Guest: Doug Messier. Topics: The Virgin Galactic current multi-part series on www.parabolicarc.com and more. 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 Doug Messier back to the program. During the first segment of our nearly two hour show, Doug started off by telling about his current multi-part series running this past week on www.paraboloicarc.com regarding Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipTwo. Given the accident happened slightly more than a year ago, Doug put together a comprehensive series of articles on the accident, the pilots, the NTSB report, Virgin Galactic, Scaled and more. This is a multi-part series you will want to read. The majority of the first segment's discussion was based on the articles with questions from listeners and myself about various aspects of the company, the accident, the people involved, the mission control room, and the NTSB report plus supporting documents which Doug studied for his articles. Listener Alec sent in an email before the show wanting to know if SS2 has been more closely modeled after SS! if the company would have been flying by now. Doug had much to say in response to this question dealing with the expansion to SS2 which was 3 times larger than SS1 and more. When asked about return to flight, Doug suggested the possibility of Feb. 2016 but that was not definite. This was in response to Josh asking for a Virgin time line. Doug also got questions about Virgin and Spaceport America, then he was asked if noticed differences in Virgin's presentation both pre and post the accident. The subject of safety and test flight programs came up for Virgin, XCOR and all the companies. We talked about safety and test flight programs in general with Doug, myself and some listeners, agreeing that the test programs were not extensive enough or sufficiently comprehensive. Don't miss this discussion which included comments about the flight test envelope challenges, the X-15 as a possible model, and comments made by Neil Armstrong at the recent Suborbital Conference held a few years ago in Palo Alto, CA. In the second segment, I started out by asking Doug about the new Commercial Space Law agreed upon by the House and Senate, specifically the part about asteroid mining and quasi-property rights. I pointed out the feedback I was getting about this section being in opposition to the Outer Space Treat and many were not happy with it, nor did we know if it would have any legal standing outside the U.S. Tim called in to support the asteroid mining provisions in the law. John from Ft. Worth called in to talk about the DARPA XS-1 program and Masten Space Sciences. Burton in Canada asked about SLS, then Dr. Lurio called in to talk safety and many other topics. Before the show ended, Tim called back to ask about the XCOR piston pump progress. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog above. You can reach Doug through www.parabolicarc.com or me.