Edward Hudgins celebrates the big government space achievments of the past, as well as the private, entrepeneurial space achievements of the preasent and future.

Looks like Congressman James Walsh (R) New York, Chairman of the House VA, HUD, and IA Appropriations Subcomittee, is about to "celebrate" the 35th Apollo Day in very nasty way.

Earlier this year, the president unveiled a plan to return humans to the moon and eventually launch a mission to Mars. He has asked for an increase in the NASA budget of $866 million.

Measured against other critical needs, "I don't see how I can do that," Walsh said.

Actually, he could do just that, if he had the will, which it looks like he doesn't.

Of course it likely doesn't matter. House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R) Texas assures us that the final bill will be written in conference.,

Will the next space station be privately built and operated, with both NASA and private industry renting space? Could be, if Bob Bigelow has his way.

The Gallup Poll finds, contrary to news accounts, broad support for the President's Moon, Mars, and Beyond Initiative.

To build Heavy Lift or not to build Heavy Lift, that is the question.

On the occassion of the 35th Apollo Day, minus one day, I imagine the night we return to the Moon.

This explanation of the cause of global warming may be a little too simple for some to accept.

It is clear from this account of the Return to the Moon Conference that President Bush has started something remarkable with his Moon, Mars, and Beyond Initiative. The question is, will we have the courage to seize the opportunity presented us?

Charles Krauthammer gives foul scorn to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for ruling that Jews living in Israel have no right to defend themselves. Let me add a little scorn of my own. These judges seem to have as much regard for human beings--if they happen to be Jewish--as the Nazis. Their utter corruption demonstrates the foolishness of trusting them or the UN on anything.

Alex Roth has made an inane assault on the space program and indeed the very concept of space travel. It contains an astonishng contradiction:

The Cold War era ideology spawned not only space travel, but also dozens of instances of technological overreaching here on Earth. In 1960, R. Buckminster Fuller was hailed as a visionary, in part because of his plan to build a 2.5 mile-wide air-conditioned geodesic dome over midtown Manhattan.

Toxic DDT was welcomed as a safe way of eliminating undesirable insects, even on crowded beaches. Meanwhile, the government seriously considered building the "Panatomic Canal" -- a new body of water across Panama whose excavation would have been accomplished by detonating up to 250 nuclear bombs.

I wonder if Roth knows how many people in the Third World have died from maleria and other ailments because we don't use DDT. Anyway, I get the impression that he doesn't like technology too much. However, he later suggests:

That money could be spent on math and science teachers, a sane alternative to educational development based on interplanetary Buck Rogers bravado.

But won't science and math teachers just encourage people to dream up all that technology Roth loaths?

More on the efforts of Bigelow Aerospace to build the places where people will live beyond the Earth.

Work on the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter proceeds apace. I propose that we name the thing, though. I propose Calliope, one of the Muses and a lover of the god Apollo.

The National Research Council has informed NASA that humans are better than robots when it comes to fixing the Hubble Telescope.

At the Convention in Boston, Democrats are going to try to protray their candidate as a war hero. But man of the men who served with him have a different story to tell.

Robert Zubrin discusses the science and ethics of terraforming Mars.

The Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST, has emerged from the depths like a B movie creature. It should be sent back in the same fashion.

Your Humble Servant once again opines in the pages of USA Today. This time I use the Cassini mission to discuss the nature of exploration, along the way settling the whole, tiresome robots vrs humans argument for good.

President Bush seems to be on fire on the stump. But then Kerry is giving him so much ammo.

So, we're finally going back to the Moon. But how? The answer to that question is still very much a work in progress.

Two hundred years ago today, Vice President Aaron Burr ended the political career of Alexander Hamilton as well as his own with a single shot from a dueling pistol. Today, in order to do the same thing, a politician has to do something really aweful. Like get caught trying to entice his wife to have sex with him at an S&M orgy club.

Two gentlemen, Robert Oler and Rich Kolker, launch an assault on the Moon, Mars, and Beyond plan that quickly collapses into incoherence. Let's examine it, shall we?

WHAT are you going to be doing in 2021? If the Bush administra-tion has its way, 15 years and billions of dollars later a small number of Americans, who are probably now in middle school, will return to the moon.

That's part of the truth. Partly because of the private sector enablement part of the plan, there will likely also be scores, perhaps hundreds of people visiting low Earth orbit for various reasons. Only a small number of them will be government employees.

It will have taken 50 years to revisit a past national glory.

I would phrase it differently. It will have taken at least forty three years to put right a huge public policy mistake, which was to stop going to the Moon in 1972

The argument for going to the moon goes something like: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration needs a goal in space.

That's not exactly the reason for going back to the Moon and on to Mars. The reason is to transform NASA into a space faring Corps of Discovery, to therefore open up the high frontier of space much in the same way Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery did the American Frontier.

Post Apollo, it has had at least two. The first was to make human spaceflight operational and affordable with the space shuttle. The second was to build the International Space Station. It is hard to view them as successes. Worse, it is hard to see that they have value anywhere near the dollars and talent invested in them.

That is certainly true, but later on we'll find a contradiction or two in this article.

Any future goal will have a similar fate. It will take longer, cost more and accomplish less than promised.

This is what I call the space version of the Vietnam Syndrome. Back in the seventies and early eighties any attempt to exert American military power was opposed by a certain class of people, for fear that such an undertaking would result in a replay of the Vietnam quagmire. Thus, the authors of this piece oppose a return to the Moon, for fear of replicating space shuttle and space station,which were failure, even though previously they condemned it as replicating Apollo, which was a great success. There is no notion that the lessons of the space shuttle and space station have been learned and will be applied, just as the lessons of Vietnam were learned and applied in the Gulf War and the War on Terror.

Human spaceflight in the past 30 years has suffered from one basic defect. It has no tangible connection to our economy or society.

Human spaceflight is a government-run cafeteria. No matter the quality of the product or how well used the service, as long as the government supports the operation it stays open. Contrast this with a restaurant being opened with private money, talent and a unique idea. Success is not guaranteed, but if it comes, then a new world of opportunities awaits.

This is certainly true, though one might argue that Burt Rutan and Mike Melvile have started the great change to that state of affairs.

Southwest Airlines started with three old planes and novel ideas. Any future space policy must put the space station into a structure where the innovation of the private sector can be stimulated.

Here is the first contradiction. The space station is both a failure and the sole hope of stimulating the private sector. It's gets better.

Success will spur competiton. JetBlue, Air Tran and others are not an accident of history; they are a response to Southwest’s success. That cycle renews every industry. Innovation is copied and adapted. Such a cycle can start in human spaceflight.

Burt Rutan’s successful suborbital flight with SpaceShipOne is novel. With private money, Rutan assembled a capable team that used old NASA technology to create a product that has potential past the accomplishment of a goal. Some group is likely to take the product Rutan built and make money providing a service to people.

Rutan is not alone. Elon Musk is on the verge of testing a rocket that will launch the same payload into orbit for about one-fourth the cost of current products. With $100 million of his own money, Musk is imitating Herb Kelleher three decades ago — challenging the basic premise of how rocket science is done. That may be the American way, but it has not been the road traveled by human spaceflight in this country.

This is all true, but we still don't have any public policy proposals that would help these gentlemen.

What stillborns federal policies is NASA’s political protectors— such as House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

Normally a foe of big government projects, DeLay has become a cheerleader for the next big government project in human spaceflight. He argues that NASA projects should be supported because of their spinoffs. He cites cell phones, magnetic resonance imaging and even the Global Positioning System as spinoffs from the past. NASA had nothing to do with any of these.

People who use the word "stillborn" as a verb must be watched very carefully. The slam against Delay is interesting, since the authors equate support for NASA as opposition to private space. In the past this may even have been true. No longer, to my observation.

It is time to formulate federal policies that integrate human spaceflight into American industry.

If NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), had not tamed much of the technology in aviation, in half a century airplanes would not have gone from hops on a beach to spanning oceans. If the Federal Aviation Agency (now Administration) did not strike the proper mix of infrastructure maintenance and regulation, our airline industry would have never started and today would collapse. If there had never been the air mail contract, there would not be commercial aviation, as it is known today.

This all sounds like what the Bush Administration is doing. The FAA have been quite expeditious in giving Rutan and his competitors the necessary approvals to fly their space craft. And it looks like the effort to return to the Moon and go to Mars will be the air mail writ large. For example, NASA is partnering with Bigelow Aerospace to develop inflatable modules. This will provide NASA with the technology to build future space stations and lunar bases and Bigelow the technology to build space hotels and other private facilities. And that's just one example.

That stage can be set in human spaceflight. The space station is the first step. The station’s completion and expansion should be used to stimulate private enterprise and a new method of doing business in human spaceflight. That requires a new mind-set focused on the station not as an engineering or science project, but as an economic one.

How? Again, the authors do not mention the answer to that question.

That means change. NASA should be sent back to its NACA roots. Instead of technology for a lunar trip for a few, the talents at NASA need to be put to work developing the technology that allows America as a nation to go into space.

Funny. I think Rutan and company are doing that already. Turning our backs on the Moon will not advance their efforts by a day. Proceeding to the Moon and using that as part of a core market (i.e. the air mail) just might be of enormous help. Wouldn't it be ironic if the first explorers to return to the Moon took the first leg of their trip via private charter?

A structure needs to be put in place for the space station, which allows industry to use that technology to build new products that create private infrastructure in human spaceflight one, but not the only model. Government efforts should nurture that infrastructure.

Again, how? One could suppose that the authors are implying that the space station should be turned into a micro gravity research center, subsidized by the government. But one cannot be certain.

Absent that refocusing, human spaceflight is doomed to whatever dollars that the political process can coerce out of the taxpayers. For all the billions spent, the great frontier will never be conquered. Industries that help reverse the flow of high-tech jobs overseas, or bring products that change America will never be created.

And instead will be created in China and India, both of which have humans to the Moon ambitions.

What would change look like? NASA’s aircraft that simulates microgravity, The Vomit Comet, could today be mothballed in favor of private enterprise. A company that provides the service on a comparable type aircraft under federal certification could do what politicians such as DeLay are always in the abstract clamoring for: privatize federal services.

This is, of course, a tiny thing, though privitizing the Vomit Comet is certainly a good idea.

Change would be hard. If the Comet is grounded and its services provided by a private company, there will be a new reality. Jobs would change, but the ones created would no longer be one federal budget from vanishing. Instead of flights a few times a week, a private company would on its off days do what it is doing now — fly private citizens. Because the government is paying part of the fixed cost, those flights might be cheaper and attract more people. That means they would come to Houston and rent hotel rooms and cars and do what most travelers do — spend money that creates jobs.

I'm a little puzzled by this notion of the government "paying part of the fixed cost." Sounds like a subsidy to me.

This is the reason politicians in Houston chase a National Football League team and all the other attractions that make our city what it is. It is time to make our national human spaceflight effort a tool that — instead of spending billions of taxpayer dollars as far as the eye can see — enables the industries that will grow our economy, enrich our city and nation, and open space to American enterprise and the American people.

Space flight as Houston Texans football? The mind reels from such an image.

While Burt Rutan and his compatriots are working on ways to get to space cheaply, Bigelow Aerospace is working on comfortable places to stay once we get there. And NASA is actually helping.

Seriously, guys, this is not how you want to start a political campaign.

Kerry and Edwards should get into deep trouble over this.

Whoopi Goldberg delivered an X-rated rant full of sexual innuendoes against President Bush last night at a Radio City gala that raised $7.5 million for the newly minted Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards.

Waving a bottle of wine, she fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia, and boasted that she'd refused to let Team Kerry clear her material.

The candidates' reaction? Outrage? Disgust? Not exactly.

Kerry could be seen laughing uproariously during part of Goldberg's tirade - and neither he nor Edwards voiced a single objection to its tone when they spoke to the crowd.

They hailed the fund-raiser as a great event.

Edwards said it was "a great honor" to be there and insisted, "This campaign will be a celebration of real American values."

Of course.

John Kerry has been a bad Senator and would be a worse President.

John Kerry’s ability to work with others in the political arena has led to him being instrumental in a whopping eight pieces of legislation. Of those eight, five were ceremonial in nature, two related to the fishing industry and one had to do with federal grants for female owned small businesses. For someone who has been in the Senate as long as Kerry this record proves one of two things, he is either completely ineffective as a legislator or his agenda is so far from the mainstream that even his Democratic colleagues can’t in all honesty vote for the bills he proposes. Either way, his past political productivity is such that it would be hard to imagine him getting any “tight vote” legislation passed on Capitol Hill. In contrast we have seen President Bush do this on several occasions…successfully.

Of course.

Michael Moore, the Leni Riefenstahl of the War on Terror, seems to have a new slogan. Today the United States, tomorrow, the world!.

Looks like very little if any bounce for Kerry in picking Edwards, according to Zogby and the AP.

Looks like Burt Rutan is ready to go for the X Prize for real.

There is one group of Democrats who are as mad as hell at the pick of Edwards as VP candidate. And they have the potential to make the Democratic Convention in Boston an entertaining one indeed.

Could this film be the cure for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11? Maybe.

Samual M. Coniglio waxes elloquent about space commerce.

Frankly I'm a litle bit puzzled at the pick of Edwards. True he brings a much needed touch of southern to the ticket and he is said to be entertaining on the stump, as Kerry is not. On the other hand he barely won his own state during the primaries and comes across a little bit boyish. Besides, I can't say I like someone who made his swag by seperating doctors from their money with croc tears and jumk science.

Looks like John Kerry opposed abortion, before he supported it.

One of the objections I've heard to the idea of China as a major space competitor is that the Chinese eschew private, space commercial ventures as much as NASA used to do in the 1990s. That seems to be about to change.

As humanity moves out into space, the need for a space going military service will become more and more obvious. But will it resemble the Air Force or the Navy?

Happy Independence Day to one and all.

Reps James Walsh (R-NY) and Alan Mollohan (D-WV)seems to put their own egos ahead of the good of the country by denying NASA's desire to repogram 2 million dollars in FY 2004 funds to jump start prizes. They should both be ashamed.

Bill Cosby persists in being politically incorrect.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Prelude to Space, a 1954 novel depicting the first Moon landing taking place in 1978 and conducted by a private group, has been optioned for the movies.

Dr. Sam Dinkin begs to disagree with Jeff Bell's assessment of Columbus and Isabella.

Bill Clinton as Gilderoy Lockhart? Perhaps, but where is Harry Potter when we need him?

Ramsey Clark wants to defend Saddam Hussein in the latter's war crimes trial. That's nice. I would be worried if the Butcher of Baghdad had Johnnie Cochran on his dream team.

Hillary Clinton is going to raise your taxes.

The title for the sixth Harry Potter book will be Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

It is entirely possible that most people who travel into space will take the elevator.

George W. Bush confounds his enemies again with the surprise grant of sovereignty to Iraq two days early, to the delight of all except for Kerry, Michael Moore, and the terrorists.

I wonder if Bush has a Florentine banker in his remote ancestory?

Jeff Bell has an entertaining deconstruction of Chris Columbus, whom he regards as a nut case who brought naught but disaster to both the Spaniards and American Indians and is therefore a poor role model (along with Queen Isabella) for space exploration advocates. Perhaps, though I think it can be argued that Jeff is exagurating the downside of the Spanish Empire and ignoring some of the benefits (TexMex cusine, for example.)

One thing that Columbus did by starting the Spanish Empire in the New World that was unarguable is that he galvenized England into changing from an insular, petty kingdom into a world wide empire.

While the Spanish raked in gold, the English got the real wealth of the New World in the form of furs, tobacco, and sugar.

England's former colony and heir to super power status, the United States, has surpassed her mother country in power and wealth, not only to its own benefit, but for that of the world. The US has become a source of wealth creation and innovation that has become the envy of the world. The US has saved the world by taking down Nazi German and Soviet Russia and is now dealing with the Islamofascist terrorists. Freedom rather than tyranny and capitalism rather than state economic control are considered the norm. All because of the United States.

And all because of Columbus.

Jeff Foust examines some double talk by John Kerry concerning NASA funding. However, Kerry seems to favor prizes this week.

Tim Worstall suggests that SpaceShipOne is just the beginning of a process, the implications of which are as profound as they are unclear.

The former Mr. Seven of Nine is out of the Illinois Senate race.

Around the time people start returning to the Moon, thousands of other people may be visiting space by riding an elevator.

There is no fury quite like that of a woman scorned.

Hmm, a conservative oriented film festival.

James Burk has an interesting overview of the beginning of thenew space age. I don't agree with all of his points (for instance, I doubt that Europe as an entity will ever be a major player), but his take is interesting nevertheless.

Keith Cowing has some interesting thoughts on Sean O'Keefe's effirts to reorganize NASA.

One of the books I read on my vacation was the latest in the New Gingrich Civil War trilogy, Grant Comes East. It's the sequel to Gettysburg, the premise of which was the Lee wins the battle by replicating the tactics he and Stonewall Jackson used at chancellor.

Grant Comes East starts to answer the question of what happens next. It is, if possible, even more enjoyable and awe inspiring than the first book. Once again one sees familiar people in unfamiliar situations. The one that brought the most tears to my eyes, was how the 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Robert Gould Shaw (immortalized in the film Glory) wins even more glory than it did in our time line.

Highly recommended.

Just in time for his latest screed disguised as a "documentary", a book telling the truth about Michael Moore.

From the book description on Amazon:

Watching Michael Moore in action -- passing off manipulating facts in Bowling for Columbine, spinning statistics in Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country?, shamelessly grandstanding at the Academy Awards, and epitomizing the hypocrisy he's made a king's fortune railing against -- has spurred authors David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke to take action into their own hands. In Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, Hardy and Clarke dish it back hard to the fervent prophet of the far left, turning a careful eye on Moore's use of camera tricks and publicity ploys to present his own version of the truth.

Postwar documentarians gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary, and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary.

How, they ask, does Moore pull off a proletarian, "man-of-the-people" image so at odds with his lifestyle as a fabulously wealthy Manhattanite? And how large of an impact do his incendiary, ill-founded polemics have on the growing community that follows him with near-religious devotion? Loaded with well-researched, solidly reasoned arguments, and laced with irreverent wit, Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man fires back at one of the left's biggest targets -- politically and literally.

Imagine this conversation between Burt Rutan and Paul Allen a year or so from now, in the first year of a Kerry Presidency.

Rutan: The design for SpaceShipTwo, which we hope will reach orbit, has been completed. I need two hundred million to build the prototype.

Allen: Burt, there’s a problem. Because of the Kerry tax increase, I’m not sure where we’re going to find the money. Also the Kerry Justice Department investigation of Microsoft has forced me to spend a lot of money on legal fees. I’m sorry.

Rutan: Well, maybe I could work a deal with NASA or DOD.

Allen: I doubt it. The Kerry budget cuts mean that neither organization will have money to spend on outfits like yours. I notice that the Kerry FAA has refused to renew your launch liscense "pending resolution of environmental and safety concerns." If you want my advice, go off shore. I hear both the Chinese and the Indians are interested in space travel.

Kerry's war crimes accusations from thirty plus years ago are now being used to attack the War in Iraq.

Dennis Haysbert, who played President David Palmer in 24, will now guest as a fictional Roman General in the ABC miniseries Empire. As the actor is an African American, the charecter's back story should be interesting since Generals of the era in question were Roman patricians.

At first, I swore that I wasn't going to comment on My Lies by Bill Clinton. The entire subject of the 42nd President makes me want to take a bath.

However, an insight has occured and I should like to share it. This is the second ex President this month that we have been caught up in the reexamination of.

The first was President Reagan during his death and week long funeral. What did we remember about the Gipper? The fall of communism, the economic boom of the 1980s, and the renewal of the American spirit.

Now we are looking back on President Clinton. What are we remembering about him? Monica, lies, and impeachment. It must be bitter gall and wormwood for he and his followers to swallow, if they think about it.

This makes the third Thermopylae project that I am aware of.

"It has major themes of freedom, democracy and brotherhood that are very much in keeping with the world today."

The problem is that Athens, not Sparta, was a democracy. Sparta was a regimented police state.

Will Kerry oppose space commercialization because it will tick off the trial lawyers? Read and judge for yourself.

NASA now seems rather enthusiastic about prizes.

Looks like Reagan dead is far more admired than Clinton alive.

June 21st, 2004. Mark down this date, because today space travel passed from the exclusive reserve of governments and government employees to the private sector and the common man. Mike Melville's successful flight is as epochal as the first moon landing. Perhaps more so, considering the implications of the opening of the high frontier of space for everyone.

To Melville, Burt Rutan, Paul Allen, and all the folks at Scaled Composites, glory!

Addendum: More on this historic flight.

More on the upcoming SpaceShipOne flight, including this cheeky observation by Arthur C. Clarke.

Arthur Clarke, noted science fiction author and prognosticator of the future, had this tongue-in-cheek view of SpaceShipOne's role in history: "I told Orville, and I told Wilbur — it'll never get off the ground!"

Yuri Gargarin, Alan Shephard, John Glenn, and now Michael Melvill. Barring the unexpected, SpaceShipOne will make history on the morrow as the first privately built vehicle to reach space.

Bon voyage!

Jeff Jacoby muses on the new vision of space exploration.

Aaron Sorkin has been chosen to write the screen adapation of Charlie Wilson's War and it is an odd choice indeed. Charlie Wilson was a larger than life character, a mighty womanizer and partier, who happened to care deeply about the cause of the Afghan people in their struggle against Soviet Occupation in the 1980s. He was also one of those vanishing breed of people known as the Conservative Democrat and therein lies the problem. Sorkin, for all of his gifts as a writer, cannot write conservative characters to save his immortal soul. He does not understand the conservative point of view nor has he ever demonstrated a desire to do so.

Have a look at the two examples from his work.

First there was the heavy, Senator Bob Rumson, in the turgid, romantic movie The American President, played with mustache twirling panache by Richard Dreyfus. The character had no ideological motivation, except to be affronted that the unmarried hero, President Michael Douglas, has a girl friend. (The story, written pre Lewinsky, had obvious parallels to Clinton, though it cheated by not descending into the sordidness with which Bill conducted most of his dangerous liaisons, thus giving Rumson something more to chew over than an innocent romance.)

Second and much worse was the dumb as a stump Governor Robert Ritchie, played by James Brolin, who served as a sacrificial offering to President Martin Sheen. Brolin would go on to play a really awful version of President Reagan in an infamous and embarrassing miniseries that was so bad that it go knocked off the network venue it was designed for and consigned to cable exile. Brolin's West Wing character was so one dimensional and so awful in the ideological (rather than story driven) election year season of The West Wing that it almost sunk the series and did lead to Sorkin's removal from it.

So, one may excused for having doubts about Sorkin's ability to draw an interesting portrait of Charlie Wilson. Fortunately, considering the collaborative nature of Hollywood, whatever results come from Sorkin's word processor can certainly be fixed, so we'll see.

The Aldridge Commision report on how to implement the Moon, Mars, and Beyond Initiative came out while I was away. I find myself enthusiastic after a quick scan of the document. It's focus on commercial ventures and resource utilization is particularly exciting.

John Kerry, on the other hand, seems less than impressed. His "vision", if one could call it that, seems to be a return of the Clinton era policy of view graph X rockets, playing with the space station, and being stuck in Low Earth Orbit. Yet another reason, in my opinion, that Kerry should not be President, or indeed in public office at all.

I'm back, Tanned, Rested, and Ready. Here is my USA Today piece relating NASA's work force problems to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond Initiative, for those who have not read it yet.

Meanwhile, Rand Simberg points out President Reagan's great legacy in the area of space travel. And it's not the space station.

For the next week, I'm going to be gone, lolling by the banks of a lake in the Texas Hill Country, taking a well earned vacation.

For those of you all who can't bear to be without my wisdom, look to the pages of USA Today, this Wendsday. Baring any last editorial changes, there will be a special treat from me to everyone on the day the Aldridge Commission Report comes out.

Looks like the Aldridge Commission is going to recommend sweeping changes for NASA.

Specifically, the commission will recommend that:

* NASA centers be spun off as Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., commonly misidentified as a NASA field center, is actually an FFRDC managed by the California Institute of Technology.
* NASA allow the private industry "to assume the primary role of providing services to NASA, and most immediately in accessing low-Earth orbit."
* NASA and Congress work together to create three new organizations within the space agency: a technical advisory board, a independent cost estimating organization, and a research and technology organization that sponsors high risk technology development efforts.

Ann Coulter reminds us that the near universal adulation President Reagan is enjoying after the hour of his death, is one more defeat for his enemies.

The heck with putting President Reagan on Mount Rushmore, where he must needs share with others. He needs his own mountain.

The Aldridge Report will be released on Wendseday, June 16th:

MEDIA ADVISORY
WHAT: Rescheduled Press Conference Announcing Commission Report
WHERE: George Washington University
Jack Morton Auditorium
805 21st Street N.W.
Washington D.C. 20052
WHEN: Wednesday, June 16, 2004
12:00 Noon Press Conference

10:30 AM embargoed Report available for accredited media review on site
INTERVIEWS: We will be happy to arrange interviews.
Please contact Susan Flowers at susan.flowers@moontomars.org

Report will be posted to the Commission Web site, at 12:00 Noon on Wednesday, 16 Jun 04.

Looks like John Kerry jumped the line in order for his quick photo op at Presdent Reagan's casket.

Of course President Reagan was one of the most written about Presidents in history:

Has the President's drop in the polls bottomed out? Zogby would seem to suggest that the answer is, yes.

There they go again.

Unfortunately there are still a small group of people who live for their hatred of President Reagan. I am particularly disappointed in Chris Hitchens, who just blew away for me all the good will he had accumulated over the years for his forthright disdain of Clinton and support of the War on Terror.

There once was a man, who saved the world.

Many people living today cannot, I think, imagine what things were like in 1980. At home, inflation in double digits, interest rates in double digits, line stretching around the block just to buy gasoline. Abroad, humiliation and worse at the hands of the mad mullahs of Iran, the Soviet Empire on the march everywhere, two super powers confronting one another with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons across a cowering world.

Then, he was elected. His enemies viewed him with an alarm bordering on hysteria. Would he despoil all the poor first, or would he incinerate the world in nuclear fire? (There was even a famous TV movie made about that last possibility.)

But a curious thing occurred. First, a nation, whose self confidence and sense of it's self had been shattered by the low, infamous decade of the 1970s, began to recover both. It was his sunny optimism that did that. It was that infectious. Then, the economy took off. It seemed that the principle was true, that the less government took and controlled, the more the people prospered.

But that was just the warm up.

The mighty Soviet Empire, that had seemed such a permanent edifice, a force of nature to be accommodated, if not out right surrendered to, went the way of Babylon and Rome. He knew that there are no Empires born that do not, eventually, fall. And that some Empires will fall when they are pushed. Three hundred million people, once enslaved, have become free, because of him. A world did not die in nuclear fire, because of him.

His death was the cruelest of all, as if the great good he did had to be paid for by a long, lingering illness.

And yet, I see him now, mind and memory restored by a merciful God, or perhaps just by some curious process of that quantum state we call the after life. Typically, he is astride a horse, looking upon the world he saved with that wry smile for one last time. Then he tips his hat, reins his horse about, and gallops away, toward that shining city on the hill, into the sunset.

Just like in the movies.

Peggy Noonan, President Reagan's celtic bard, sings his eulogy.

Sixty years ago, an army of young men hurtled themselves against the continent of Europe, then ruled by the most profoundly powerful and cruel tyrant in the history of the world. Through their blood and effort, they brought freedom's frontier all the way to the Elbe.

Twenty years ago, the greatest man of my lifetime celebrated their achievement. That man would, eventually through force of will and vision, push back freedom's frontier all the way to the Pacific.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers--the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.''

I think I know what you may be thinking right now--thinking, "We were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.'' Well, everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him--Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry I'm a few minutes late,'' as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold, and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a rollcall of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore: the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet'' and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They thought--or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together.

There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance--a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost 40 years after the war. Because of this, Allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as 40 years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose--to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.

But we try always to be prepared for peace; prepared to deter aggression; prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms; and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the Earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that some day that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

George Will has one of the better tributes to Reagan the Great. I will have one anon.

It looks like that President Ronald Reagan, breaker of empires, liberator of nations, will shortly be going home.

Addendum: And now he belongs to the ages. Good night, sweet Prince. Flights of angels speed thee to thy rest.

According to Done Deal, a biop of Young Teddy Roosevelt's adventures in the wild west of the 1880s is in the works. It has the rather unPC title of Manifest Destiny.

Jonah Goldberg mourns the absence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her undead lover Angel. So do I.

Lawmakers hold a special order on the future of space exploration.

On the subject of space exploration, House Majority Leader Tom Delay is a lion, a lion I tell you. It looks like Texas House members have gone to war to make certain that the Moon, Mars, and Beyond Initiative becomes reality.

James Burk has some recommendations for the Aldridge Commission.

Congress appears to have pegged a return to the Moon as costing 64 billion dollars, exlcusive of robotic precurssor missions. I wonder if Professor Hill of Rice University (see below) is aware of this study. Remember what he said.

One trillion dollars is a reasonable ballpark figure for only the moon part. Forget Mars and beyond.

If you're reading this, Professor, you might want to consider a retraction.

Julian Bond of the NAACP is a hate filled bigot.

"Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side," Bond told a cheering audience. "They've written a new constitution for Iraq and ignore the Constitution here at home. They draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics. Now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution."

Bond may want to reflex which President took down the real Taliban and then offer an apology.

The option to use astronuats to fix the Hubble Telescope has not been quite entirely closed.

The second unmanned nuclear power probe may be headed for Neptune.

Ray Bradbury is mad as hell at Michael Moore.

If SpaceShipOne succeeds in her next test flight, June 21st will be a date that will live on in history, as it will be the date of the first private manned space flight.

John Kerry flipped off a heckler at the Vietnam War Memorial the other day. I wonder if that is an example of his nuanced style of diplomacy that will get France and Germany to cooperate better in the War on Terror?