Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

Continuing resolution likely into 2011

3:36 pm

The space war returns! The lame duck session of Congress is now expected to pass a continuing resolution that extends into next year, leaving the final decisions about the budget to the next Congress. This is very bad news for NASA and what’s left of the government space program.

Update: I should add that I’m not bothered in the slightest that this might happen. The money that the present Congress proposed giving to NASA will not make the exploration of the solar system possible, and in fact might hinder that exploration significantly under the weight of government regulation. It is time to cut the cord, and stop depending on the damn government to conquer the stars.

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The coming train wreck for Commercial Human Spaceflight

9:12 am

This post by retired NASA engineer Wayne Hale explains why it probably is a good idea if Congress cuts the subsidies for new commercial space: The coming train wreck for commercial human spaceflight. This is the key quote, where Hale describes the regulations NASA is requiring these new companies to meet:

The document runs a mind-numbing 260 pages of densely spaced requirements. Most disappointing, on pages 7 to 11 is a table of 74 additional requirements documents which must be followed, in whole or in part. Taken all together, there are thousands of requirement statements referenced in this document. And for every one NASA will require a potential commercial space flight provider to document, prove, and verify with massive amounts of paperwork and/or electronic forms.

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School Reverses Course After Ordering Student to Remove American Flag From Bike

5:03 pm

In a victory for free speech (from a battle that shouldn’t have been fought in the first place), a school has reversed course after ordering a 13-year-old student to remove the American flag from his bicycle because some students said they’d be offended. Key quote:

[School superintendent Edward] Paraz says the school . . . now will be shifting its focus to the students who complained. “In no way did we want to take that right away from Cody,” Paraz told Fox40 on Friday. “…We think we know who the instigators are that were trying to do that and we need to meet with their parents and those students to just kind of explain that this isn’t what we want to have.”

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