Barack Obama Speaks at the Notre Dame Commencement

One person who must have been delighted at the controversy surrounding his visit to the campus of Notre Dame must have been none other than President Barack Obama himself. Attention was focused by the media on him and he took full advantage.

Is the United State losing the new race to the Moon?

Castle Starring Nathan Fillion Renewed for 2nd Season

Castle, staring Nathan Fillion as a smart alec murder mystery novelist Richard Castle with an eye for detail and human nature and Stana Katic as the straight arrow, by the book detective Kate Beckett with whom Castle is paired, has been renewed for a second season.

A couple of guys whose rocketeer activities were certainly not limited to the Internet have some ideas about how to go forward in space, courtesy of the New York Post. Buzz Aldrin wants to make China a partner in ISS. He's wrong about that, though I could see India, Brazil, and one or two other countries as candidates. Tom Jones, who flew on the shuttle and comments on things space for Fox News, champions the Ares and Orion against their critics.

Meanwhile, Philip Plait, a Hubble astronomer, champions exploring beyond LEO.

Obama Names Jon Hunstman Ambassador to China

President Barack Obama has named Utah's Republican Governor Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China. Jon Huntsman, who speaks fluent Mandarin, is a good fit for the post. But there was also a political consideration.

Alan Bean, Apollo 12 astronaut and artist, has a new book of his paintings coming out, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Moonlanding.

Tucker Carlson Joins Fox News

Pundit Tucker Carlson has celebrated his fortieth birthday and has joined his third cable network, Fox News, as a paid commentator. Tucker Carlson appeared on Fox and Friends Saturday morning to give his views on the news of the day.

Charles Bolden is to be the new NASA administrator. Maybe. Maybe not.

The new Star Trek movie has been beamed up to the ISS for the edification and enjoyment of the crew.

Despite Obama 'Torture Pictures' Leaked to Media

President Obama's decision to reverse himself and not release the so-called "torture pictures" was correct and courageous. Unfortunately, thanks to certain foreign media outlets, the decision was likely futile.

Miles O'Brien has some thoughts about the potential nomination of Charles Bolden as NASA administrator.

I hae no particular opinion on Bolden one way or another. The last ex astronaut to occupy the administrator's office was Dick Truly, whose tenure did not turn out very well. That doesn't mean much, except to suggest that contrary to some of the buzz on the Internet having actually flown in space is not necessarily a qualification.

Also O'Brien is reporting that Lori Garver is going to be Bolden's deputy. O'Brien refers to Garver's rather embarrassing astro mom campaign to fly to ISS financed by public prescription. The mind set that would lead one to think that scheme would work is something foreign to me. She would not be my choice for any public office.

Telephathic solders? Looks like it's being worked on.

Paul Spudis points out that much has been learned since Augustine One which should be taken into account by Augustine Two.

in the intervening twenty years since that Augustine report, several robotic missions have changed the way we perceive the Moon. We found that the poles are very different from the rest of the Moon. The 1994 Clementine mission found large areas in permanent shadow near both poles; the sun never reaches the bottoms of craters here because Moon’s spin axis is almost perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic). Such areas are extremely cold, possibly only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. Water added to the Moon through bombardment by water-bearing meteorites and comets for billions of years could be retained in these dark areas. Additionally, we found areas in close proximity to these dark regions on mountain peaks rising above the local horizon that are nearly continuously illuminated by the Sun. In 1998, the Lunar Prospector mission found elevated amounts of hydrogen in the polar regions, consistent with the accumulation of excess volatiles (including water).

So what do these discoveries mean for lunar return? We now know that sustained human presence on the Moon is possible, largely because we’ve found a source of near-constant power (permanent sunlight) and a source of sustenance and rocket propellant (volatiles, including water). The robotic Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions showed us that the poles, almost completely unknown in 1990, are inviting oases on the lunar desert. There, we can extract hydrogen and oxygen to make air and water for life support and propellant to fuel rockets. The sunlit areas can generate near continuous electrical power, with regenerative fuel cells providing power for the short duration eclipse periods. Locally obtained power and consumables means that continuous human presence is possible, without the enormous expense or unproven technology of large nuclear reactors and the delivery of massive quantities of material from Earth.

And this means:

The more we learn about the true nature of the Moon, the more the goal of learning to live there on a quasi-self sufficient basis appears feasible. This opens up wholly new areas of operations and commerce in space, undreamed of as little as twenty years ago. It has the potential to change the entire paradigm of spaceflight, from a narrow, government-run, science-oriented program, completely dependent upon the caprice Congressional largess to a self-sustaining, free-market program, in which NASA develops and demonstrates new technologies that open up spacefaring by many different passengers and payloads for a wide variety of purposes.

Indeed.

Addendum: Link has been fixed.

Victor Davis Hanson imagines a President named Palin doing the exact same thing that a President named Obama has actually done.

Bones Season 4 Finale

The Bones season 4 finale, The End in the Beginning, used the device of putting the familiar characters of the show and putting them in new roles, though with the usual situation of an unsolved murder.

Kyle Smith takes note of what he believes to be Ron Howard's willingness to insult Christians, but not Muslim. I'm not sure that Angels and Demons does the former (I haven't seen it yet) but there is a reason for the latter, besides the usual political correctness. Christians tend to forgive those who trespass against them. Muslims, on the other hand, put out fatwas and cause no end of trouble to their enemies. Just ask Salman Rushdie.

Just come in the mail, Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan.



Addendum: A reader writes in to bemoan the fact that John Wayne is no longer around to be in the movie. Nathan Fillion, on the other hand...

Is Charles Bolden to be Obama's first NASA administrator? NASA Watch thinks so. If it turns out to be true, it will demonstrate Senator Bill Nelson'spowerful influence on the US civil space program.

Mike Griffin is not impressed with the idea of a review of the Vision for Space Exploration.

"A review that once again asks the question, 'Are the goal posts in the right place? Should we go to the Moon? Should we go to Mars? Should we visit the near-Earth asteroids?' - scrambling that mix again, I think, will not be productive," Griffin said. "The goals have to remain in place for longer than a presidential administration or a session of Congress if you are to get anything out of the space program."

A good point. I favor the review, if only to clear the air and settle certain Internet controversies once and for all, but Griffin's fear is a legitimate one. Abrupt changes of direction that coincide with changes of administration solely for political reasons are not productive.

Nancy Pelosi: 'The CIA Lied to Me'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's latest tortured explanation about what did she know about waterboarding and when did she know it is that the CIA lied to her about waterboarding being used on Abu Zubaydah during the briefings in 2002.

Lost: The Incident Season Five Finale

Lost: The Incident, the fifth season finale of the weirdest show on television, is promised to be the end (for now) of the time travel story arc. Lost: The Incident features a lot of jumping around in time, though, and not just between 1977 and 2007.

Obama Addresses Arizona State University Graduates

President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at Arizona State University. It was a speech that, had it been delivered by a better President and a better man, would have verged upon the inspiring.

Rand Simberg gives the new Augustine Commission it's marching orders. Most are somewhat vague generalities that most people would agree with. However, there is this:

It shouldn’t matter whether it is lunar sortie versus lunar base versus some other destination. Rather, consider an architecture that can address a broad range of requirements beyond low earth orbit. But in order to do that, we need a true equivalent of the Interstate Highway System, not a rerun of Apollo. We don’t just need an infrastructure that is affordable and sustainable. It must also be scalable, to allow an expansion of activity as budgets and markets permit in the future.

That's all well and good, but there are a couple of problems. Is it really NASA's job to do something like commercial transportation that should be built--well--commercially? And is NASA, government agency that it is, even capable of doing that?

My recommendation would be to introduce incentives for the private sector to build a "space interstate highway system" and leave NASA to the task most suited to it, high risk, cutting edge exploration and science.

Then there is this quaint gem, under "Ignore politics":

Think of yourself like a Base Closing and Realignment Commission that provides recommendations for the nation as a whole, not local interests. Let the politicians argue about how to preserve jobs (while ignoring all of the jobs and wealth not being created due to the opportunity costs of their parochial decisions).

Oh yeah, by all means let us ignore the wishes of the people who control the money. It would be a fine thing if all politicians were to high mindedly only follow the national interest. But for those of us who live in the real world, the hard task is to craft the sort of space effort that does serve that interest and will be voted for by the Shelbys and he Hutchisons of the world. That involves, alas, compromise and maybe doing things that are. on close examination, unseemly. But Bismark did not compare Law making to sausage making for nothing.

The base closing commission metaphor is especially inappropriate. The various base closing commissions were voted on by Congress with the promise to abide by their recommendations. The new Augustine Commission was not voted on by the Congress, which would feel itself under no obligation to follow its recommendations should it find them too radical.

Addendum: Rand tries to clarify his position:

The answer is no, and I didn’t say or imply that it was. It is NASA’s job to provide basic technology and incentives to private industry for them to provide transportation services, though. NASA should be a good customer, and purchase commercial services (like propellant from depots, and rides to various locations, including from earth to orbit).

If Rand had actually said that in his Pajamas Media piece, it would have been beneficial. The piece clearly suggests NASA building a space faring "Interstate Highway." In any case we are, so far, in complete agreement, but with one caveat. The time to do all of this is not now, when there is no evidence that the government is actually committed to going beyond LEO, beyond pronouncements and some inadequate funding. The time to start up a Lunar COTS is when there is tangible proof that the government is beyond LEO to stay, such as a small lunar outpost. Rand sort of gets it with the following.

If the private sector had any confidence that NASA would be such a customer, it would be able to raise the funds itself for development of the infrastructure.

Well, duh. If I were a venture capitalist, the way I would have such confidence is for NASA to actually be back to the Moon. Try what Rand proposes today and, as even he implies, no one would be willing to fund it for fear that Congress will yank funding down the road.

Rand goes on:

Though it wouldn’t be unreasonable for NASA to build the first depots itself, to reduce technical risk for the later private investors. This would be the closest equivalent to the Interstate Highway System analogy.

I would regard orbital depots if they make economic and technical sense as a good add on to the current plan. Having NASA test out the concept (with maybe private sector vendors launching the fuel tanks to the Lagrange points) would be a good step.

Finally, Rand stumbles because he doesn't get the essential requirement for everything to fall into place.

What it shouldn’t be doing is developing launch vehicles. We have plenty of those, with better ones in prospect if NASA will provide a sufficient market for them.

There is no market until there are people on the Moon and elsewhere beyond LEO. There are no people on the Moon until (a) NASA does it in the old, expensive style or (b) we wait for the private sector to get around to doing it, by which time we'll be applying to China or some other country for visas. Using (a) we get a small lunar base, let's say, and then the private sector steps in to resupply it (just likes COTS and ISS), only now with the potential for expansion, and NASA goes on to Mars and the asteroids.

That may seem like to Rand to be crossing a square by going around the corners, but in the real world that is often the best way to go.

Bumped

If Obama is Spock, then Bush is Captain Kirk. And who, after all, was the better Captain of the Enterprise?

Is Sarah Palin getting ready to go for it in 2012, While I haven't made any commitments that far out, I rather hope she does as he is sharp, telegenic, and drives the Left crazy.

Michelangelo's the Torment of St. Anthony Bought by Kimball Art Museum

In a remarkable coup, the Kimball Museum in Fort Worth, Texas has acquired the earliest known work by Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Torment of St. Anthony. It will be the only work of its kind in the permanent collection of an American museum.

Obama's FDA Goes After Cheerios

It seems that the Obama Administration has found a new thing to worry about. The Obama Food and Drug Administration is going after Cheerios. Cheerios is a common breakfast cereal that has been a staple of many families for generations.

Deadliest Warrior: Green Beret Vs. Spetsnaz

This week's Deadliest Warrior: Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz pitted two elite commando forces from the modern era in a battle to the death. Almost unique of the Deadliest Warrior episodes, Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz might have actually happened.

Is Steny Hoyer about to make a play to topple Pelosi?

Opposition to Obama at Notre Dame Builds

President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the commencement at Notre Dame University and receive an honorary degree. This has angered pro life students, faculty, alumni, and others who have organized campaigns against it.

Team Italia's entry for the Lunar X Prize looks like a host of skittering spiders.

The Democrats are looking at all sorts of middle class tax increases including soda and chips.

There is an EPA memo that not only suggests that so-called greenhouse gasses have no effect on public health, but that it might have beneficial effects,

Lords of Corruption by Kyle Mills

Lords of Corruption, the latest thriller by Kyle Mills, is the story of a young man named Josh Hagarty, whose life of bad luck and hard scrabble living seems about to change when he is offered a job running a project in Africa for a charity called NewAfrica.

Famous works of literatures as told on Twitter.

Playing the game, here is the one for Nocturne

"Musician and Doctor go to Venice. Thwart international plot and help damaged friend."

And Children of Apollo

"Nixon expands the space program. Six years later, a woman walks on the Moon. The Soviets are not pleased."

Norm Augustine to Review the Vision for Space Exploration

Norm Augustine, retired CEO of Lockheed Martin, has been asked by President Barack Obama to chair a commission to study the Constellation program to send human explorers beyond Low Earth Orbit. Norm Augustine has done this sort of thing before.

Donald Trump Says Carrie Prejean Keeps Her Crown

Carrie Prejean can keep her crown as Miss California. That was the pronouncement from on high by Donald Trump, the owner of the Miss USA and Miss Universe Beauty pageants. Thus ended (or at least should end) one of the most absurd kerfuffles in history.

House: Season Five Finale Ends with Shock

The fifth season finale of House M.D., Both Sides Now, ended with a development that was long expected by House fans. Still, the last ten minutes or so of the House episode came as a kind of shock that is unexpected when it finally arrives.

Atlantis Hubble Repair Mission Takes Off

The space shuttle Atlantis lifted off at 02:01 PM EDT on Monday for the fifth and final Hubble repair mission. The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis will extend the life of the Hubble space telescope until at least 2014.

This month marks a perhaps more obscure 40 year anniversary than the one that will happen this July. The Flight of Apollo 10

Apollo 10 was the final flight of Apollo space craft before the actual Moon landing was scheduled to be attempted by Apollo 11. Virtually every aspect of a lunar mission was tested, with the exception of an actual lunar landing.

Michael Huang is more than a little suspicious of Augustine II.

Wanda Sykes Questions Rush Limbaugh's Patriotism

The controversy over Wanda Sykes' tasteless performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is continuing apace. Critics are focusing on the vicious, unfunny things Wanda Sykes said about Rush Limbaugh.

David Feherty Jokes About the Deaths of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi

David Feherty, a sports analyst for CBS, proved that he shouldn't give up his day job when he offered a little joke (a very little joke as it turned out) in a Dallas Magazine for which Dabid Feherty had to apologize.

Children of Apollo is now available in India.

Palin Derangement Syndrome causes a disturbed man to go after Piper Palin's lemonaide stand.

A guy tests material for a real invisibiliy cloak.

Dennis Wingo presents a vision of the turn of this century.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner: Obama as Stand-up Comic

The White House Correspondents' Dinner is one of those inside the beltway affairs in which Washington insiders, the media, and certain invited guests get to celebrate how wonderful they are. Also the President of the United States has to be funny.

When he visits the Normandy beaches for the 65th anniversary of D Day, it seems that President Obama would prefer that the hoi polloi be kept away from him as far as is possible.

The 65th Anniversary of D-Day is fast approaching. Barack Obama will attend the events on June 6th as George Bush did in 2004 for the sixtieth memorial service. Here is the rub, as of now Obama’s State Department has asked (read demanded) the French government not allow tour guide services to operate that day. It is a big day for Normandy tourism. Yet, the king will not allow those not connected with government to enjoy the day. Obama is very important you know. This is an unprecedented request. I hope the French come to their senses and deny it.

George Bush, on the other hand, was less of a Bourbon Prince when it came to being close to the people.

Compare that with 2004. Security was tight as President Bush and other world leaders were in attendance, but the event was still open to all. A friend relayed the story of waiting in line to use a port-a-potty (a French port-a-potty no doubt, yuck, believe me.) She looks to her left and who he is in the next line waiting patiently? President Bush. Sure he had Secret Service nearby, but he waited like everyone else.

One somehow thinks that Obama discourages even the thought that he actually has to use the bathroom.

That isn’t America and it surely isn’t what those young boys died at Normandy for.

Indeed.

NASA's commercializing space flight proceeds apace.

Star Trek by J.J. Abrams

J.J. Abram's version of Star Trek, the beloved franchise that started as a three season TV show over forty years ago, is spectacular in capturing the character, the humor, and the action that was all that was good about the series.

Reagan a better friend to gays than Obama? Oddly enough, it seems that is true.

Jeff Foust has some interesting historical material from Norm Augustine and Mike Griffin about the cost of doing space. One thing jumps out:

I]t would be a grave mistake to try to pursue a space program “on the cheap”. To do so is in my opinion an invitation to disaster. There is a tendency in any “can-do” organization to believe that it can operate with almost any budget that is made available. The fact is that trying to do so is a mistake—particularly when safety is a major consideration. I am not arguing for profligacy; rather, I am simply pointing out that space activity is expensive and that it is difficult. One might even say that it is rocket science!

Indeed.

Drew Peterson Arrested

Drew Peterson, the ex police officer whose fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, has been missing for a year and a half, has been arrested on the charge of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in a dry bathtub five years ago.

More on the necrophilia controversy Body Works Exhibit of Corpse Sex Causes Controversy

The latest Body Works Exhibit has opened in Berlin, Germany along with a great deal of controversy. This version of Body Works features a male corpse having sex with a female corpse. There have already been a number of public complaints.

Senator Bill Nelson pretty much guarantees that Obama's NASA budget numbers will change after the Augustine review.

Four StarTrek tehnologies tha are almost here and three that are still far off.

Phasers for real?

The new Augustine Commission, to be officially called a "Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans." The goal:

The review panel will assess a number of architecture options, taking into account such objectives as: 1) expediting a new U.S. capability to support use of the International Space Station; 2) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low Earth orbit; 3) stimulating commercial space flight capabilities; and 4) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities. Among the parameters to be considered in the course of its review are crew and mission safety, life-cycle costs, development time, national space industrial base impacts, potential to spur innovation and encourage competition, and the implications and impacts of transitioning from current human space flight systems. The review will consider the appropriate amounts of R&D and complementary robotic activity necessary to support various human space flight activities, as well as the capabilities that are likely to be enabled by each of the potential architectures under consideration. It will also explore options for extending International Space Station operations beyond 2016.

Members of the panel to be named soon.

Apparently the necrphilia exhibit is not going over well.

Obama Cancels National Day of Prayer Service

The National Day of Prayer, first designated by President Truman and made permanent by President Reagan, was celebrated by an ecumenical service in the White House by President George W. Bush every first Thursday in May.

Lost's Follow the Leader: A Recap of the Weirdest Show on TV

One thing one can say about Lost, it is certainly a different kind of show. What other show has depicted time travel, islands that "move", the dead coming back to life, multiple corporate conspiracies, among other things?

Threesome marriages?

Rob Coppinger has a bitter thing to say to those who think that the new Augustine Commission automatically means the death of Ares I.

Before this week's review revelations the blogosphere got excited over comments made by acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese about achieving, in the next decade, a LEO crew and cargo and docking capability and the potential for missions that were beyond Earth orbit but not quite Moon outpost missions

This is one possible end result from the budget compromise due to ISS extension but should not be read as a firm indication of where the agency is going. A Moonbase may still be the target and Ares I may still have its solid rocket first stage come this third quarter

Coppinger describes the process that is about to happen as a "truth and reconciliation" operation.

Truth in terms of what has actually happened over the last five years, what things actually cost to develop and what budget NASA will actually get in the years to come. The full steam ahead "rosy picture" painted by some in NASA over the last few years is apparently light years from the harsh reality we have yet to learn about

And by reconciliation Hyperbola does not necessarily mean the bringing together of previously warring parties but reconciling the need to extend ISS operations with the goal of "returning" to the Moon by around 2020

If you are extending ISS operations, as Hyperbola is expecting NASA to do, you are going to have to review the Moon plan because you simply can not afford to go as far and as fast with one if you are doing the other at the same time.

All I can say is, buckle up. I have a feeling that in the end, no one will be very happy.

More on the ISS extension here. I think that how much or if at all this affects the return to the Moon depends on whether SpaceX can deliver thus mitigating costs of keeing ISS going another four years.

Is the new Star Trek conservative?

James T. Kirk (Chris Pine standing in for William Shatner) tosses off a line about the folly of diplomacy when dealing with intergalactic vermin.

Of course it was James Doohan's Scotty who suggested that the best diplomat was a fully charged phaser bank.

This analysis of Mike Griffin's term as NASA Administrator is a well balanced, candid document that dispells a lot of the canards put out by the Internet Rockteer Club, while still taking Griffin to task for what it regards as his failures. The main failure appears to be dealing with the opposition. The analysis suggests that Griffin was too blunt ad should have schmoozed them, pretending to listen to their concerns, putting them on advisory committees, but giving them no power tomake any decisions. That might have worked or a while, but knowing the folk in the IRC one suspects tha they would not be satisfied with meaningless seats on bogus advisory committee.

Griffin's main problem, as the report states, is that President Bush and the Congress did not provide the support they had promised to keep the return to the Moon program on track. That is a lesson the current President an Congress needs to learn.

Deadliest Warrior: Mafia Vs. Yakuza

Casting Mafia hit men verses the Yakuza, Japan's version of a criminal syndicate, would seem an odd choice for Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior. But it proved to be an interesting, albeit blood splattered and noisy confrontation.

Obama and Biden Go to Ray's Hell Burger

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had lunch together this week. That is not unusual. Presidents and Vice Presidents have been lunching on at least a weekly basis for some decades. The difference was the venue.

With the reevaluation of Constellation about to happen, Henry Spencer is already sure what the verdict should be. Mind, he makes the case for scrapping Ares 1 and going with a modified EELV with far more reason than most, escheweing some of the nuttier conspiracy theories being put out by the Internet Rocketeer Club.

NASA studied this option at some length, and decided that Atlas and Delta just weren't good enough. In particular, NASA thought it would be very expensive to modify them to meet NASA's official "human-rating" standard, which specified what a rocket had to do to be safe for launching people.

Even at the time, some of us had doubts about this. It's unlikely that there was any actual rigging of the analysis, but all too often, the devil is not in the details but in the assumptions.

Of course I'd be interested to know who this "us" is. The more I think of it, the more I begin to think tha a second Augustine Commission may be desirable to settle the question, at least for those people who are rational. I hope that the testimony is public so that it can be followed in real time, before the final report is issued to be chewed over.

Terminator: Salvation is not out yet, and already a sequel is being talked about.

McG is already looking ahead to the next chapter in what the studio hopes will be another trilogy. "I strongly suspect the next movie is going to take place in a [pre-Judgment Day] 2011," McG reveals. "John Connor is going to travel back in time and he's going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They've figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you're going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be f------ awesome. I also think he's going to meet a scientist that's going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick [who famously played the T-1000 in Terminator 2], talking about stem-cell research and how we can all live as idealized, younger versions of ourselves."

Warp dive possible?

Is Obama actually going to try to force Israel to give upher nukes? Not even Jimmy Carter tried that.

Amity Shlaes, author of the must read The Forgotten Man, has discovered incivility on the Internet.

Beam me up, Barry

Looks like the White House plans to trot out Norm Augustine to head up the Constellation evaluation. Augustine has done this sort of thing before, during the Elder Bush's Space Exploration Initiative.

Augustine is a sober, institutional kind of guy who is not likely too propose anything too crazy.

The Kennedy family is preparing itself for Teddy Kennedy's inevitable death, as only it can.

It would seem to be a minor victory for the GOP, but the Republicans haven't had too many of them recently.

Coming soon, the first museum exhibit of necrophilia.

Paul Spudis makes a reasoned argument for a lunar base.

Rand Simberg issues another rant in which he makes personal attacks and utters nonsense.

I think that the Shuttle was a tragic error of historical proportions. But the error wasn’t in the vehicle design per se (though it was a flawed concept as well). The error was in the notion that the government could build a launch system that would serve all of the nation’s space transportation needs.

Good so far. So does Rand propose that NASA try to build, in effect, a lunar version of the STS system?

Now, Constellation isn’t quite as erroneous as that — this time, NASA is only indulging in a conceit that it can build a single launch system for its own needs, and to hell with anyone else’s.

In other words, Rand is proposing that NASA repeat the same mistake it did with the space shuttle, build some kind of system that everyone can use. Not just a national space line, but a national lunar line.

But we cannot have a monoculture. NASA has repeated the mistake of the Shuttle by making its plans and architecture dependent on a single vehicle type (actually, two vehicle types, either of which will shut them down if it fails). There is no resiliency to it, any more than there is currently with the Shuttle.

So is Rand saying that NASA should build two or more vehicles capable of going to the Moon? Not quite.

What I want NASA to do, and would be just as much “NASA’s job” as building an entirely new redundant launch system, is to invest in the technologies and hardware needed to allow us to leave LEO, given that private industry has largely solved (and will continue to improve on solutions for) the LEO problem.

So, leaving aside the quaint notion that private industry has largely "solved" the LEO problem (strange, my trip to the orbiting hotel is not on for next week), what Rand seems to be saying is that NASA should just get out of the exploration business and be a technology hobby house for private industry and that we should wait until private industry deigns to build lunar craft.

At which point we'll have to apply for visas from the Peoples Republic of China, one suspects.

Rand's big problems is that he thinks that the commercial is all. All other considerations, especially national security, are bogus. It would be like campaigning against the Lewis and Clark expedition because it would not build the transcontinental railroad while pushing west.

Shoveling corporate welfare to rocket companies is not the way to incentivize commercial space. Providing core markets (i.e. a lunar base) and being a customer when the service actually exists works better.

Addendum: Rand is really mad now. Leaving aside the personal attacks and the incoherent ravings disguised as policy analysis, I found this interesting:

My point is that private industry can get payloads to LEO, and is not far off (certainly not as far off as NASA is) from getting humans into LEO, given that SpaceX is much further along with Dragon development than NASA is with Ares/Orion. That Mark can’t afford to go is his problem, not private industry’s.

I had thought that the great goal of commercial space was to drive down the cost of getting to LEO. Is Rand saying that just getting payloads into orbit is sufficient? Also, I like SpaceX very well, is actually doing things instead of just talking about it on the Internet. Dragon development is where it is, but it's going to need COTS-D money to start taking people up in the near future. In any event, a lot of the commercial operators are having some of the same cost an technical problems, albeit on a smaller scale, as NASA has. The lesson learned is that space technology development is always harder than is thought. That is true for a nimble entrepreneur as well a bureaucratic space agency. "Rocket science" is not a metaphor for "something difficult" for nothing.

Addendum 2: Now Rand takes his inevitable trip back to the eighth grade by boasting of his own humor and then suggesting that your humble servant is mentally unbalanced. This is what is wrong with space activism, IMHO. If one questions the assumptions of what I call the Internet Rocketeer Club, instead of offering reasoned arguments they go for school yard tactics.

One of the things I have always found off putting is the bottomless rage one witnesses in space discussions. In fact not only the prospect of people returning to the Moon, but private companies becoming real players in space should fill one with wonder and awe. Sure there are problems, both technical and political, but what great human endeavor is free of such?

One of the sad things is that these people don't comprehend how unattractive they look to folks outside the narrow, incestuous culture of space activism. I remember a conversation I had with another writer a few years back and how he described how utterly crazed he thought certain space advocates were. The exception was Elon Musk, whom he interviewed for an article, who came across as calm, reasonable,and yet passionate about what he was doing.

If this report is true and Obama is ordering a new study of the Ares rocket, then the only thing I can say to my friends in the Internet Rocketeer Club is careful what you wish for. The idea of the administration that inflicted upon us the stimulus bill, among other things, now doing rocket engineering should fill everyone with dread. At the very least it will cause months of delays. At worst, it will open up the return to the Moon to the political process to such an extent that we might have to start learning Mandarin if we ever want to see the lunar surface.

Addendum: A source emails me that this may jut be a way to put the argument to rest once and for all. If so, good luck on that. My observation is that the people arguing for other architectures are not very swayed by reason or evidence.

Michael Savage Banned from Britain

Radio talk show host Michael Savage has been included in a list of sixteen people with the dubious distinction of having been banned from Britain for what is termed "extremist views" and "fomenting hatred.".

USS Freedom Joins the Fleet

USS Freedom, LCS-1 is the newest ship in the United States Navy and the most high tech for her size ever built. LCS stands for "Littoral Combat Ship." USS Freedom's primary mission is to deal with "asymmetrical threats", such as Somali pirates and terrorists.

Dom DeLuise is Making God Laugh Now

Actor, comedian, and chef Dom DeLuise died in his sleep Monday night at the age of 75. Dom DeLuise is best known for his roles in comedy films, especially many directed by Mel Brooks. Yet his first film role was in Fail Safe as an Air Force Sergeant.

Cinco De Mayo Battle of Puebla

In one of his periodic rants against NASA's approach to returning to the Moon, Rand Simberg states something that is just incredible:

In my mind, what Constellation should be is the development of an infrastructure that allows us to go anywhere we want in the inner (if not outer) solar system, and then let the national priorities determine what we’ll do with it once it’s in place.

This statement is fantastic because Rand seems to expect that a government agency is going to do this. The problem is that it is not NASA's job nor is the space agency institutionally capable of building and operating transportation systems in the manner he seems to want. Nor should we want NASA to do this. It would be sort of like asking the Department of Transportation system to build a national, high speed rail system.

NASA has proven that it is pretty good at exploring space, which is what Constellation is all about. Mind, a lunar base (and Rand is quite wrong again; Ares V could deliver inflatable habitats to the lunar surface to create a small, lunar base) can be he destination of a lunar COTS program that could grow into a commercial space transportation system.

Of course, the reader will remember, the Obama administration seems to be backing away from a lunar base. My only response is that I am not responsible for folly coming out of the current White House.

J. J. Abrams Begins a New Star Trek

If the buzz reflects reality, J.J. Abrams, who is already famous for such hit TV series as Alias and Lost, as well as the third Mission Impossible Movie, is about the pull of the impossible. J.J. Abrams is about to make a 40 year old TV series new again.

Thomas Lauria: Whte House Treatened Bank with Press Corps

ABC's Jake Tapper is reporting that Thomas Lauria, a lawyer and Global Practice Head of the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Group at White & Case, is accusing the Obama administration of strong arm tactics against opponents of the Chrysler bankruptcy.

Apparently Obama's NASA budget will not shorten the space flight gap.

Arlen Specter is certainly at home with the Democrats when it comes to demagoguery

Specter told Face the Nation that had the GOP listened to him and spent billions more dollars in the “war on cancer,” Jack Kemp would still be alive.

The only problem is that the GOP was quite lavish in spending on medical research.

Apparently NASA managers have two shuttle extension plans, one through 2012 and the othe through 2015. Both require new money.

Jack Kemp: A "Bleeding Heart Conservative" Passes On

Jack Kemp will be remembered for two things. The first is for being the driving legislative force for the 1980s tax cut that broke the back of stagflation. The second is for recognizing that conservative principles could address problems such as poverty.

Bernard Whitman makes a good,well reasoned case for same sex marriage.

Jack Kemp RIP

X Men Origins: Wolverine - a Review

X Men Origins: Wolverine is supposed to tell the story of Logan aka Wolverine and how he got to be the fun loving, amnesiac, feral guy with the retractable adamantine claws. What the film viewer gets is a lot of sound and fury signifying not much.

Keith Cowing is reporting that there will in fact be no studies conducted by Lori Garver and Pete Worden. That would mean that the Obama administration has pretty much decided what it intends to do.

FDA Recalls Hydroxycut

The Food and Drug Administration has ordered a recall of Hydroxycut products, sold in various forms as an herbal based weight loss supplement, because it has been shown to cause jaundice and liver failure in certain people.

Jon Stewart apologized for calling Harry Truman a war criminal. Jon Stewart is still an ignoramus.

David Souter to Retire from Supreme Court

President Barack Obama is about to get his first Supreme Court appointment. Oddly enough it is the result not of the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens (89) or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (76) but of the relatively spry Justice David Souter (69).

There's a bear in the woods. Fortunately there is also someone else.