It would seem that Red Planet Capital is more proof that NASA is not only getting more commercial friendly but is willing to think outside the box.

Keith Cowing has an analysis of the rather austere NASA 2007 budget request.

Justin Feng has some more information of the Chinese tokamak fusion reactor, with some links to some images.

Jeff Foust reviews Return to the Moon, by Rick Tumlinson, et al.

Pat Bahn writes about the Heinlein Prize.

Taylor Dinerman takes a look at the possible new sport of the 21st Century, rocket racing.

Jim Oberg examines Russian plans to return to the Moon and finds somewhat less than meets the eye.

Elon Musk will try again to lauinch his Falcon 1 rocket this week.

Here are some of the cartoons that poke fun of Islam that are being published in Europe and all across the blogosphere.


One would like to think that would be the Prophet's advice to all of the Believers who are rioting and making all sorts of threats. The State Department may be right that these are all "offensive", but it seems to me that Muslims have far greater worries than a bunch of drawings by insolent infidels.

Billy Zane and Gary Busey are staring in a Turkish blockbuster that depicts American soldiers shooting up an Iraqi wedding and a Jewish doctor excising body organs for sale to rich people in America, England, and Israel. This is something out of Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If I had it in my power, these two Hollywood whores would never work in a film again.

And I await with hushed breath for all the Hollywood libs who falsely condemned Mel Gibson for anti-semitism to be outraged.

Addendum: Debbie Schlussel has more.

Clark Lindsey examines the state of commercial space and offers a timeline for the next eight years. Not being a prophet, I can only comment that not all of what Lindsey predicts will come the pass and some things will happen that are not envisioned. For instance, Lindsey neglects any mention of future Chinese missions.

Having seen a lot of these timelines over the past few decades, I can guarantee that Lindsey's will not come the pass exactly as he suggests. Still, there are a lot of fun things in it to hope for.

Missions to the Moon and Beyond.

Meanwhile, Prince Caspian, the sequel to Narnia (the real best picture of 2005, not matter what the Motion Picture Academy has to say) is proceeding apace for a Christmas 2007 release.

Well, a SF thriller set at JPL. Fascinating. Lets hope that Fox doesn't bollox it up like it did with Firefly and a number of other shows I liked.

One of the President's State of the Union initiatives would involve the promotion of alcohol fuels created by various biomass materials. Robert Zubrin (of all people) would seem to agree.

Well, of course.

You Are Mexican Food

Spicy yet dependable. You pull punches, but people still love you.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Today is the anniversary of the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia. At the time, I had these thoughts in the Houston Chronicle, reprinted with some comments thanks to the good folks at Free Republic.

The Sony Reader.

One way NASA is looking to scrape together more money for the VSE is getting international partners on board. John Logsdon, long time fixture in space policy circles and former Kerry space advisors, has been tasked woth rounding up partners. So far he's going to Europe, Russia, and Japan. I wonder why not India, a new, up and coming space power? I would also be interested in how these partnership agreements will be structured so that the cost of coordinating several countries' space programs to not exceed the benefit.

It looks like that the Bush Administration is going to fly the shuttle as planned, but not cover the exploding costs of the orbiter fleet in order to pay for it. That means about five billion has to be found in other programs to cover the shortfall.

To my mind, this is exactly the wrong decision. I understand the wish to "complete" the International Space Station in order to fullfil diplomatic and political obligations. But it seems to me that one should either pay for that wish or else find a cheaper way to do it. Launching some of the pieces of ISS on expendables and using space tugs to assemble them would seem to be one possibility. Otherwise, just about every other thing that NASA proposes to do--including possibly the Vision for Space Exploration--is going to get squeezed.