Episode description

Les Johnson, author, lecturer and NASA scientist, is today's featured guest.

Topics include: one of NASA's advanced electromagnetic propulsion systems which uses no fuel and no rocket engines whatsoever; NASA's near future projects such as the next lunar lander and the new heavy lifting vehicle Aries V; and how we might eventually find ourselves fulfilling the vision of his non-fiction book: Living off the Land in Space.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 20, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 65 minutes]

Les Johnson is a NASA physicist and manager, as well as the author of popular science books and articles. He serves as the Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Les has been on CNN, Fox News, NPR, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and in the New York Times. He made a few brief speaking appearances on camera in the BBC documentary series Space (released as Hyperspace in the USA) which was hosted by Sam Neil. He was the technical consultant for the movie Lost in Space. He is a frequent, and very popular, speaker at SF&F conventions concerning space and science. And he consulted on the books Deepsix by Jack McDevitt and War Surf by M. M. Buckner. (Two authors who have been interviewed on this show.)

Les Johnson's non-fiction books include: Living off the Land in Space (which he co-wrote with Gregory L. Matloff and C Bangs) and his latest Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (which he co-wrote with  Giovanni Vulpetti and Gregory L. Matloff). Nature (the highly-respected scientific journal now in its 139th year of publication) reviewed this book and placed it on their Recommended Reading List for the Spring.