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Interesting juxtaposition of spaceflight-related stories here. Private enterprise vs. government bureaucracy?

NASA to Ground Shuttle Program Over Foam Debris

More trouble with the fuel tank foam has caused the grounding of the shuttle fleet (again), pending some resolution of the problem. They KNOW how to fix it...but...when they changed the foam due to new environmental requirements, they started having trouble with it. 'nuff said. In this decadant age bureaucracy trumps good engineering every time.

Richard Branson and Burt Rutan Form Spacecraft Building Company

British entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson, has teamed up with aerospace designer, Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites to form a new aerospace production company. The new firm will build a fleet of commercial suborbital spaceships and launch aircraft. Called The Spaceship Company, the new entity will manufacture launch aircraft, various spacecraft and support equipment and market those products to spaceliner operators. Clients include launch customer, Virgin Galactic?formed by Branson to handle space tourist flights.

These guys will do it themselves, do it right, and make money at the same time!

If NASA is to maintain any credibility, they had better get off their keisters and get going on building something a bit more state-of-the-art than the 50-year old shuttle technology.

As you regular readers of this blog know, one of my best friends from way back in the day, Jesse Perrigo, is currently in Taiwan. He's pulling a full year there with the International Teacher Placement Service, and I think...

The Best Army We Can Buy

Firstly, a BIG H/T to Blackfive for this one. This NYT OpEd has got to be about the biggest load of crapola that the Chief has seen in quite a while, and that's saying a lot!

Not only is the assertion that we have turned our forces into a bunch of mercenaries patently and plainly WRONG according to a simple dictionary definition, but this educated clueless wonder shows a profound misunderstanding or intentional ignoringsome interesting and important history

Just a bit to illustrate:

The bill banning gun companies from dumb lawsuits finally passed the Senate yesterday. Here's an exchange from the News Hour on PBS which discusses Tom Daschle and what happened to the last bill:MARK SHIELDS: The votes were there, Jim. I...

One can't help but look at how the Brits have dealt with the recent attacks on their citizenry and think, This is how it should be done. London Police Nab 7 More in Blasts Probe: Police arrested seven people in...

They won't ever have a chance to do it again. Police swooped down on a posh London neighborhood and traced cell phone calls across Europe to a Rome hide-out Friday, netting the remaining suspects in the failed transit bombings without...

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