Ted Spitzmiller was the guest for this special Space Show program. As a space historian and author of the newly published series of books by Apogee, "Astronautics: Book 1-Dawn Of The Space Age" and "Book 2-To The Moon and To The Future," we talked important space history starting with Sputnik 1. As this week is the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, we did focus on the impact of Sputnik on America and the world, plus the early days of the American space program. Many listener questions came in for Ted. One listener wanted to know the turning point that showed us that America had won the space race. Ted suggests it was the Gemini program and you will certainly want to hear this discussion. Another listener wanted to know about the NASA then and now, the differences, and a comparison of technology then and now and with the Russian technology. Ted goes through the various rockets, including the USSR R-7 in quite some detail. We also bring up the difference in presidential and congressional leadership then and now and the commitment to America first then and now. Costs, economics, and related issues were discussed as listeners wanted to know about space stations and why we are not living on them. Ted suggested that going straight to the Moon may very well have precluded the O'Neill space colony idea of large, rotating and orbiting space station colonies. As a result of other questions, we spoke about the space shuttle, Apollo, and the VSE of today. Ted Spitzmiller will be returning to The Space Show in the near term and we will continue this historic perspective with more of a focus on his Book 2. You can send your comments and questions to Ted at ted_ spitzmiller@hotmail.com.