perfidy

AP reports that the FAA has granted the first ever license to a private, manned suborbital rocket. The Federal Aviation administration granted a one-year license to Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites

"This is a big step," FAA spokesman Henry Price said.

And it is. Up til this point, no private space coprporation has ever gotten much help from the government, let alone a license for a manned spacecraft. The government has often harassed companies trying to mount private satellite launch services.

Things like this give me hope that perhaps, just maybe, it will be me rather than my grandchildren that will get an opportunity to go into space.

Spoons, no lover of George W., makes an interesting observation .

Publicola has a good post up on how the 2nd Amendment is treated in the courts, and goes into some good detail on why following precedent is not necessarily conducive to the rule of law or constitutionality. Good post, but sadly no permalinks or post titles, so you might have to scroll down - the post is from 2 April at 4:13pm.

[wik] Be sure also to read this post from the Smallest Minority, which is linked in Publicola's post.

In the comments to our earlier post about the deaths in Fallujah, Geeklethal said,

May I add that it's awfully suspect that the AP happened to be there at the right moment to record all of this.

Laughing Wolf has some more to say about that:

While I am not quite ready to call the hotel that is the home to most media-types in Baghdad the Caravelle, it is getting awfully tempting. The parallels are amazing, and extremely disconcerting. The fact is, the faces you see on the news don’t go out and search Baghdad and surrounding areas for good stories – they depend on others to tell them of the stories and don’t stray out of the hotel grounds that often. To go wandering around is dangerous, and to go where there is trouble and such is very, very dangerous. The safe thing to do, therefore, is to rely on PAO types and native bearers, I mean, native journalists/stringers to go do the searching and filming.

In far too many cases, those natives are the same helpful people that worked for Saddam and were in fact the minders and keepers of the press. They were the people who blocked them from reporting stories that Saddam did not want told, promoted the stories (remember that there is more than one meaning for this word) that he wanted told, and in general worked to block access to the truth. That such are now the main source of news for many of the Old Media speaks volumes and explains a lot of the coverage that comes out through them...

None of this is good, and most of all it is not good for the media, particularly the Old Media. The questions here are being ignored, and will be ignored as long as possible. What I see here is a mockery of journalism, and one of the reasons I am happy to no longer be associated with what passes for journalism today. What I see here is a betrayal of the principles of journalism and of the duties of a Citizen.

I want answers to my questions. I want them now. I want them in public. The media will avoid this unless they are held to the fire, and that is the duty of the New Media, and of the Citizens of the Republic and all other citizens anywhere who believe in life, liberty, and humanity. Most of all, those who are dedicated to a free press, a responsible press, must demand these answers. The reasons why should be obvious.

Read the whole thing, as it's rather devastating.

As if the first effort didn't give me a full-body papercut and throw me in a deep pit of lemon juice, a group of soulless miscreants has decided that making a sequel would be a fantastic idea.

What movie, you ask? Why, it's Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. From the Movie Web:

The Story: A small group of troopers who find themselves taking refuge in an abandoned outpost as they attempt to fight against the encroaching arachnids-not realizing that a much graver danger is actually infiltrating their unit.

But that doesn't begin to describe the horror. Notice this little tidbit:

Release Date: June 1st, 2004 (Straight To Video)

Starring a group of people you've never heard of, and directed by a special effects expert, you know this is going to be great, character-focused drama. Your hopes will be confirmed when you realize that the genius screenwriter from the first Starship Troopers has returned!

From some movie blog, guy goes to panel to listen to discussion of the abomination, I mean, movie:

Sammon kicked things off with a simple slide-show, and an outline of the movie's basic plot. The first analogy he came up with was that if Starship Troopers had been like World War II (with Gestapo like Psi-officers and a fascist, Aryan-friendly government) then ST2 is like the Korean War. The human-bug conflict has been raging for five years as the flick opens, and humanity is losing the battle - although through all-pervasive, pro-war propaganda, the majority of humanity doesn't know that.

Ross, sounds like an alegory for what's happening right now, doesn't it?

Then screenwriter Ed Neumeier shows up. I have never met the man, but I am certain that he is a sleazy, no-talent assclown. Our virgil in this hell describes the scene:

The other big question asked by Heinlein fans who still feel cheated is about power armour, and whether it'll appear in ST2. It was fairly obvious to me given the budget that it wouldn't, but Ed Neumeier confirmed that was the case... Inexplicably, Ed Neumeier blames himself for the lack of power armour in the first film, saying that it ultimately came down to a 'believable bugs or power armour' argument, and the bugs won. As he pointed out "Some people hate me for that movie," referring to some of the more extreme Heinlein fans out there (some of whom were present in the audience).

Really, why might that be? Aside from the fact that you based your first screenplay on a glance at the book cover and a cursory reading of the publisher's blurb? Jackass.

Fans of the original's sarcastic take on war propaganda will be pleased to know it's going to return for the second flick also, and that Ed Neumeier wouldn't have it any other way.

You mean someone actually was a fan of that clumsy, overreaching satire of something that wasn't even in the book? Great, we need more! Jackass.

I remember that HBO had a "Making of" special before the release of the first nightmare. In it, Veorhoven (or however you spell his retarded Dutch name) and Neumeier went on and on that their movie was an homage to the dean of sf writers. I thought ST1 was bad. It is bad. But now this collection of human trash has to go and make another movie even further removed from the original novel.

I need to go brush my teeth.

No, this isn't that kind of post. No great danes, no leather, and get your filthy mind out of the gutter. Jerry over at Commonsense and Wonder links to an article in the Telegraph about a new book examining the root causes, if you will, of Germany's relative decline over the last few decades. Germany: Decline of a Superstar has become a bestseller in a Germany. Its author, Gabor Steingart, is a political journalist and Berlin bureau chief for the widely read newsmagazine Der Spiegel. So this criticism is not coming from the fringes.

"The GDP of both the British and French is higher than the Germans' and this is a shocking discovery for us. In the 1970s, Britain's GDP was only half of ours."

He is concerned that Germans are unwilling to confront the issue: "It has not been politically correct until now to admit that we're in decline, that the Deutschland Modell is the wrong one."

Mr Steingart says a key reason for the problems lie in what he calls his "core-crust" theory.

The "core" consists of the innovators, the producers and the service providers, while the "crust" are those who contribute nothing to the economy.

At present the crust consists of the two thirds of Germans who are not in work. Germany, the land that produced people such as Einstein and Daimler and inventions such as aspirin, has for the first time been having to buy patents from abroad because it is insufficiently inventive.

That is an incredible percentage - and looking at the demographics, it can only get worse as the German population gets increasingly concentrated in the upper age brackets. If we think we have a problem getting politicians to think about the Social Security and Medicare problems lurking in the not to distant future, its nothing compared to the problems that the Germans and other Europeans face.

"Since 1945 there has never been as small a core and as big a crust as there is today," Mr Steingart says.

According to the Federal Office of Statistics, the average German now spends only 13 per cent of his or her life in paid employment, while men devote 18 per cent to sport, television and visits to the pub and women 12 per cent to eating and personal hygiene. Britons work 250 hours more per year than Germans, Americans 350 hours more.

It is for this reason that Germany is haemorrhaging jobs abroad at a rate comparable with no other industrial land. According to the Institute for Economic Research around 2.6 million jobs have been relocated. This week it was announced that the electronics giant Siemens was on the verge of moving 10,000 jobs to eastern Europe.

Not to be all alarmist and everything, but unless the nations of Western Europe change their course, they could be laying the foundations for some truly bad times.

Just think - an aging population grasping desperately at welfare benefits that simply cannot be supported. Low and declining productivity, and a relative decline in power, prestige and international standing as a result of backward economic policies. A ready supply of foriegn scapegoats - however, the new potential scapegoats are not Jews eager to assimilate but intransigant and increasingly militant Muslims. A pan-European bureaucratic superstate being constructed; one that will write into its constitution the very welfare benefits that will destroy the European economy, that has little if any provision for individual rights, and will give power to unelected bureacrats who have a demonstrated desire to rule, rather than serve, the public.

If fundamental reforms aren't made, I don't see how the Europeans can avoid dire economic problems. And we know what happened last time Europe had a depression.

I've been thinking. For all that I read, the book title thing just wan't jelling for me. So, movies crams:

• Cheaper by the Dirty Dozen - a group of hardened criminals must lead unruly children into enemy territory.
• Enter Pete's Dragon Cute singing Dragon defeats small lonely boy in brutal martial arts duel to the death.
• -or- Pete's Dragonslayer - Lonely boy finds friendship with cute dragon, only to see dragon killed by smelly medieval knight.
• 28 Days a Week - the Beatles go into rehab, leading to psychadelic hijinks and musical numbers.
• -or- 28 Days of the Condor - After all of his coworkers are killed, Robert Redford gains sobreity while outwitting duplicitous CIA officials in rehab.
• 2001 Dalmations Lots of cute puppies go to Jupiter and become superbeings. Many are killed en route by a malevolent computer.
• Threefer: Planet of the Apes of Wrath Intelligent apes fight Bugs Bunny in a dust bowl landscape of existential despair.

I won't even start with the porn titles.

Ralph Peters' analysis of the recent clashes and rioting in Iraq is right on the money.

SEVEN American soldiers died in Baghdad on Sunday because we failed to respond to last week's Fallujah attacks. Whatever our motives, we looked weak and indecisive. Additional enemies believed their moment had come.

In the Middle East, appearances are all.

Intelligence personnel are routinely warned to avoid mirror-imaging, assigning our values and psychology to an opponent. Imagining that our enemies think like us has cost us dearly in Iraq. The bill will go still higher.

Combined with the administration's folly of trying to occupy Iraq with too few troops, our notion that patience and persuasion are more effective than displays of power has made the country deadlier for our soldiers, more dangerous for Iraqis and far less likely to achieve internal peace.

Americans value compromise; our enemies view it as weakness. We're reluctant to use force. The terrorists and insurgents read that as cowardice.

When U.S. forces arrive in a troubled country, they create an initial window of fear. It's essential to act decisively while the local population is still disoriented. Each day of delay makes our power seem more hollow. You have to do the dirty work at the start. The price for postponing it comes due with compound interest...

On the day of the ambush and mutilations in Fallujah, we made another inexcusable mistake. The Marines, who expected to control a major city with a single battalion, failed to respond immediately. The generals up above seconded the decision. The chain of command was concerned about possible ambushes and wanted to let the situation burn itself out. The generals in Baghdad proclaimed, in mild voices, that we'd respond at the time and in a manner of our choosing.

In a textbook military sense, it was the correct response. On a practical level, it was the worst possible decision.

We viewed our non-response as disciplined - rejecting instant emotional gratification. But the insurgents, the terrorists and the mob read matters differently: Our failure to send every possible Marine and soldier, along with Paul Bremer's personal bodyguard and a squad of armed janitors, into the streets of Fallujah to impose a draconian clampdown created the impression - not entirely unfounded - that we were scared.

We broke a basic rule: Never show fear. No matter how we may rationalize our inaction, that is what we did.

Instead of demonstrating our strength and resolve, we have encouraged more attacks and further brutality - while global journalists revel in Mogadishu-lite.

Of course, we're not going to flee Iraq as President Bill Clinton ran from Somalia. But our hesitation to respond to atrocities against Americans has renewed our enemies' hope that, if only they kill enough of us, as graphically as possible, they still can triumph over a "godless" superpower.

To possess the strength to do what is necessary, but to refuse to do it, is appeasement. Since Baghdad fell, our occupation has sought to appease our enemies - while slighting our Kurdish allies. Our attempts to find a compromise with a single man - the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani - have empowered him immensely, while encouraging intransigence in others.

Weakness, not strength, emboldens opponents - and creates added terrorist recruits.

We came to Iraq faced with the problems Saddam created. Increasingly, we face problems we ourselves created or compounded.

The cardinal rule is, show mercy after you've won. To do it before makes winning a lot harder.

Phil has an excellent and nearly Clueless-length post on Gay Marriage up over at Catch Me If You Can. While I fondly remember Gay Marriage Day here at Perfidy, I don't particularly want to revisit it. So go over there and bother Phil.

120 extrasolar planets have been discovered over the last decade, orbiting 105 different suns. All of the planets so far discovered are Jupiter sized or larger, due to the limitations of current astronomical instruments, and none are believed capable of supporting life. However, an Open University team has conducted a study of extrasolar planetary systems to determine whether or not earthlike planets could possible exist.

Using computer models of the known characteristics of a sample of the extrasolar systems, they have calculated the possibility of Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zone - that region of a solar system that is neither too warm nor too cold to allow the existence of liquid water.

By launching 'Earths' (with masses between 0.1 and 10 times that of our Earth) into a variety of orbits in the habitable zone and following their progress with the computer model, the small planets have been found to suffer a variety of fates. In some systems the proximity of one or more Jupiter-like planets results in gravitational ejection of the 'Earth' from anywhere in the habitable zone. However, in other cases there are safe havens in parts of the habitable zone, and in the remainder the entire zone is a safe haven.

Nine of the known exoplanetary systems have been investigated in detail using this technique, enabling the team to derive the basic rules that determine the habitability of the remaining ninety or so systems.

The analysis shows that about half of the known exoplanetary systems could have an 'Earth' which is currently orbiting in at least part of the habitable zone, and which has been in this zone for at least one billion years. This period of time has been selected since it is thought to be the minimum required for life to arise and establish itself.

Furthermore, the models show that life could develop at some time in about two thirds of the systems, since the habitable zone moves outwards as the central star ages and becomes more active.

The team also examined the possibility of planet-sized moons of large gas giant planets might also exist in the "Goldilocks Zone" and also be capable of supporting life. A poster setting out the possibilities will be presented during the RAS National Astronomy Meeting.

Most of the planets so far detected have been (in galactic terms) close neighbors. If half of them could harbor earth like worlds, then the possibility for life is certainly much greater than we thought only a decade ago. Which raises again the Fermi Paradox - where are they? If habitable worlds are common, why have they not developed intelligent life? And why has that life not visited Earth?

Perhaps intelligent life is far rarer than we think it should be. Or perhaps the galaxy is a more dangerous place than our imagined in Star Trek's Federation of Planets, and the really intelligent races don't go around shouting at the top of their lungs - because they know that they'll get whacked.

Sharon says that Israel might move against Arafat

Al Franken has launched his new liberal talk radio show, the O'Franken Factor. His most famous book has, as its title, a reference to a hugely successful conservative talk radio host. The name of his new talk radio show is a rather lame rip-off of the name of a hugely successful conservative TV host's show.

Franken might have more success if he didn't appear to be reacting to conservatives; and instead was offering his own ideas, humor, or whatever.

Meanwhile, Marcland has some good thinks on the whole Air America phenomenon.

As much as I appreciate the effort that the creator of worlds has put into his epic photoshopped picture series, the medium just leaves me cold. Just like Opera, really. I recognize the talent and artistry, but in the end it's just fat people singing in languages I don't understand.

But this one panel really worked for me. Connected, you know, on a deep and personal level. As Allah might say, it makes a kufr feel funny in the pants:

[wik] As an added bonus, I'm unilaterally adding the Creator of Worlds to the blogroll. You got a problem with that, Jew?

Via Drudge, this gem:

"I'm fascinated by Rap and Hip-Hop" said Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry during an MTV Choose or Loose forum. Offering up a heavy dose of street credibility, Kerry defended gangsta rap, freedom of speech and the realities of street life.

The Boston-born heir by marriage to the Heinz Ketchup fortune, offered his perspective on rap music as the voice of the streets.

"I'm fascinated by rap and by hip-hop. I think there's a lot of poetry in it. There's a lot of anger, a lot of social energy in it. And I think you'd better listen to it pretty carefully, 'cause it's important."

Middle aged white candidates should just not go there. Ever.

...Democrats love bumpersticker slogans. It's their major contribution to modern political discourse, after all. A little while ago he Bush-Cheney campaign had a automagic poster creator. It allowed you to enter your own text and create a customized Bush campaign poster. Naturally, many people (apparently starting with Wonkette and The Politburo Diktat but also including all these people - that last one has the biggest list) started having a little fun at the administration's expense. 

Here's my favorite:

Sadly, the Bush-Cheney campaign decided to end all the fun, and now the campaign posterator only can create boring signs with state and coalition group names. It's so boring, I won't even link it. I wrote a letter to the campaign, complaining of their lame attitude. Do they think that conservatives are incapable of keeping up with the vitriolic moonbats of the left? Are we incapable of pithy remarks? I find their lack of faith disturbing.

More of my favs below the fold.

And lastly, my second favorite:

Dodgeblogium has one of the best linkfests I've seen in a while. Rather than poach his stuff, I'll just send you over there. Klingons for Christ! Best of Me!Islamic Country Songs! Damned!

Also from Andrew, but not in that post, is a link to the answer of whether guns cause violence, and the International Jewish Conspiracy's magical demormonizer.

He's on fire, he is.

I (Ross) am editing this entry slightly, because the image it contains is very disturbing. Look beneath the fold for the image, but be warned.

AP reports that Sunni residents of Fallujah mutilated the corpse of an American citizen killed in an attack yesterday.

Later, they hung the bodies from a bridge over the Euphrates.

Residents cheered after the grisly assault on two four-wheel-drive civilian vehicles, which left both in flames. Others chanted, "We sacrifice our blood and souls for Islam." 

Yes, you do.

Especially the latter.

It occurred to me, reading Johno's recent post on the New Puritanism, that we have options.

We could:

• Use the Agreed Alternative Cursing Standard (AACS), where fork=fuck, spoon=shit and dog=god. Along with defending any use of "dick" as someone's name, and "ass" as referring to a donkey, this method covers the vast majority of American English cursing.
• Use the Johnny Dangerously System, where farging=fucking, ice=ass, and bastiches=bastards/bitches. And you can always throw in jokes about last names being adverbs.
• Or we can tell the FCC to fuck off, go to hell, and realize that most of the cretins in this soceity are not going to stop dropping the f-bomb every third word just because they levy thousands of dollars in fines on Janet Jackson and Howard Stern, or that we won't realize what is going on behind the filmy curtain of the "bleep."

The producer of the famous "girls gone wild" tapes has been accused of rape.

The space age began with Tsiolkovsky, a school teacher in Tsarist Russia. His theoretical work moved thinking on space flight from the realm of fantasy- Hale’s story Brick Moon, the works of Jules Verne, etc.- to rigorous mathematical theory. Tsiolkovsky analyzed the requirements of space flight in incredible detail. Before Liquid fuel rockets had even been attempted (the first successful liquid fuel rocket was flown, I believe, in 1928 by the American Robert Goddard) Tsiolkovsky determined that only this type of rocket would have the power too achieve orbital flight. He predicted that the use of staged rockets would allow sizable payloads to be placed in orbit. (He referred to them as “rocket trains.”) He predicted that eventually mankind would create orbital habitats, and that we would eventually make homes in space for millions of people. He said that "Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one can’t live in the cradle forever.”

Though Tsiolkovsky was doomed to obscurity, this visionary saw in its entirety the whole future of man in space- not merely the dream of space flight, but how it would be achieved. And he wrote the earliest of his papers before the first heavier than air flight! After the revolution, he was praised by the Soviets as a forward thinker, and a treasure of the Soviet people. But the Soviet government made no real efforts in the field of rocketry.

In the inter-war period, the only place that serious developments in rocketry were happening was Germany. The VfR, or Rocket Society, was the primary vehicle for this development. Its members included all of the most prominent rocket engineers- most of whom would later work at Peenemunde. Mention of this could be indirect, because at the same time, there was a rocket society in the Soviet Union. Small and not very rich in resources or political connections, the (I think it was the All-Russian Society for Rocketry) members of this group began to develop their own line of experimental rockets. Despite the paucity of resources, they were very successful, building bigger and more capable rockets throughout the thirties.

In terms of social context, the changes in the 1930s are very interesting as well. What had started as private volunteer organizations in the late 20s, became government and military projects over the course of the 30s. Almost the entire German VfR became part of Wehrmacht Gen. Dornberger’s Rocket program at Peenemunde. Similarly, the Soviet group came under increasing Soviet supervision. (It had always been a state sponsored group- but the higher government officials began to take a greater interest in their activities.)

The work of the soviet rocket experimenters could be compared to the more substantial developments in Germany, because the Soviets followed those developments very closely. During the period of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, Korolev visited the Germans at Peenemunde. But despite the influence of the Germans, the Soviet program always followed its own style and purpose.

With the coming of the war, the Soviet program was more or less put on hold. Korolev worked with the Tupolev design bureau for most of the war. Its head and namesake had been in the gulags until his services were desperately needed, and was still technically in prison even while designing planes for the war effort.

When the war was won, the Americans and Soviets divided the spoils of the German Rocket program. The Americans got all the high level engineers and plans, as well as about a thousand complete V2 rockets. The Soviets got all the industrial facilities, machine tools, and trained workers. These were all taken back to Russia. The German engineers became the core of the American rocket program. They designed most of the early ICBMs, and several of the civilian rockets later used in the space program (Most notably the Saturn V by Werner von Braun, still the most powerful rocket ever designed.) American born engineers worked with the Germans, and eventually replaced them, but the genesis and style of the American rocket efforts was and remained German.

The Soviets, on the other hand, examined the V2s they had captured, and incorporated some of its technology into their designs. But the thrust of their design efforts remained Soviet in characteristics. (One can see the difference in Soviet and German/American design philosophies by looking at the first ICBMs. The American effort is substantially like the V2- linear, stage upon stage design. The Soviet R7, used later to launch Gagarin, is clearly not a descendent of the V2. Its stage and a half design, with a central core surrounded by drop off stage rockets is both different from the western tradition, and a obvious descendent of the early efforts of the Soviet Rocket society.) They merely used the industrial plant and workers captured in the war to increase their production capacity.

While the Americans would do some research, and build ICBMs, American efforts in the 50s were rather lackluster. Von Braun, in particular, was frustrated at the slow pace of his adopted country. (This man, and his colleagues, had had to hide their engineering drawings from their military and Nazi party superiors because they had always drawn manned capsules on top of the rockets rather than explosive warheads. While he didn’t have to hide his desire for space in America, the US government was no more willing to fork out the cash for “Buck Rogers Stuff.”) Von Braun had done the long series of articles in Colliers, illustrated by Bonestell, explaining how man could get to Mars, before the first satellite had been launched. But no progress was made in this direction.

The Soviets meanwhile, were preparing to force the creation of the space age. Early Soviet atomic warheads were very large, and this had a direct effect on Soviet rocket development. The need for a large military rocket had resulted in the powerful R7 rocket, and it was realized that this rocket could put a satellite into orbit, and - suitably modified - could put a man in orbit.

The development of the modern space race is well documented, but some points can be made: the Soviet efforts in space completely determined the character of American achievements in Space at least through 1980. America had no real space program until after the Sputnik launch in ’57. The Vanguard failures were due to the desire for a civilian space efforts despite the fact that proven military rockets were available. Explorer, and later the Mercury program were direct responses to Russian successes.

The entire Lunar program was the result of the fact that a moon landing was the first thing that the Americans would be able to beat the Russians to. Every smaller achievement, it was felt, would be reached first by the Soviets no matter how much effort was expended. So America decided, for almost purely political reasons, to aim for the Moon. As a result, the latter half of the Mercury program, and the Ranger, Surveyor, Gemini and Apollo programs were all the result of one political decision that was made as a result of Soviet successes in Space. (And when the political reasons for the program no longer obtained, the program collapsed. Further, all competing programs, some of which had enormous potential, were sacrificed to reach the Moon. This was known as the “Slaughter of the Innocents. Two such occurrences have happened so far in American Space history - the other was during the Shuttle program.)

A second point is the culture surrounding the Soviet space program. Lives were lost due to the push for success: the stupidity and blindness of the Soviet government resulted in hundreds of casualties. The fact that Gagarin was probably not the first man in space. The fact that Korolev was not only denied permission to receive the Nobel prize twice, but even his name was kept secret from the west until after his death. (“The Chief Designer.”) The lack of modern technology forced difficult, and eventually impossible compromises. The Soviet N1 rocket, designed for moon missions, was unworkable - though its existence was kept completely secret. (The existence of the N1 even controlled the timetable for Apollo missions. When the CIA discovered the N1 on the pad, the timetable for Apollo 8 was, if I remember correctly, moved up over a month.)

The Soviet program kept moving forward on inertia after the successful American moon landing. They focused on long duration space missions, and have acquired the most extensive data on Human tolerance of micro-gravity environments. But the end of the cold war in space resulted in confusion on both sides. Neither side had a political goal, but the field was still too politicized for purely scientific goals to replace them.

Now, in at least one sense, the Russians are leading the world again. They are the first nation to move toward allowing a purely private company to lease and operate a space facility. They were the first nation to allow paying passengers to go into space. (Over NASA’s strenuous objections.) Whether this results in more private access to space or not is very uncertain, but it’s still a first. NASA’s sclerotic hold on the American space effort is in noticeable contrast. While these moves are certainly the result of the horrible financial predicament of the former Soviet space program, the fact that the Russians keep trying, no matter how difficult it is, when the vastly richer Americans do proportionally far less is interesting. (Brief sermon, couldn’t help myself.)

Russia continues to pursue its space program with all the vigor that its limited budget allows. They are designing a follow on to their venerable soyuz capsule. Hopefully, we will follow their example in privatising space travel. Of course, we have always been following their lead, so perhaps we don't really have a choice.