SpaceDev is offering your very own space mission on EBay.

Most earth orbiting small satellite missions can cost $25 million or more, not including the launch. To demonstrate the affordability of private space missions, SpaceDev has posted a “Buy it Now” price of $9.5 million. The high bidder will win a spacecraft based on SpaceDev’s Maneuvering and orbit Transfer Vehicle (MTV™).



“I founded SpaceDev to accelerate the development of space, to get the public involved in space and to have fun,” said Jim Benson, SpaceDev founder and CEO. “With our successful launch and operation of CHIPSat earlier this year, and after being competitively selected to provide safe hybrid rocket propulsion for manned space flight, we are offering this unique space mission to the public.”



The high bidder has the right to supply his or her own payload, to name the SpaceDev MTV™ satellite and to name the mission. The winning bidder, which could be an individual, company or government agency, can also be involved in the mission design, satellite assembly and testing (including putting small personal items on the spacecraft), can attend the launch, and can participate in on-orbit operations.



The nominal payload is a camera that provides a view of the launch separation on-orbit, a buyer-controlled camera on the spacecraft looking back down on earth and into space 24 hours a day, or the buyer can supply a SpaceDev-approved payload. The microsatellite camera can be operated over the Internet by the winning bidder, similar to SpaceDev’s CHIPSat microsat, which is the world’s first orbiting node on the Internet. Specific terms are included in the eBay auction listing. Search eBay for “SpaceDev.”

Jeff Foust offers a pretty good summary of the various efforts to forge a new "vision" to take humans beyond Low Earth Orbit. He suggests that whatever the current President Bush offers, he needs to avoid the mistakes of the previous President Bush and devote sufficient time and energy to getting the vision to reality. Jeff doesn't mention, but I will that opposition to going back to the Moon or even on to Mars will be far less in 2003 than in 1989.

Deborah Orin suggests that President Bush's call for democracy in the Middle East is as historic as President Reagan's call for democracy in Eastern Europe.

China's lunar exploration goals seem to have in mind resource utilization.

I wonder if General Clark would consider this as much of a "joke" if it had contained the words, "black and stupid?"

I suspect that the only way Al Qaeda will recover from this blunder is to try to blame it on the Mossad.

Senator Fritz Hollings wants to address the problems brought on by NASA bureaucracy by creating more bureaucracy.

Actually Bush Haters can be pretty funny. But sometimes I worry they will do harm to themselves and others.

About a month ago, Julianna Liu of Reuters asked Your Humble Servant about the implications of Shenzhou 5.

Dr. David Criswell, Dr. Roger Angel, Dr. Harrison Schmitt, and Dr. Paul Spudis inform United States Senators about the hows and whys of a return to the Moon.

Sean O'Keefe says that a new direction for the US space program is drawing nigh.

Dick Morris suggests that President Bush do to Howard Dean what Bill Clinton did to Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich.

The Democrats tried to make the governors races in Kentucky and Mississippi a referendum on President Bush. Looks like they succeeded, but perhaps not with the results they were hoping for.

This Thursday, the Senate Science, Technology, and Space Committee will hold hearings on lunar explorations. The following will testify:

Harrison Schmitt
Paul Spudis
Roger Angel
David Criswell

First of all, in the spirit of full disclosure, I'm the author of a motion picture screenplay now being shopped about Hollywood by an agent about the early life of Julius Caesar. I've also written an alternate history novel, Children of Apollo that has certain historical personages in situations they never participated in, but behaving in such a way that I believe is consistant with their actual charecter.

Well, it is official. CBS has cancelled The Reagans miniseries. Already we are hearing the cries of "Censorship!" Cannot we right winger, Reagan worshipers take a little free speech?

Well, of course we can, though sometimes we wish we could be afforded the same privledge. What we can't tolerate is a pack of malicious lies pretending to be biographical entertainment.

We also wonder why this almost always happens to conservative heroes. (With the exception of course of GW Bush in the splendid 9/11: DC.) Liberals get Sunrise at Campobello and PT 109. We get trash like The Reagans.

It's not that we object to made up dialogue. We understand that is necessary for dramatic purposes. We do object to such when it is meant to lie about a beloved historical personage.

I think that heads should roll at CBS and I suspect they will. I also think that some attempt should be made to produce an accurate and balanced drama about the Reagans. It's a compelling story.

Drudge is reporting that CBS has cancelled The Reagans miniseries. More on the fallout anon.

Dr. Jeffrey F. Bell summons the ghost of Wernher von Braun from the vasty deep, in an attempt to exorcise him.

Update: Reader Mike Shupp has a tart response:

And I for one find it damned annoying. Von Braun's been dead for a quarter century and the Collier articles came out half a f*****g century ago. There are other people to blame the plight of the American space program on -- Presidents Nixon to George W. Bush come to mind, as well as the entire BoB-OMB crew over the past forty years. One might reflect that the sad fact that Apollo came to fruition at the same time as an unpopular war which soured much of the public on high tech projects in general and high tech aerospace projects in particular had something to do with matters. Ignoring all these factors.IMHO, moves Bell's blatherings from the dignity of "journalism" or even "an opinion piece" to blatant libel.

I'm beginning to wonder, in fact....if I were a college prof and wanted my students to learn research methods by writing papers on any particular subject, would I accept any references to "facts" found on the internet? I'm starting to think No.

Too bad in a way. I think one can make the argument that (a) the 1957-1969 period in world astronautics was shaped by great power rivalries and ideological disputes; (b) the period through say 1990 was shaped by declining international rivalries; the mainstreaming of ecological awareness and limited government growth as dominant ideologies; (c) the period since is being shaped by US unilateralism (or "hegemonism" if this really ticks you off) and the mainstreaming of libertarian economic values; (d) ergo, it is reasonable to expect that late 21st century space programs will be largely determined by ideological values and cultural traits which would seem bizarre and maybe even obnoxious to current observers. But I think it's an argument that deserves more than the 750 words of the typical internet article-posting.

Oh well. No one's likely to remember this after a week's gone by.

The sniping over a possible Bush return to the Moon effort has already begun (Via CD Hall).

There are the usual objections. It'll take too long. It's too expensive. There's no political support. We need to develop a lot of fancy technology to do it. All of those supposition are, of course, either wrong or illrelevent.

I point the gentle reader to the plan championed by Paul Spudis using mainly off the shelf technology (Delta IVs, solar electric propulsion, etc) for about $2.6 billion over five years (from start to boots on the lunar ground.)

NASA's First Lunar Outpost plan, developed under the Space Exploration Initiative, came out to about $19 billion and involved building a new, heavy lifter.

The complete meltdown over the CBS hit piece mini series The Reagans continues. The awesome thing is that the people who perpetrated this actually thought that a drama that depicts the former President as an idiotic, bumbling fool who hates gay people and thinks he might be the anti Christ is "fair and balanced."

I agree with some that burning this thing and then producing a complete remake with the consultation of real historians like Lou Cannon is in order. Also people at CBS who wasted nine million on this trash should have their heads in a basket. One should never try to distort history (and all too common practice in Hollywood) when the people who made it are still around.

Iraq has joined Russia in shaking off the bonds of liberal fiscal policy and now has a flat tax.