Guest: Jeff Manber. Topics: LEO commercial development with NanoRacks, the ISS, NASA & more. You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. We welcomed Jeff Manber back to the program to update us on the successful commercial business in LEO, NanoRacks. Visit their website at http://nanoracks.com for more information. Jeff started our discussion with an overview of NanoRacks, its origins, and some of its current activities/customers. We talked about NanoRacks serving as a role model for a successful commercial path to developing & exploiting LEO. Some of the issues discussed included markets, pricing, and their financing. Jeff brought us current with some of their customers including many outside the United States in German and Israel for example. One of the points stressed many times during the interview was that Jeff and his team speak the language of customers. He went into detail during this segment on exactly what he meant by this statement so don't miss this as it is important. Jeff also mentioned that they don't attend the typical space conferences. Instead, they go to user types of conferences and promote what they can do for the customers in a venue catering to the needs of the customers . He mentioned over and over again how NanoRacks understands the real market and how important this is for the commercial space company. Later in the segment, we talked about the value of LEO before NanoRacks and after. Another part of the NanoRack approach is the prioritization of payloads. He was asked about the uncertainty climate now in place due to the confusion over budgets and policy. Jeff described the hardware saying it was like a cubesat at 4X4X4 inches. He talked about astronauts handling the experiments & that NanoRacks was not labor intensive. Also mentioned were the type of projects accepted by NanoRacks & the issue of NASA oversight. A listener asked about the Astrium centrifuge project as the first segment ended. In the second segment, Jeff described the IPhone project and the 50 payloads in cue for going to the ISS. He talked about using high end off the shelf technology in space & the experiments to prove this out. Later, when asked about his past space experience & the relevance of it to NanoRacks, he had much to say and told us the story about Pan Am Sat breaking the Intelsat monopoly. Additionally, he talked about his multi-national experience working with Russia on Mir and with others over his career. In our final short segment, Jeff talked about the future for space development & said we were at a critical moment for U.S. space exploration & development. He stressed he was not interested in space policy or leading a movement. He believes the best way to convince others is by doing the project and being successful, not by rhetoric, talking without doing, or by using Power Points. Do not miss what he had to say about this. Post your comments & questions on the blog URL above. You can email Jeff at info@nanoracks.com. Reference The Space Show in your subject line.
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