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Letter in today's Argus Leader:Herseth voting record Published: 09/12/05 It's annoying to see letters promoting Rep. Stephanie Herseth's work in Congress. What's interesting about her sales angle is the notion that Herseth works well with Republicans. Many liberal voters have...

Chad at CCK has a post on the Roberts nomination to be Chief Justice (I checked, Professor Schaff and it really was Chad). The CCK position is perfectly reasonable.I don?t claim to be any expert on the nomination process. But...

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.

Base-closure panel finds overestimation of savings

The final Base Re-alignment and Closing Commission report has been sent to the President. The final version notably maintains Ellsworth AFB of South Dakota as a going concern. Hopefully, the report is accepted.

The Pentagon overestimated savings from base closings by $30 billion and some of its plans for streamlining the Army, Navy and Air Force might have made the services less efficient, a federal commission that reviewed the process said yesterday.

With its five months of work complete, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission voiced its concerns even as it approved roughly 86 percent of what Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended as he sought to save money by getting rid of extra space in the domestic military network. That's on par with previous years, when commissions changed only about 15 percent of what the Pentagon proposed.

Rush Limbaugh?s points out FEMA?s slow past: U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, now retired, used his political muscle to move military support instead behind [the mayor's] efforts. 'To me, it's a reminder that our country can do much better,' said Charleston...

Yesterday, Tim Russert took it to Democrat New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin:New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is defending his actions in connection with Hurricane Katrina, as he was grilled yesterday about why hundreds of public buses were not used to...

As you may know if you've been reading this blog, I'm trying to help out a local law enforcement agency get some relief supplies to Mississippi. Click here for my post with all the details. Here is a local news...

From Pat Buchanan: For the U.S. House minority leader to say the president of the United States is off his rocker and a danger is a rare insult. But it reveals that the Democrats no longer fear retaliation by this...

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