Guest: Mark Fisher. Topic: Commercial & Civil space, Schafer Corp space activities, space exploration/development. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm. For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience. We welcomed Mark Fisher, VP, General Manager & Director of Huntsville Operations for Schafer Corporation (www.schafercorp.com. During the first segment of our 1 hour 25 minute discussion, Mark Fisher introduced us to the Schafer Corporation which has in excess of 40 years experience and activity in the civil, commercial, DOD, & the government space industry. We honed in on civil and commercial and Mark talked about Bigelow Aerospace, Stratolaunch, the entrepreneurial community, and NewSpace. This discussion took us to new technologies and here Mark said that NewSpace was providing lots of new technology. We also talked about human spaceflight and its growth, particularly on the NewSpace side of things. Listener Jack emailed in a question about the wisdom of international partnerships to which Mark had much to say. I asked our guest about overlapping areas with DOD & commercial space, then about pursuing ROIs from space activities & projects & if that was a big switch from just a decade ago. That brought up a discussion about business models and the role Schafer plays with clients in business as well as with engineering as Schafer is an engineering company. One point made continuously by our guest was that space investment leads to results but its an ebb & flow over the long haul. We talked about space technology, computer, and electronic advances, plus changes over time in materials and optics. The subject of launch vehicles & the industry came up, especially with cubesats, SpaceX & Orbital. Pooley called in to talk once again about small launchers & Microlaunchers. At one point he commented that Leo, being too crowded, should be abandoned for escape orbital opportunities. Both Mark & I had some interesting comments per what Charles was talking about. In the second segment we talked about the U.S. capability to build new launchers & engines but we also talked about the high costs and long development & testing time in doing so. Mark shared with us his rocket motor development experience. We talked about Mark's Schafer team, the development of an internship program at Schafer, and Shafer employment opportunities. A listener asked about difference in approach to the public, civil, & commercial side of space projects & the need for commercial to fund itself. We talked about wireless medial monitoring, miniaturization, & other space spinoff technologies. Much was said about the biomedical push by NASA. I asked about the once robust Huntsville space economy which has had some issues in recent years. An inquiry was made about DOD, Mars technology development, sharing tools with NASA, and if we needed to make weapons to advance technology. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog. If you want to contact our guest, you can do so through me.