Taylor Dinerman rebuts Rand Simberg pretty thoroughly at NRO on the cancellation of the back to the Moon program.

Tom Jones, former astronaut and Fox News space analyst, takes a dim view of the Obama space policy which he calls, the path to nowhere.

Underworld innn spaaaaace!

Scott Brown Demands to Be Seated in the Senate

Senator Elect Scott Brown has demanded that he be seated in the Senate immediately and not on February 11th, when he is scheduled to be sworn in. Scott Brown has cited a number of important votes pending in the Senate.

Paul Spudis, who was not happy with the Constellation program, nevertheless is also unhappyu with the new, Obama space policy.

Bill Nelson Grills Peter Orszag on NASA Budget Proposal

So far the push back against the Obama space policy has been just rhetorical. Yesterday that pushback escalated during a hearing on the FY2011 budget with OMB Director Peter Orszag being grilled by Senator Bill Nelson.

Obama Disses Las Vegas--Again

It is unknown whether President Barack Obama has something against the city of Las Vegas or whether he may secretly want the troubled Sen. Harry Reid to be defeated for reelection this year.

Rahm Emanuel 'Retard' Remark Causes Apologies, Resignation Demands

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has discovered that there is a new word that one cannot say—ever. The word is "retard," and it has caused Rahm Emanuel to have to done something he rarely does-apologize.

Walter Shapiro is the latest pundit to inveigh against Obama's abandonment of the Moon.

'Lost' Season 6 Episodes 1 and 2 'LAX'

'Lost' Season 6, Episodes 1 and 2, 'LAX' occurs after a hydrogen bomb detonates on the island. It also occurs after the hydrogen bomb does not detonate on the island. Thus 'Lost' segues from time travel to alternate universes.

Another account of Charles Bolden's presser at the National Press Club caused this to jump up at me.

The NASA chief did not set specific deadlines or destinations, but hinted that the Earth's moon, the asteroids and Mars and its two moons were on the list as targets for human space exploration.

"Anybody who talks about exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, there are some places that just naturally come to mind: the moon, Mars, asteroids and other near-Earth objects. So those are some of the definite destinations," Bolden said.

But that list does not rule out other potential targets, he added.

"We hope very soon to be able to give you a very definitive time schedule that we hope to reach some of these destinations," Bolden said.

This contrasts to what Lori Garver said just the previous day.

That might have made up for the fact that the space agency's top officials couldn't give a precise timetable or itinerary for future voyages beyond low Earth orbit. "We don't want to set an arbitrary deadline, as has been done," said Lori Garver, NASA's deputy administrator.

There either seems to be some confusion over at headquarters, or else a dawning realization that without some idea of where and when people are finally going beyond Low Earth Orbit, the new space policy is in very serious trouble.

Another conservative gives he back of his hand to Obama's "conservative" space program.

Mike Griffin debated Bretton Alexander about the Obama space policy. I was a little disappointed in Alexander's defense of commercial space; he was essentially repeating talking points without getting into the rationale of privitizing routine space flight.

Mike Griffin on the other hand handily refuted the canard, put out by the Obama administration and its allies on the Internet, that Constellation was inherently "unsustainable."

Not at all. It's called unsustainable because the budget that NASA was told it had was continually eroded by both the Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration and two congressional continuing resolutions.

If you keep cutting the budget, you can make anything unsustainable.

And, unlike Constellation's critics, Griffin has evidence, from the report of the Augsutine Committee, to back him up.

The true story of a space pioneer...

Six reasons for going back to the Moon courtesy of Homer Hickam.

Will Liquid Glass Change Everything?

s a product called "liquid glass" about to revolutionize every aspect of human existence? If the hopes of a German company, which owns the patent to the technology, Nanopool, are realized, a spray-on product will soon be available for a variety of applications.

NASA's Bolden Defends Obama Space Plan

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden spoke before the National Press Club to defend the new direction NASA has been instructed to go by the Obama administration that cancels the space exploration program and funds commercial space craft.

Danny Williams Opts Out of Canadian Health Care System

Those who tout the creation of a single-payer health care system in the United States point to the system in Canada as the model for one that would be fair and available to all. Unfortunately not everyone in Canada shares that opinion.

Michael Belfiore is all for the Obama NASA budget proposal, though he tends to concentrate on the commercial space aspect and pass over the killing of space exploration. But he does have a warning:

A bigger danger is that NASA could become the only customer for the fledgling spaceflight companies, making them de facto arms of the government, with all the attendant problems, and keeping them at the mercy of changing political winds. That's one reason Robert Bigelow, CEO of Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing commercial space stations, shuns government financing. "We don't have NASA currently on our radar screen as a client," he said during today's telecon.

One wonders if that is the real plan, coming from an administration not known for its love of free market capitalism, to not so much enable the free market in space but to incorporate and then kill it.

And The 2010 Oscars Nominees Are...

'Avatar,' the controversial highest grossing motion picture in history, got just two major Oscar nominations; best picture and best director for James Cameron. The rest of the films nominated were an eclectic group indeed.