Guest: Dr. Gordon Shepherd, co-author of "Canada's Fifty Years in Space: The COSPAR Anniversary," was the guest for this Space Show program. We talked about the start of the Canadian space program dating back to Canadian space science in 1925. The story is fascinating and, as you will hear throughout this program, the Canadian space program has been an important contributor regarding how space benefits us in our lives and by making us all safer.

Guest : Gene Meyers, CEO of the Space Island Group (www.spaceislandgroup.com), was the guest for this Space Show program. We started our interview with Gene providing us with background and updates for both a historical overview of Space Island, plus an update with its current activities. Most of the overview addressed the Space Island Group's plan to use shuttle external tanks for a space station or other commercial purposes.

Guest: Greg Zsidisin returned for this Space Show program to discuss the SpaceContest.org site and the program for winning $1,000 with the best 3 minute YouTube space video of why support the human space program. You can get the rules and all the needed information for entering this contest at the website, www.spacecontest.org. Greg responded to several listener questions about the contest rules and format, so if you are thinking of entering, make sure you listen to the added information provided by Greg.

Guest: Homer Hickam was the guest for this special Space Show program. Mr. Hickam, author of "Rocket Boys," which was made into the acclaimed movie "October Sky," spoke with us about many topics and all of us had lots of fun while learning from someone who is, in my opinion, a true American hero. We started the discussion by asking him about his discovering two Tyrannosaurs in Montana. This took us directly to his early rocket launching days in Montana and putting Barbie dolls into space or near space. You have to hear this discussion to believe it.

Guest: William Watson, Executive Director of the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), was the guest for this show to discuss the upcoming NewSpace 2008 conference, July 17-19, 2008 in Washington, DC. Will went over the list of speakers and panels, noted that the conference is single track unlike many other conferences, and responded to listener questions about students, NASA participation, side trips to possibly Goddard or Wallops, and much more. We talked about space education and career opportunities, specifically with the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.

Guest: Barbara Sprungman David was the guest for this Space Show program to discuss her new book, "Kids To Space: Mission Plans, An Educator's Guide." Barbara co-authored this book with Lonnie Schorer and this book is a follow-on to Lonnie's earlier book "Kids To Space: A Space Traveler's Guide." Please listen to the earlier Space Show with Lonnie from May 19, 2006 located at: http://archived.thespaceshow.com/shows/496-BWB-2006-05-19.mp3 .

Guest : Andrew Thorpe, author of "The Commercial Space Station: Methods and Markets" was the guest for this Space Show program. To learn more about Andrew's books and work, please visit his website: www.maxastro.com. We began our discussion with Andrew explaining why the current ISS is not the commercial space station he talks about in his book. You will want to hear this distinction. We then discussed a series of potential markets in space including microgravity, protein crystal growth, space tourism, and more.

Guest: Dr. Donald Rapp was the guest for this Space Show program to discuss his book, "Assessing Climate Change: Temperatures, Solar Radiation, and Heat Balance." This was a factual discussion of Earth's climate, climate change history over time, the Little Ice Age as a baseline, the hockey stick graph, and much more. Dr. Rapp takes a hard look at the climate talk and you will not want to miss what he has to say. He then defines the real problem as one of having sufficient energy for Americans and the world in the future.

Guests: Col. M. V. (Coyote Smith; Dr. David Livingston: ISDC 2008 Interview # 4 starts off with a quality discussion with Col. M. V. (Coyote) Smith, USAF, regarding the business case potential and the need for developing space solar power. This is a hard-hitting discussion in the hotel coffee shop about what is needed for space solar power to be developed. During this interview, not only do we discuss business case facts, but energy policy, the capability of the private sector to develop a demo project, other nations and their work toward SSP as well as their capability to do the project.

Guest: Chris Carberry, Executive Director of The Mars Society, returned for this Space Show program. As Chris was in attendance at ISDC 2008, we opened our discussion with a review of the presidential candidates' representatives who made presentations at ISDC this year. Here we talked about the questions asked by Miles O'Brien of CNN, the lack of knowledge by the representatives about important space issues such as ITAR, and the overall disappointment felt across the board by the poor showing and low level of interest evidenced during this sessions by those on the panel.