Guest: Jeffrey Manber was the guest for this special program. We started our discussion with a walk back through history with the Mir Space Station, MirCorp, the Dennis Tito space tourism experience, Russian contracts, Energia, and much more. As Jeffrey was the man behind it all, listen to how doors were opened, how the Russians were willing to work with MirCorp to have a commercial business with the Mir Space Station and to fly Dennis Tito to Mir, then the ISS. You will hear about the three blocks that got in the way of MirCorp success. The three blocks included a period of intense solar flare activity, the dot com crash, and then the intense emotional reaction of Dan Goldin who was the then NASA Administrator. Jeffrey elaborated on all of these blocks, especially with Dan Goldin and NASA, so you won't want to miss this discussion. We spent a long first segment of the show on MirCorp and NASA and then we switched to talking about the space and economic programs of China, Russia, Europe, and the United States. We talked about the robotic and cargo missions and the human spaceflight program and space exploration. Again, these are important discussions you will not want to miss. We brought in today's economic conditions and what the likely impact would on various national space programs including the European program, China's program, the Russian program, and our own U.S. space program. Jeffrey explained the importance of the emerging private sector for space transportation and maybe even the human spaceflight program. We talked about the importance of the emerging small sat business, his new venture with Professor Bob Twiggs of Stanford University and his website which will open early next month, http://www.sefspaceworks.com . If you have questions or comments for Jeffrey Manber, please send them to me at drspace@thespaceshow.com and I will forward them to him.