Because of these several impediments, as well as other technical difficulties, you will find typos and occasional replication of text. In our humble opinion, typos show that the logs are of *live* chats, not canned interviews, and minimal editing of these logs has taken place.

[Talos] hi
[Cybling] Welcome Steven!
[Steven] 'ello
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] Welcometh!
[Cybling] Again folks...
[Cybling] If you have questions for our guest, please just ask. But please, let the guest answer one question before you ask another.
[padre] jello
[Steven] lime or otherwise?
[Cybling] LOL
[Cybling] Do you prefer Steven or Steve?
[padre] strawberry
[Steven] Steve
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] magenta!
[Cybling] Thanks Steve. Steve is aerospace engineer who has worked on reusable and expendable launch vehicle, the International Space Station, advanced propulsions systems, orbiting propellant depots, and other programs
[Steven] (Magenta or Columbia?)
[Cybling] Steve you're VP of the LA chapter of the NSS....sorry not familiar with those initials.
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] (Euhm.... ah, shoot. No idea. lol)
[Cybling] What is the NSS?
[Steven] NSS is the National Space Society, an international group of space activists who are promoting the view that the average person should be able to live, work, and play in space
[Cybling] Great. And when do they believe we should be able to do this.
[Cybling] Or is now what everyone feels would be a good time?
[Steven] The group (in its various incarnations) has been pushing this idea for over 20 years. The key to making this work is reducing the cost of space access and removing the bureaucratic barriers to space development
[Cybling] removing the bureaucratic barriers? Isn't that like taking it out of the government's hands...
[Cybling] and taking it private?
[Steven] Right now, there are a number of laws and regulations which limit the commercial development of space.
[Cybling] okay.
[Kimmo] How would you go about reducing that cost, a new single stage to orbit vehicle of some kind? Expendable vehicles? I doubt if we can build a beanstalk yet but if we could that might be ideal...
[Kimmo] (or I know we can't build a beanstalk due to not having anything remotely strong enough materials-wise)
[Steven] Its a combination of things: I've worked on both expendable and reusable launch vehicle and neither one can do it alone.
[Steven] Right now, I'm working on a program to build big, cheap, dumb rockets to launch payloads into space.
* Kimmo nods understandingly
[Cybling] cool
[Steven] The limits on most reusable approaches are that they're very complex, have fairly small performance margins, and small payloads.
[Steven] (Good for people but not so good for putting up space station or spaceship components.)
[Cybling] Hmmm...so for the inanimate things that must go up, something else needs to be developed and fast?s
[Steven] Right. For example, most of the components for the International Space Station are launched aboard the Space Shuttle. It costs about 500 million dollars to launch that vehicle. If you have seven or eight flights a year, the costs add up very fast.
[Kimmo] Arent the russians using big hulking brutes of rockets to get stuff up there, just barely intelligent enough to survive the trip?
[Steven] Yes and no: Most of the Russian rockets are derived from ICBM's. They're great for putting a nuke on target, but they're rough on whatever they're carrying.
[Kimmo] Ahh, ok.
[Steven] They also have relatively small margins and, since they use complex turbopumps, are a wee bit finicky.
[Cybling] So something in-between would be the ticket.
[Steven] That's what we hope. If we tried to put everything up with a reusable launch vehicle, we'd end up taking 70 or 80 flights to send a ship to the moon. (versus the one used for Apollo.)
[Kimmo] At what point could one start to build stuff up there and stop hauling it up the gravity well?
[Cybling] Okay. If not re-usable, perhaps disposable in space? Are you thinking along those lines? Ships that can be converted into the station once there?
[padre] is the problem a lack of interest by private investors or government control/regulations?
[Kimmo] Looks like lots of us wanted to know more about this issue.
* Kimmo grins
[Steven] Well, you'd first need to establish a way to mine and process materials off-planet, either on the Moon or from a near-Earth asteroid. Work is going on right now to enable that kind of technology.
[Steven] Padre, its a number of things. The government can be a very fickle mistress for space development, while the private sector is looking for making the most bucks the fastest.
[Steven] If you're trying to make money in less than 10 years, space can be a tough sell to the venture capital folks.
[Cybling] Sounds like the NSS has quite a bit on it's plate then Steve.
[Cybling] I see that you're in a panel tomorrow afternoon...
[Cybling] with Allen Steele, titled Space Stations Past, Present and Future
[Cybling] Interesting that he's always written from the working Joe's point of view.
[Cybling] Just the people NSS is trying to get into space.
[Steven] Yes. I worked for nearly eight years at McDonnell Douglas figuring out how to put all of the pieces of the Freedom/International Space Station together on-orbit.
[Steven] We came up with hundreds of ways NOT to build one and a few dozen ways to do it right.
[Cybling] folks...F. Brett Scott isn't here yet...so we're going to continue on with Steven here and take advantage of the time to pick his brain.
[Cybling] If you have questions for our guest, please just ask. But please, let the guest answer one question before you ask another.
[Cybling] are the stations that we see in movies, basically what we can eventually see in space? The wheel shape?
[Steven] Not at the size you've seen in those movies. The problem with most wheel concepts is that they're too small: to generate 1 equivalent gravity by spinning a station and doing so without causing extreme motion sickness requires a station about 1/2-1 mile in diameter.
[Cybling] That's a lot of material.
[Riesengrosser] 4The wheel shapes look nice in Cinamascope, but expancive once you would want to find a way to put them in orbit!
[Kimmo] But why go all the way to 1 g?
[Steven] People like David Brin and company have proposed taking used Shuttle External Tanks, connecting them to cables, and spinning the collective "dumbell" around. Interesting idea, but there are problems with it. (Problems usually left to people like me to solve.)
[Kimmo] I'd love to live in .25 g or something... although that would make it hard to visit the planet again after a while
[Riesengrosser] 4Why create garvity, if you can find keen things to do without it?
[Steven] The International Station will include a centrifuge module to determine exactly how much gravity you need to avoid certain deleterious effects of zero-G.
[Kimmo] Hmm, I know I prefer to live in a G field.. at least I know when I put my cup of earl grey on the table that the liquid stays in the cup :P
[Steven] These include bone calcium loss, degeneration of the immune system.
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] lol
[Steven] As it is, cosmonauts on Mir and the astronauts and cosmonauts on ISS will spend 3-4 hours a day exercising to overcome those effects.
[Cybling] So that's 3-4 hours they can't spend doing anything else?
[Kimmo] Ugh. And I resent 1.5 hours three times a week. :)
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] heh @ kimmo
[Steven] You got it. (And while they're exercising, they're causing the whole assembly to shake, rattle and roll about. Not too good if you're a materials scientist and you want a quiescent environment for your experiments.)
* Kimmo ponders free-floating sweat drops and goes "eewwww"
[Cybling] lOL...no I think not. I keep forgetting that even though you may be weightless you still have mass.
[Steven] Does the phrase "oh-ick!" come to mind?
[Cybling] LOLOL.
* Kimmo tries to look innocent but fails
[Cybling] You know I have a pretty good idea that sweat's not the only thing floating around.
[Steven] And she looks innocent so . . . skillfully
[Riesengrosser] Some visiters have compaired livin in a Station to living in a Noisy Houstrailer!
[Cybling] Humans get a little, aromatic should I say, in that environment.
[Riesengrosser] Ano unkept houstrailer.
[Kimmo] He, actually, Steve, but I guess I've got you all fooled.
[Kimmo] It's a finnish name (and belongs to a finnish guy)
[Steven] Kinda close. Maybe closer to being inside a 1950's era submarine. (Cramped, noisy, but livable.)
[Cybling] Okay. A little larger than a WWII submarine but not much.
[Steven] The International Station will include a good many filters to ameliorate some of those "aromatic issues"
[Cybling] Thanks Steven.
[Riesengrosser] Guess you still need to have "The Right Stuff" for the job!
[Cybling] I think so.
[Cybling] More questions about living in Space Stations and how we'll get there or should we touch on some of the other things Steven is up to at the convention?
[Steven] Yeah, Riesen. The requirements are pretty stringent. They get thousands of applications for astronaut positions but only accept
[Steven] a couple of dozen.
[Cybling] So not only to you have to be physically fit enough to get up there...you have to be mentally fit enough to stay up there.
[Riesengrosser] It also takes years to prpare for only a short Mission.!
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] yah
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] dat really is annoying
[Serenah_SS_Suchomimus] ^_^
[Steven] Yes. And you have to be able to "get along well with others" very well. Otherwise, you'll be getting on each others nerves very quickly. (They're really worried about cultural differences between the different countries and how well they'll deal with them on-orbit.
[Cybling] Folks...we've kept Steven here for over a half-hour now. Just caught him checking his watch. He has a panel coming up, and he needs to get to it.
[Cybling] Are there any last questions for him re Stations etc?
[Cybling] going once...
[Cybling] going twice.
[Riesengrosser] Dosvedania Stevan!
[padre] thanks for sharintg, Steve.
[Steven] Pahzalloosta
[Cybling] Okay...let's thank him for joining us and send him on his way to...
[Cybling] the Space Stations Past, Present and Future
[Cybling] panel.
[Riesengrosser] Spasiva!
[Cybling] Thanks Steve!!!
[Steven] Ochen harasho.
[Riesengrosser] Auf Wiedersehen!