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It's Called NASAWatch For A Reason
02/10/03 00:00:00
Keith Cowing of NASA Watch has an
An Open Letter to Congress Regarding the Columbia Accident. NASA Watch's banner reads “This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something.” It seems as though Keith has been to close to NASA for to long since it seems he hasn't learned anything from NASA's problems either.
Cowing attempts to be concerned with Congress' rush to hearings on the Columbia accident and their predilection for “partisan stunts” and for looking for someone to blame. He at least does suggest that the search for blame should go as far back as those in the Nixon administration to those who thought that NASA was a playground for politicians to play at being engineers.
Keith even goes so far as to state that the lesson we did not learn from Challenger was “how to sustain interest in the excitement and promise of space exploration when things become routine once again.” Which, if he'd thought a little harder would've at least lead to a better question.
Sadly, while the letter started off well, he completely looses any sense of separateness from NASA when he falls back on that Goldin-esque truism of bq. “However, if we take this sad occasion to identify the cause of this accident, enable it to be fixed, and then to move on , we honor their sacrifice by making America's space program better than it was before - empowered with a re-commitment to the cause of space exploration.”
This statement simply shows that even those that attempt to be NASA critics make NASA's (or at least those that set policy at NASA) same mistakes of believing the space program is about “exploration” when the discussion about what the space program is for has never actually been had or the term “exploration” even defined. He even uses the extremely tired nonsense phrase “move onward”. The term “move onward” is simply a statement of motion along a line. Without knowing the direction of the line it is a meaningless statement. You can't have a vector without both a direction and a velocity.
I agree with Keith that if the Congressional hearings turn into what they normally turn into then it will be a complete insult to the Columbia crew. But while “solving the problem and moving forward” won't be an insult it will definitely be a disservice to them. Congress (or anyone for that matter) instead needs to have an in depth discussion on exactly what our goals are in space, including all of the possibilities: science, weaponry, colonization, industrialization, capitalist exploitation, etc. Once that has been had, then it is possible to move forward. In many cases those goals can even be achieved without NASA simply by providing legal frameworks for property and regulations.
Keith sums up his letter with one line, “We need to get it right this time.” But, in an almost grammatically incorrect way he still misses the real question.He never qualifies the pronoun “it”. Until we can do that we're sitting on a point on a graph with a velocity and no direction.
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John Wickman On Lobbying Efforts For Amatuer Rocketry
02/09/03 00:00:00
John Wickman notified the Arocket list concerning lobbying efforts to do what Tripoli and NAR are attempting with their lawsuit. The ATF classifies Ammonium Perchlorate (and other chemicals) as explosives when they clearly aren't (they burn very fast, they don't explode). Only in certain military circumstances do you want rocket propellants that explode. __Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 14:02:45 -0700
From: John Wickman
Subject: [AR] Rocketry Exemption in Safe Explosives Act
On Feb. 3rd, a letter was sent to the Director of the ATFE, Mr. Bradley
Buckles, by a member of the United States Senate. The letter states that
the ATFE has misclassified APCP as an explosive. Quoting from the Senator's
letter to Mr. Buckles, “Congress defined an explosive as any chemical
mixture or device whose primary or common purpose is to function by
explosion. I am told that the ATF claims that the primary or common purpose
of a rocket propellant (i.e., ammonium perchlorate composite propellant) is
to explode. A rocket propellant is not designed or intended to explode.”.
This Senator has taken the lead in fighting for our rocketry exemption and
contacted his good friend, Senator Bill Frist, on this issue. As Senate
Majority Leader, Senator Frist is in a position to help our cause
tremendously. Senator Frist has been asked to help us get the Congress to,
and I quote, “act immediately to make this technical correction to the
Homeland Security Act so rocketry is exempt for the Safe Explosives Act.”.
We are making progress and I will continue to keep you posted. You may post
this to newsgroups as you deem appropriate.
John Wickman
Amateur Rocketry Society of America
__
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Are aliens what's needed to motivate an interest in space?
02/09/03 00:00:00
Michael Skapinker of the Financial Times thinks we need to discover extraterrestrial intelligence before people will get interested in space again. The problem is how “reality has struggled to keep pace with our imagination”. Could he be right?
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I Wish We Had One Of These In Georgia!
02/06/03 00:00:00
While I'd have to have had one of these in Georgia when they were fully operational, I would love to have one now. It'd make a great propellant mixing and testing area. Although you might not want to launch from there. I'm sure its on Russia's watch list. ;-)
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Looks Like CNN Is Getting In On The Debate
02/05/03 00:00:00
While its as pithy as CNN always is, at least they're letting people know the question is being asked.
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Neal Boortz vs Phil Donahue Transcript
02/05/03 00:00:00
Neal Boortz is a nationally syndicated, libertarian oriented radio talk show host. A few weeks ago he walked out of a live Phil Donahue interview for various reasons. He was invited back to get his point across and the result is a rather intertaining transcript of the second interview.
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SUVs vs Sports Cars
02/05/03 00:00:00
Something I've started to notice about those that critique SUV owners. They come in two classes: people that are just opposed to cars in general and would prefer all of us to drive horse drawn wagons so we're more 'in tune with nature'; and people who own sports cars who look down their noses at people who, to their point of view, drive cars that, as I've heard them say a million times, “don't handle as well”. I can't really speak to the first group since they'd be happy living in caves wearing faux bear skins. But the second just strikes me as being jealous that someone has encroached on their domain of “expensive cars”. You can almost hear them whine, “But, we're the only ones who can buy $50,000 performance automobiles!” I can stand differences of moral points of view, I can't stand personal taste disguised as social critique.
In case you're curious what tweaked me about SUVs, This article on Samizdata.net and that second comment from Anonymous.
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Easterbrook on CNN Talkback Live
02/05/03 00:00:00
CNN Talkback Live has Easterbrook on. The audience seems to be focusing on him as though he somehow cussed the astronaut's mothers or something. He's simply suggesting that the shuttle isn't the best way to do something in space. I'd love to have seen Rand Simberg up there instead….
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James Bennett's Take on Things
02/04/03 00:00:00
It looks like the National Review is on a roll. First Rand Simberg and now James Bennett's “Shuttle Dilemma”. But again, he doesn't get to the point of what we actually want to do up there.
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Kings of the High Frontier
02/04/03 00:00:00
Unlike the other articles here, this one is on a rather personal note. I finished reading my copy of Kings of the High Frontier for the second time on Wednesday of last week. I make it a point to read that book and Atlas Shrugged at least once a year. Its my strong opinion that anyone who even attempts to discuss private space should read Kings at least once. Suffice it to say, when I finally tuned in on Saturday morning I was struck dumb. Yes I was just as devastated as anyone else about the loss of life and hardware. But I was also struck by the new, almost painful, relevance of that book. If you haven't read it then do so. Now. It appears that I'm not the only who has had that book on their mind lately: Samizdata:Kings of the High Frontier: a great book suffers undeserved obscurity Survival Arts: Kings of the High Frontier, by Victor Koman.
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