I first met Katherine Mangu-Ward at a debate on bioethics in DC a year and a half ago. She was working for the New York Times, as a research assistant for (closet libertarian) John Tierney.

I next saw her in Las Vegas, last summer, at the Space Frontier Conference. She was working on a space piece for Reason, for whom she has apparently left the Gray Lady and gone to work as an associate editor. She’s finished the piece, and it came out pretty well, other than that COTS isn’t a prize, and SpaceX and RpK are competing, not cooperating.

Ed Kyle has a comprehensive description of it, with the history of “the Stick.”

The Chinese have finally admitted that they blew up their weathersat. But no worries:

Liu Jianchao told reporters that China had notified “other parties and… the American side” of its test.

“But China stresses that it has consistently advocated the peaceful development of outer space and it opposes the arming of space and military competition in space,” he told a news conference.

“China has never, and will never, participate in any form of space arms race.”

Well, that’s that, then. I feel much better now.

Jeff Foust has a roundup. With (so far) one idiotic comment.

Is China in control of its own military?

In interviews over the past two days, American officials with access to the intelligence on the test said the United States kept mum about it in hopes that China would come forth with an explanation.

It was more than a week before the intelligence leaked out: a Chinese missile had been launched and an aging weather satellite in its path, more than 500 miles above the earth, had been reduced to rubble. But protests filed by the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia, among others, were met with silence

New to me, anyway. Edward Ellegood, up at Embry-Riddle, maintains a list of links to interesting space articles (particularly as they relate to space in Florida). I’ve been receiving his emails for a while, but didn’t realize that he also has a blog. I’ll be adding it to the blogroll.

My TCSDaily piece on the Chinese ASAT test is up now.

Over at The Space Review, Christopher Stone agrees that the notion of space as a sanctuary from military activity in the twenty-first century is a fantasy.

There’s a lot of other good stuff over there, including some ideas on non-debris-causing ASATs from Taylor Dinerman, a brief history of space-based radar from Dwayne Day, and Paul Spudis’ take on why we go to the moon. Not to mention why so many young people believe in the Apollo Hoax.

I’ll probably have some further thoughts on better ASAT techniques later this week, if I get time.

Don’t hold your breath, Thomas. He has a smarter (or at least more comprehensible and grammatical) Bruce Gagnon rant:

I

I don’t think he has a prayer of getting the Democrat nomination, barring some political earthquake, but is he really running for running mate?

That would be interesting, if he actually became Vice President, because, traditionally, the Veep is in charge of the space program in the White House (Cheney has actually been one of the most hands off in this regard in years). And Richardson has been very supportive of NewSpace (at least partly because of all the hype over Spaceport New Mexico), so that could actually result in some useful changes of direction for NASA.

Not that I’m thrilled in general about a Dem in the White House, of course.

SpaceX’ next launch attempt has apparently been slipped to mid-February, due to a thrust-vector control issue. The static test firing will still occur this weekend, though.