Both current and prospective. The book is out. Just in time for Christmas.
Victory
The House has passed the new regulation bill (HR5382) with the required 2/3rds majority. Alan Boyle (who properly owns this story, with his diligent reporting over the past couple days) has the latest. As he says, now on to the Senate.
[Update at 6 PM EST]
Alan Boyle now has the full story up.
The Worst Poem Ever Written?
The guys at Powerline may have found it.
A Space Laser Battle Station
…that almost flew in the mid-1980s. From behind the veil of the Cold War, some previously unseen pictures have emerged. Note that this was while the Soviets were complaining about Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
Via email from Jim Oberg, who notes:
This was the bird that the Soviet’s military built and planned to launch without telling Gorbachev — he found out, and ordered the rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.
Conveniently — and I suspect, not accidentally — the orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.
Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would likely have sparked a major ‘Stars Wars’ space military race with potentially dreadful consequences.
Last Chance For Suborbital Regulation Bill
Jeff Foust says that it’s this morning or never. Or, at least, next year.
Keith Cowing has a copy of the letter from Chairman Boehlert to his colleagues, which lays out the issues.
Will They Switch To Sangria In The Pubs?
Some researchers are saying that Irish, Scots and Welsh aren’t Celtic. They’re Spanish.
One Final Update On The Bill For Tonight
A final email from Jim Muncy:
The House Leadership just announced that there would be no more votes tonight.
The House of Representatives will convene at 9am on Saturday morning to consider outstanding votes plus the Omnibus approps bill, etc… so phone calls, faxes, and emails to House Members, especially House Democrats, should continue until at least mid-morning Eastern Time on Saturday.
Remember: HR 5382 is a bipartisan bill that was developed as a compromise between the House-passed HR3752 and the Senate Commerce Committee
Legislative Emergency
From Jeff Greason at XCOR:
As of 1:19 Pacific time, the compromise version of the commercial human spaceflight bill is expected to come to a vote in the House today under a new bill number, HR 5382. The compromise in this bill allows passenger safety regulation by AST — but only after a significant safety problem has been revealed in flight. The bill is currently opposed by a Representative who wants the FAA to have unlimited authority to regulate passenger safety. We encourage timely support for this bill. Text is available at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/
[Update at 5:25 PM EST]
Michael Mealing helpfully points out in comments that:
Oberstar’s number is (202) 225-6211
DeFazio’s number is (202) 225-6416
(these are the congressmen dragging their heels)
And here’s an email from Jim Muncy:
One Hundred And Forty One Years Ago
In a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania, a war-weary president commemorated a new military cemetery, few of which’s first honorees had to travel far to final interment, having laid down their lives on that ground just a few months before. It’s useful to remember the words, in light of the recent election, and all the angry talk of Blue and Red, instead of Blue and Gray:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
A Better Google
If you’re looking for scientific or scholarly results. This has been necessary for a while, with all of the pr0n swamping some search results on regular Google.