Guest: Dr. Nader Elhefnawy had his debut appearance on The Space Show today in order to discuss his recent Space Review articles. Please check out http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1220/1 and http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1199/1. Our discussion was wide-ranging with excellent listener questions challenging our guest and his theories/perceptions or, in some cases, agreeing with our guest.

Guest: Dr. Melcho Antunano, Director of Civil Aerospace Medical Institute at the FAA, was the guest for this Space Show program. Our primary topic for discussion was the role of the FAA in setting policy, guidelines, or requirements for medical qualifications for flight crews and spaceflight participants for both suborbital and orbital space tourism. Dr. Antunano pointed out several times that the FAA does not set the policy or requirements. Instead, they produce guidelines only and it is then up to the spaceflight companies to issue their own standards and guidelines.

Guest: Dr. Patrick Collins was our very special guest for this 1,000th Space Show program! Dr. Collins joined us from Japan as he was also the very first Space Show guest on June 13, 2001. We started our discussion with a type of report card for space tourism in 2001 and now in 2008. We both went through a list of milestones, accomplishments, events, and developments in order to ascertain the level of progress made in developing space tourism over the past seven years. Dr.

Charles Miller, CEO of Constellation Services Incorporated (CSI) returned to The Space Show with this program. Mr. Miller began the discussion with an explanation of the COTS program, what it is and what it is not. From there we discussed the two winners and what NASA is obligated to do with the product developed by both or either of the companies. For example, since COTS is not a services acquisition program but instead a demonstration program, there is nothing to sell to NASA as defined by this type of program.

John Spencer returned to The Space Show to update us on matters concerning space tourism. We began the interview with John summarizing space tourism developments since he was last on the show in August 2005. We spoke about suborbital tourism, the companies involved in the suborbital vehicle programs, and his yacht plans which John is well known for and which he as written about in his book, "Space Tourism - Do You Want To Go?" The book, published in 2004 by Apogee, is still available and is a must read for those of you interested in space tourism.