Thomas James mildly fisks a clueless space policy op ed.

By the way, I just got a complaint in the previous post that I'm doing too much politics, and not enough space stuff.

Maybe. I just don't see that much going on in space right now worth commenting on, and if you browse through some of the space related blogs to the left, you'll see that there's not much activity there either (other than at the always-prolific Clark Lindsey's site).

Maybe it's just the dog days of August (and my continuing travails in getting the California house rented and finally getting to Florida), but I'm also getting a little burned out on space commentary. After almost three years of this, and a couple years of Fox News columns, I start to feel like I'm repeating myself. In addition, I just finished up a several-thousand word essay for The New Atlantis (in the mail to current subscribers, probably on line about the beginning of September, at which point I'll put up a link to it), and I'm expanding it into a book, so I don't have a lot of space energy remaining to blog about it unless something really topical pops up.

And I find the story of how the press is AWOL on Mr. Kerry's tall tales, and clearly desperate to prop up his candidacy, the most fascinating thing going on right now.

Maybe Andrew can pick up the slack, but I suspect he's busy as well.

[Evening Update, with thanks to Glenn for the link]

Per Bill Maron's comment, I don't think that space is an unimportant issue for this election. I think that, at least for those interested in space, it's a very important one and an important election, and that Kerry would be a return to the stagnation of the nineties. But there are still over two months to the election, and most people aren't really paying attention yet. To the degree that I'm going to invest much energy, mental or otherwise, in the subject, I think that it would be a better investment to do so in October rather than August.

Rand,

You go right ahead and keep commenting on politics, and whatever else you want to. You're are one of the few bloggers that I actually enjoy reading. Besides, the only interesting space stuff right now is the hard science thet the Cassini mission & Mars rovers are doing, but it's not really all that 'newsworthy' right now. At least it isn't until ET walks up and says "Hi" to the cameras. And the lander hits Titan.

Later!

Greg

Yes our head can't be in the clouds all the time.

Rand, the New Atlantis link is broken - there is a single quote before "WWW".

I for one don't have a problem with the politics per se, your blog has never been just about space. My complaint is that you simply haven't seen a Kerry bashing blog entry or news story, no matter how ridicolous, that you can resist posting a link to.

Well, obviously, ridiculous is in the mind of the beholder, Derek. There probably are some posting on this that are, but I haven't linked to them, as far as I know.

It is an election year and the future of space development for the next 10 years could hang in the balance of this election so the politics are important. With the most of the "mainstream press" doing a fine job supporting Kerry, I've been enjoying the links for balance.

Hi Rand,
Thanks for the link. Usually when I think nothing is going to happen for a few days, one of the rocket startups announces some test, or crashes something, or unveils a new design. It's fun to monitor all that's happening in commercial alt.space.

One recent space news item I was hoping you might comment on was this notice from William Readdy at NASA -

www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=13668

in which he says the agency should use private commercial companies for LEO services:

"In NASA decisions, the preferred choice for operational activities must be competitively awarded contracts with private and non-profit organizations and NASA's role must be limited to only those areas where there is irrefutable demonstration that only government can perform the proposed activity.? One step to foster these goals would be to have operational activities done to the greatest extent possible by the private sector."

I know it's easy to assume the agency is just pretending to follow the Aldridge commission's recommendations but I still think it's remarkable how much the rhetoric in DC has changed. Many space advocates have been arguing for such a policy for many years and it is now transitioning from wackiness to conventional wisdom.

Maybe Andrew can pick up the slack

Unortunately you're right that there isn't a heck of a lot going on in space right now, at least until the next round of X Prize news. I could always post on politics, but I'm beginning to see the wisdom of my mom's advice -"If you can't say anything nice about a person, don't say anything" :-)

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