Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Star Base with Dave For February 5th, 2025

Transcript

Star Base with Dave For February 5th, 2025 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now I want to get right into this. We have
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: our guest on the phone. This is about us. It's
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: a place called Starbas Hill, and I think maybe a
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: lot of you listening right now have had kids who've
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: gone through this program at Hill Air Force Base. But
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we'll let the director tell you all about what it is.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: And we have with us, Dave, Dave Amprin. Is that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: how you said your last name, Dave?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: That's exactly it?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: All right? Dave is the director of Starbas Hill, Utah
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: or are you anymore?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly, I'm kind of I'm kind of closing
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: things up and so forth, and so I will be
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: around only until March.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: But now tell people what Starbas Hill is.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Starbas is a steam and for those who don't understand
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: what steam is, STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: and mathematics. So it's a hands on program where we
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: work with fifth ninth graders. What we do is we
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: have fifth graders. We take entire fifth grade classes from
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: schools throughout Salt Lake City, Davis County, Weaver County, but
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: we bring we bring them to Hill Air Force Base
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: and we have we give them a hands on experiences
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: and subjects like physics, and chemistry, engineering, robotics, so that
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: they can they can get a better idea of what
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: these phenomena that they'll see are all about because it's
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: at their level.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, STARBAS Hill has been going for how long? Oh?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Here in Utah, it's been around since twenty eleven, that's
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: when it first started up on Hill Air Force Base.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: But we do have an overall program called DoD Star
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Base and that has been going on since nineteen ninety three.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And there are star Bas programs like this all over
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the country too. Is that correct?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: That's absolutely correct. We have we have roughly ninety different
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: programs and right now all the ninety programs are kind
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: of in a state of flux, depending on depending on
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: what stage they're in, so to speak of this shuttle.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Well has great. I'm glad we have this program. No,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: we don't. So what happened, Dave, What what happened?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: What happened is? Wow, it's it's it's a long story. Basically,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: what we do is we way back when, way back
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: from twenty thirteen. But anyhow, way back we used to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: be part of the president's defense budget and then we're
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: taken out. So we have to for lack of a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: better description, we kind of have to go to different
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: places and scrape some money together so that we can
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: operate over the course of a year. And what we
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: did is we went through that process last year and
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: we went to the Congress, and the Congress proposed that
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: they would give us sixty million dollars to operate over
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: this fiscal year twenty five. And then we went to
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the same and the Senate said, well, we'll give you
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: twenty million dollars. And so we've never had a disparity
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: such as that. Now, this is this amount of money
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: is for all ninety programs to operate.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not just for yeah, not just for us. I mean,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: so the Congress said, we'll give you sixty million, which
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: is kind of what you've been getting in the past.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Senate said, no, sorry, you're only going to get twenty
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and you can't you can't operate on that. And so
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: when people came to work on Monday this week, what
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: did you have to tell them clean out your desk?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Well, actually it happened on Friday of last week. But yes, yeah,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: they came together. They came together, and unfortunately we had
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: to tell them that we had to shut the doors
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that we no longer had money to operate.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Now, how can we Is there a way that this
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: could be saved?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Well, we're hoping, so we really are hoping. So what
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: we need to do is the Senate Appropriations Committee if
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: they can, just if they can agree to recede to
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the Congress and say, you know, we'll let sixty sixty
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: million go through, then that would work. So if we
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: here in Utah, Unfortunately Senator Lee and Senator Curtis neither
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: belong to the to the Appropriations the Senate Appropriations Committee
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: or the Senate Armed Forces.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Committee, but they could talk to him.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, so they can talk to them and they
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: can say, hey, you know, let's let's recede here. Or
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: if they could make a phone call to that the
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: comptroller who works at the Office of Management and Budget
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and say hey, let's let's go ahead and see if
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: we can't flow some extra money to this program, that
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: would be wonderful as well.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Now, some star bases are funded by like California. I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: think you told me the state funds it, or because
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: they believe it's so important, so our state could Yeah,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: so you could get a hold of Governor Cox and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: say and make him aware of all of this. I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: think you guys probably have. But the more people that
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: get a hold of him, the more it will matter.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So if you want to get a hold of Governor
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Spencer Cox about Star Base Hill, you can just go
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to Governor dot Utah dot gov. There's all kinds of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: ways to get a hold of him. If you want
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to get a hold of Mike Lee, tweet him you can.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: That's the only way. You can go to a www.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Dot Lee dot Senate dot gov. And then that's the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: same thing for Curtis Curtis dot Senate dot gov. There
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: are mechanisms to contact them, and the more people that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: do it, the more it might have an effect. All right,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know what else we can say, Dave, I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: hope we have it. Says here in your email to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: us to me, I'm in it to win it. Well,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: let us know how we can help anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: If if people listening have had kids in this program,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: they I wish I'd known about them. My kids would ye,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: this would have been very cool. Yeah, it's it's an
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: amazing program and it's you know how much sixty million
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: dollars is in the overall budget. Nothing. It's as my
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: sweet mother used to say, it's a fart in a
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: windstor it's it's it's nothing. Uh, Dave, We we got
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: to run. Thank you for calling in and we'll keep
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: keep an eye on this and I hope, I hope
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: it works out.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Dave, well, thank you, yes, thank you so
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: much for your support. We really appreciate it. Later