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Excerpt from the Sept. 4, 2005 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:GOING THE EXTRA MILE?; YOU CAN TAKE BRAC OUT OF POLITICS, BUT . . . Isn't BRAC supposed to be immune from political influence? Yes, the powers-that-be did take the...

Now this looks like an accident to me, but I have to admit its alittle wierd. This is the proposed memorial to UAL Flight 93, that crashed after its passengers challenged the hijackers on 9/11. Many bloggers have observed that...

Start-up Firm Building New Space Capsule System

No links to this YET - but the October issue of Popular Science reports on a firm called T/Space which is developing, with NASA backing, and some project collaboration with Rutan's Scaled Composites, a capsule system called the CXV or Crew Transfer Vehicle capable of carrying three or four astronauts to low Earth orbit, and returning for a wet landing, like the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo had.

The launcher is an aircraft launched propane & liquid oxygen rocket. The whole emphasis has been on economy and simplicity of design - and seems to be making some real progress - possibly having things ready to go b\y '08 or '09 - an unheard of timeline for NASA projects.

Best of all, this will be privately owned/operated, flying as contractors to NASA, or whoever else wants/needs to get to orbit. Meanwhile, NASA is proceeding with its plans for vehicles to replace the shuttles also apparently based on a larger, more advanced capsule design for personnel, and a heavy lift cargo launcher, for well, cargo. NASA doesn;t plan to be ready to fly before 2012 at best, so the T/Space CVX could fill a gap to help keep the International Space Station in business until then.

The folks at T/Space emphasize that they are NOT building a shuttle replacement - but perhaps a modern replacement for the truly antiquated Soyuz technology.

This is truly good news - the US must maintain an effective capability for space, if for no other reason, to prevent a default ceding of the ultimate high ground to China, Russia, or whoever else goes after it.

CSPAN's In Depth program from Book TV has now video archived the Harvey Mansfield show from this past weekend. Sure it's three hours long, but while the interview starts slowly (my kingdom for Brian Lamb!) you soon find out why...

Here is an interesting tale of things that cause Federal deficits:The government's $5 billion effort to help small businesses recover from the Sept. 11 terror attacks was so loosely managed that it gave low-interest loans to companies that didn't need...

Maybe this is something that the Louisiana voters can ask their delegation about: Army's engineers spent millions on Louisiana projects labeled as pork. Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers...

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Inter prize Institute has a great piece on the Broken Yardstick that is the official poverty rate. (TH to Real Clear Politics). Here's the problem:According to the latest poverty rate estimates - released by the...

I say problem, and so does Doug Powers:Since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast, federal government programs gained an unlikely critic: Democrat politicians. Some Republicans are also joining in, but Democrats criticizing the federal machine is the shocking political equivalent...

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