any trees you have these prairies along Texas that can blow up in a fire very quickly, and the fires can spread to tremendous sizes. And so understanding the fuels on the ground is really important.   Trevor Freeman  31:15 Super interesting and fascinating work to get involved in. As you mentioned, this is obviously an area of, I don't even know if I call it growing concern anymore, great concern for for the utility industry and all of us. Yeah. So with the technology that's, you know, we talked about AI a little bit ago, it's literally growing before our eyes. It's really evolving fast. Do you see your technology evolving along with it. What's what's kind of next for your organization? You talked about getting into sort of the ground vegetation management. What comes next? How do you see it evolving as AI and tools evolve?   Lynn Petesch  31:52 Yeah, I mean, if we see that the future is where we want to support a grid that is much safer and reliable, as I mentioned, we also want to make it sure it's resilient to the climate and the economic pressures that there are. So our initial focus and our continued focus, and where we have a lot of our expertise has been with vegetation. Now we're starting to look at the ground fuels, then that naturally evolves into looking at the asset vulnerabilities. So you know, the actual polls, and if there's any failures potentially on those as well as further weather exposures, right? It becomes, then about the soil moisture. It comes about the wind speed. It becomes around the rain, precipitation, etc. So there's a myriad of things that we can start looking at and that we want to start looking at in order to get that more holistic view of risk, and go beyond just vegetation right now, where we're investing most heavily in is that wildfire risk. There's also the resolution that we see with satellites right now is at 30 centimeter that may drop down to 15 or 10 centimeters, so the resolution will get higher. There's other sources that we're exploring already flying, sometimes aerial imagery that is at that five to 15 centimeters, then you would really start seeing soon, you can start seeing a leaf on a on a tree. It gets really impressive. There's lighter there's lots of other kind of remote sensing technologies that we're looking to leverage in the future. And then, as a company as well, we're starting to, obviously expand internationally. We started working with utilities in New Zealand that have very similar problems and various regulatory changes. They also have a problem with wildfire risks. So that is, that is another angle that at Overstorey We're chasing right now.   Trevor Freeman  33:35 Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that. You know, understanding of other assets beyond just vegetation, has kind of been running through my head of we talk about, and I think we've talked about it here on the show. If we haven't, I should do an episode on that, like a digital twin, a digital twin of our grid, and really having a good understanding of not just, you know, a line drawn on a map of, Hey, your circuits run this way, but really physically, what's happening out there, and being able to sort of model that interact with it in a digital way, to understand, if we do X, Y and Z, what happens. So the technology that you guys are using to really get good imagery and understanding of what's out there, well, I think what I'm hearing from you is could potentially be leveraged in that next level to understand, what pulls do we have? What health are they in? What you know, what's happening with that conductor? Is it sagging too much? Is it in good health? Like there's, there's all this opportunity that's really fascinating to hear.   Lynn Petesch  34:31 Yeah, already. Now, when we look at transmission corridors, we look at the sag of these lines, and the terrains are also really challenging, something to look at. So there's a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. And that can only expand as we want to look at risk more beyond just the vegetation element.   Trevor Freeman  34:48 Very cool. Well, Lynn, very interesting to hear this. I'm really glad you came on the episode or the show today to talk to us. Fascinating to hear what Overstory have to I know that we're super excited to be. Working with you here at Hydro Ottawa and excited for what comes next. We always end our interviews with a series of questions, so I'm going to dive into those and here we go. What is a book that you've read that you think everyone should read?   Lynn Petesch  35:13 I was thinking about an author more than a book. My favorite author is Jonathan Franzen. If I would recommend one book, it'd probably be Corrections, his most famous one, I believe. But they're like, these chunky, 800-900 page books where you kind of get immersed in these families and you feel like you know them at the end, and they kind of, I think about them for like, months afterwards. They're really good reading, at least for the winter when it's cold and you spend a lot of time inside. So probably Jonathan Franzen books, yeah.   Trevor Freeman  35:41 Yeah, we're we're recording this just before the holidays, and I think we'll be releasing the episode after but winter is such a great time to curl up with a book, and it's awesome to have a good recommendation of a nice thing.   Lynn Petesch  35:53 It'll be called in January.   Trevor Freeman  35:56 Absolutely. So same question, but a movie or a show?   Lynn Petesch  36:00 Yeah, I'm not a big movie buff, but I recently rewatched What's Eating Gilbert Grape, seen it with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio, and I always felt like Leonardo DiCaprio should have received an Oscar for that performance back when he was 14. But, yeah, it's a beautiful movie. awesome.   Trevor Freeman  36:20 Awesome yeah, that's a bit of a blast from the past, but you're right. That is a fantastic one. If someone offered you a free round trip flight anywhere in the world, where would go?   Lynn Petesch  36:27 French Polynesia, because it's so far I've never been a friend who went. I'm sure it's very expensive to go there, so it'd be great for someone too. Yeah, no, that's a place I'll go one day.   Trevor Freeman  36:41 So, yeah, fantastic. Who is someone that you admire?   Lynn Petesch  36:45 Yeah, that's a it's a tricky one, because I was thinking about, like, people, you know, in, I know, family, etc. But like, if I were to think about a, and it's a little left field, about a public persona, and also a bit of a blast from the past, I'll think about Tina Turner. She's been my icon since I'm a kid, I was always listening with my dad to Tina Turner. And I think the word that I've probably most used in today's episode was like resilience. And I always think about her as like possibly the most resilient woman in the world who reinvented herself and her career in her 40s and 50s, and is this complete power woman, you know, always done everything at her own terms. So get so much energy from not just her music. I've seen so many documentaries about her, and she's always been this kind of woman that I know, filthy with energy and kind of like drive. So I'm a big, big fan of Tina Turner.   Trevor Freeman  37:38 That's fantastic. I have to say, that's never come up on the show before, and now I need to go and dive down a rabbit hole of like, learning about Tina Turner listening to some music.   Lynn Petesch  37:47 Yeah, she's great woman.   Trevor Freeman  37:48 Yeah, good answer. Last question, what's something about the energy sector, or let's expand that to kind of the climate sector that you're really excited about?   Lynn Petesch  37:59 Yeah, I'm gonna take a very high level. But I think the thing I've always been following the most is, like, that broad topic of the energy transition, and I think the recent changes, or like, kind of the way we talk about it, has become a lot more interesting, because it used to be this kind of fluffy, big kind of vision, and now we're in that phase where it just has to be very practically implemented, and we're trudging along with it, no matter the political climate, etc, there is kind of a move forward. And I actually really liked the way that, I think, when I first started learning about it, or getting interested in it, it was always about renewables, and now it's around just sort of like needing to build a system that is both, like low carbon and climate resilient. And there's something in that, like way we talk about it now that I find really interesting. There's immense amounts of innovation in it. So yeah, I'm just enjoying following what's happening on that and how we are. We're moving that direction, no matter what's happening right now. So that's exciting.   Trevor Freeman  38:55 Yeah, okay, when I know my listeners are probably roll their eyes, because I say this all the time, but it's a very exciting time to be in this industry, and very exciting to kind of see the evolution of energy and how we're interacting with it, how it's impacting our society. And we really feels like we're at an inflection point. And very great to have you working on one aspect of it that people probably don't think about a lot. So thanks very much for what you're doing.   Lynn Petesch  39:19 Yeah, exactly. When you start working for Overstory, the one thing that happens is, wherever you go, you see trees and power lines. And I have very keen eye for, unfortunately, trees that are in poor health right now. So that's one of the professional things I've developed.   Trevor Freeman  39:35 Carry like a spool of red ribbon around you can, like, tie on the at risk trees and just so someone could come along. Lynn, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it. It's been great chatting with you.   Lynn Petesch  39:45 Thank you so much.   Trevor Freeman  39:46 Take care. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear. From you, whether it's feedback comments or an idea for a show or a guest, you can always reach us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com..

We’re ready for a big show in a little country, as Luxembourg decides on their Eurovision representative for 2026 via Luxembourg Song Contest. Michael and Bryan work through the eight songs in the running for the Duchy’s trophy and don’t hold back on what they think of them all! You can watch Luxembourg Song Contest live on YouTube from 8pm CET on 24 January (6am AEDT on 25 January) and be part of the voting via esc.vote. In this episode: Get to know more about Bryan’s thoughts on French music Explore the impact of songwriting camps Imagine what a stage glow up might look like Get involved Follow JOYEurovision across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky and X at linktr.ee/joy_eurovision Not in Australia? Grab this podcast via Spotify Podcasts. Playlist Irem – Bad Decisions (Hush Hush) Steve Castile – Sweet Tooth Hugo One – Born Again ShiroKuro – Eye To Eye Eva Marija – Mother Nature Andrew the Martian – I’m The Martian Daryss – Melusina Luzac – Prison Dorée [Golden Prison] The post Rockin’ the Duchy: Previewing Luxembourg Song Contest 2026 appeared first on JOY Eurovision.

The Space Show presents Bob Zimmerman, Tuesday, 1-20-26Quick SummaryWe started this Space Show program with Bob Zimmerman with discussions about space exploration policies, private industry involvement, and the current state of various space companies, including ULA and Blue Origin, along with a brief mention of Robert's book “Conscious Choice.”Detailed SummaryBob and David discussed the potential impact of a space program incident with Artemis, comparing it to past accidents and suggesting it could lead to a significant overhaul of NASA's programs. The conversation touched on the Artemis flight and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Bob opened up referring to his Op-Ed in which he criticized the press coverage of NASA's Artemis II mission, accusing journalists of being overly positive without addressing engineering concerns. He expressed concerns about the mission's safety, particularly regarding the untested life support system and the damaged heat shield, which NASA has only partially addressed by adjusting the flight path. Zimmerman compared the situation to SpaceX's more rigorous testing requirements for its Crew Dragon capsule, highlighting NASA's double standard in demanding multiple uncrewed test flights from commercial partners but not from its own SLS rocket.Bob also expressed concerns about NASA's decision to proceed with the Artemis II mission, citing inadequate testing and a culture that prioritizes schedule over engineering safety. He highlighted that the mission lacks critical testing, such as a heat shield test using Falcon Heavy, and criticized NASA's management for not standing up to political pressure to achieve a lunar landing before the current administration's term ends. Marshall suggested using an alternative method to test the heat shield, but Bob explained that NASA had already lost valuable time and was planning to use a different design for the next mission. Several in the group agreed that the Artemis II mission, while potentially successful, could be counterproductive by allowing NASA to continue misleading the public about the program's readiness.Next, Bob went after the Senate launch system as poorly managed and equipment-poor, noting that Congress created the rocket without a clear mission, which NASA is now struggling to define. He expressed more concerns about the Orion heat shield's untested design and emphasized the importance of fixing problems rather than working around them, especially when human lives are at stake. Phil suggested that sophisticated simulations could reduce the number of flights needed, but Robert argued that ultimately, hardware must be tested in real-world conditions. David pointed out that NASA's statements indicate they plan to use a new heat shield design in a future mission, which Phil initially criticized but Bob defended as a necessary step, albeit one that should have been tested beforehand.The Wisdom Team discussed concerns about NASA's approach to the Orion and SLS mission, with Bob being critical of NASA's management and politicians for prioritizing cost savings over safety by reusing shuttle parts. Dallas and Joe expressed skepticism about the mission's cost-effectiveness and engineering decisions, while David emphasized the need for Congress to question NASA's choices. The discussion highlighted the tension between political pressures and engineering realities in space exploration, with no clear solutions proposed by the end of the meeting.Bob went on expressing skepticism about NASA's Artemis program and the Space Launch System (SLS), arguing that the real space program in the United States is currently led by SpaceX. He criticized the Artemis mission as trivial and not historically significant, advocating instead for fostering a robust American private industry in low Earth orbit and beyond. Dr. Kothari questioned Bob's views, particularly regarding his recent op-ed, and discussed the potential dangers of the Artemis II mission. They also touched on alternative testing methods for the Orion spacecraft and the need for infrastructure development on the Moon.The Wisdom Team discussed the role of government and private enterprise in space exploration, with Bob emphasizing the importance of competition and innovation among various American space companies. Phil argued that NASA's leadership is crucial for guiding private industry and managing risks, while Bob suggested that NASA should set goals and provide a framework for private companies to achieve them without micromanaging the process. Joe noted that the Artemis Accords might be the most enduring legacy of the Artemis program.The tem discussed the Artemis Accords, which Bob explained were initially introduced by the Trump administration as a way to encourage private enterprise in space and potentially lead to changes in the Outer Space Treaty that prohibits property rights. Joe noted that Portugal had recently joined the Accords, bringing the total to 60 nations, with many post-Soviet countries participating. Phil suggested that allowing property rights in space could help redirect expansionist leaders' attention from Earth to space exploration, while Bob agreed with this approach and proposed establishing international rules similar to the Homestead Act to allow nations to claim territory under specific conditions.Bob discussed the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's aging issues, noting an increase in anomalies and color dropouts due to the camera's degradation. Alfred McEwen explained that the problem is being managed by adjusting the camera's temperature, but more funding is needed for calibration. Robert highlighted the orbiter's importance in revealing Mars' icy nature and its potential for future human settlement. The group also discussed private and government missions to Venus, including Rocket Lab's delayed mission, NASA's canceled missions, and India's planned Venus orbiter. Phil mentioned China's proposed Venus Volcano Imaging and Climate Explorer mission, though its launch details remain unclear.The group discussed current and future planetary missions, with Bob noting that NASA's Venus missions are on hold and the U.S. has limited active planetary exploration compared to other countries. They explored Blue Origin's potential to increase competition in space travel, with Bob expressing hope that under new CEO David Limp's leadership, the company could become more competitive with SpaceX. The discussion also covered Blue Origin's orbital reef project, which our guest described as currently inactive, and Marshall inquired about cost reduction goals in space travel, to which Bob and Phil noted that while Blue Origin's David Limp has mentioned reducing costs by two orders of magnitude, no company has yet achieved even a one-order reduction.The group discussed the potential for terrestrial nuclear power plants, noting that while there is growing demand due to AI data centers, there remains significant public resistance. Bob expressed concerns about the “delusional” enthusiasm for AI, particularly in journalism where AI-generated articles are often inaccurate and inappropriate. The conversation shifted to space industry developments, with Ajay discussing small modular reactors (SMRs) and Generation 4 reactors that could serve both propulsion and energy needs. The discussion concluded with Bob emphasizing the need for multiple space companies beyond SpaceX, highlighting the importance of competition and redundancy in the industry.As we were nearing the end of the discussion, we focused on the current state and future of ULA, with Bob noting that while ULA has significant contracts with Amazon and Boeing, its Vulcan rocket lacks reusability and may struggle to compete with emerging reusable rockets like Starship and Neutron. The team discussed the leadership changes at ULA, with an interim leader appointed but no permanent replacement named yet. The conversation concluded with a plug for Bob's book “Conscious Choice” which explores the origins of slavery in Virginia and its relevance to space exploration, with David and Phil confirming they had read the book and found it informative.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4491 Zoom Dr. Antonio Del Popolo | Friday 23 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: Dr/. Antonio Del PopoloZoom: Dr. Popolo talks about hs new booik, “Extraterrestrial Life: We are not alone.”Broadcast 4492 Zoom Dr. Ajay Kothari | Sunday 25 Jan 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. Ajay KothariZoom Dr. Kothari on “MUCH NEEDED CARGO TO MOON” Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

The Space Show Presents Dan Adamo, Sunday, 1-18-26Quick SummaryOur program focused on a detailed discussion of lunar exploration architectures and orbital dynamics, led by Dan Adamo, a former NASA mission controller with extensive experience in orbital rendezvous. Dan explained why NASA's current Artemis program uses a nearly rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon, despite its instability and operational challenges, primarily due to constraints imposed by the Orion spacecraft's service module and the Space Launch System (SLS). He advocated for a lunar surface rendezvous architecture as a more sustainable and flexible approach for human lunar missions, emphasizing the importance of minimizing rendezvous and having infrastructure pre-positioned on the lunar surface. Dan also criticized the current Artemis timeline, expressing concerns about the program's risk tolerance and the marginal safety margins built into the mission design. The discussion highlighted the trade-offs between meeting political timelines, managing risks, and achieving a sustainable human presence on the Moon.Detailed SummaryDan Adamo discussed his views on NASA's Artemis program and lunar exploration strategies. He criticized the current plan for using a complex lunar orbit that may not be optimal for human missions. Dan suggested that NASA should consider using lunar surface rendezvous, where cargo and crew launches would meet on the moon's surface, rather than relying on in-space propellant depots. He emphasized the importance of having a robust and flexible architecture that can adapt to delays and other challenges in spaceflight. Dan also expressed concerns about the current schedule for lunar missions, suggesting that taking more time to develop a better architecture might be worth it if it leads to a more successful and sustainable program.Dan discussed his experience with orbital dynamics and rendezvous operations, highlighting his work with NASA's shuttle program and his advocacy for a lunar architecture inspired by the “land anywhere, leave anytime” mantra. He expressed optimism about private space stations, noting their increased payload capacity compared to the shuttle and the potential for more efficient operations. Dan also addressed challenges in launching and operating spacecraft, including environmental factors like solar flares, meteor showers, and collision avoidance, emphasizing the importance of careful planning and coordination.Our guest continued by explaining the challenges and benefits of different space launch architectures, expressing a preference for heavy-lift launches to lower Earth orbit for cargo missions before heading to the moon. He shared a detailed diagram of the Capstone mission's orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 point, which is about 1.2 million kilometers away, or five times the Earth-Moon distance. Dan also described the Apollo missions' lunar orbit characteristics, noting that they operated at an altitude of 100 kilometers with a 2-hour orbit period, and highlighted the Apollo service module's capabilities for large plane changes and emergency returns.Dan went on to discuss the challenges of the Artemis program's lunar orbit, highlighting the one-week orbital period and the limitations of the Orion service module. He criticized the decision to reuse Space Shuttle parts and the concept of using Orion as a crew return vehicle from a Mars mission, noting the high risks and costs involved. Dan also explained the instability of the planned orbit and the need for frequent course corrections, contrasting it with the more stable lunar orbits of the Apollo missions. David questioned the reasoning behind these plans, suggesting that the pros may not outweigh the cons.Dan and David discussed the challenges of space exploration, particularly the political influences and financial constraints that affect mission planning. Dan explained that while engineers and mission planners strive to create sustainable programs, the lack of a clear business case for lunar and Mars exploration means that politics often drives funding decisions. They compared the Chinese space architecture to NASA's plans, noting that China's approach involves fewer launches and a simpler mission profile, though it still presents challenges with debris disposal and rendezvous. Dan emphasized the importance of careful planning and the need for reliable systems to avoid damaging valuable lunar infrastructure.Dan repeated that lunar surface rendezvous as a preferred architecture for human lunar missions, emphasizing its advantages over other approaches. He argued that this method minimizes rendezvous, reduces orbital debris, and allows for a “land-anywhere-leave-any-time” capability, which is crucial for sustainable lunar exploration. Dan also highlighted the challenges of current architectures, such as the Artemis program, and expressed concerns about the lack of exploration capability in the Chinese lunar mission. While he would be happy to share his expertise with decision-makers, Dan noted that any changes to the Artemis program would likely face delays and political challenges.The discussion went on to focus on the stability and operational considerations of lunar orbits, particularly the nearly rectilinear halo orbit chosen for the Gateway. Dan explained that while the orbit appears stable, it requires frequent propulsion corrections due to perturbations from various celestial bodies, including Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, as well as solar winds. He suggested that a more stable alternative would be a distant retrograde orbit at approximately 10,000-12,000 kilometers from the moon with a one-day period. The conversation also touched on the Gateway's propulsion system, which will use xenon gas in Hall-effect thrusters, though Dan noted that the exact propellant type is still uncertain.Dan expressed excitement about Artemis II but noted that Orion cannot safely enter lunar orbit due to performance constraints. He discussed the mission's trajectory, explaining that it will fly by the moon's far side at a specific altitude for a free return to Earth, potentially not setting a new human altitude record. Dan also shared his thoughts on human lunar landers, expressing concerns about SpaceX's Starship design and suggesting Blue Moon as a potential alternative. He concluded by explaining the need for specific launch windows to mitigate heat shield issues on Orion's return trajectory.In summary, we focused on the Artemis program and its challenges, with Dan expressing concerns about taking unnecessary risks to meet the 2028 moon landing timeline. He emphasized the need for calculated risks and highlighted the marginal nature of the current architecture. The group discussed the program of record for Artemis III, including the timing of launches and rendezvous with the Starship lander. They also explored the potential for robots and AI to assist in lunar missions and the possibility of a space elevator to the moon. Dan shared his plans to develop a launch simulator to better understand and share launch trajectories, which raised questions about space traffic management.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentOur Toll Free Line for Live Broadcasts: 1-866-687-7223 (Not in service at this time)For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4491 Zoom Dr. Antonio Del Popolo | Friday 23 Jan 2026 930AM PTGuests: Dr/. Antonio Del PopoloZoom: Dr. Popolo talks about hs new booik, “Extraterrestrial Life: We are not alone.”Broadcast 4492 Zoom Dr. Ajay Kothari | Sunday 25 Jan 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. Ajay KothariZoom Dr. Kothari on “MUCH NEEDED CARGO TO MOON” Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe