Hopefully this is a good place to take issue with something you said on the show.

I haven’t seen the recent Star Trek, for which I am shameful, but you described diving from a spaceship hundreds of kilometers up. Then you said heating would not be an issue. As a spacecraft developer I have to take exception. The rule of thumb for heating is that a capsule falling straight down from 300km sees the same peak heating rate as an orbital capsule reentering the atmosphere and a fall from 500km sees the same peak heating rate as an Apollo capsule returning from the Moon.

You could posit materials and thermal management advances in spacesuits, but I don’t think they will ever be good enough to jump from a craft hundreds of kilometers up with just a spacesuit.

Anyway, just thought I’d let you know, and also other than that technical nit, I thought you did well!

Dave

GAry 7

I listened in while you were on the air and was really impressed with how cool headed you stayed. Each new “big” question I thought, “he will never manage to explain this on the air” and you proved me wrong again and again. I learned a lot.

The live podcast crapped out about 2/3 of the way through for me so I will have to go listen to the rest. *and FYI to Skeptically Speaking the volume of everybody really was too low on the internet broadcast.

Like, er… “… much tougher questions from the audience, then [the] usual [stuff from creationists and 'Electric Universe' nutters got on my tits!]”

Maybe he meant “much tougher questions from the audience, then [the] usual [stuff]“?

… and then I had to field a bunch of much tougher questions from the audience then usual.

Err… Phil, that should be than, not “then”.