All posts by Rand Simberg

Save Model Rocketry!

I haven’t mentioned this previously, but I should have. The “Safe Explosives Act” part of the Homeland Security Act, will essentially ban model rockets, or make it so difficult to get and use the engines, because it will require getting an ATF permit, that it might as well.

In addition to being fun and educational, model rocketry is one of the paths that many took to becoming aerospace engineers. There’s a movement afoot to get an exemption for model rocketry from the bill. The details can be found here. Write, fax or phone your Senators.

[Update at 2:10 PM PST]

There’s an article in today’s Washington Times about it.

Model-rocket hobbyists are lobbying Capitol Hill lawmakers for the exemption through faxes, e-mail messages and phone calls. They include Jay Apt, who has flown four space shuttle missions.

“It makes no more sense to restrict aerospace modeling than it would have to ban rental trucks after they were misused in Oklahoma and New York,” Mr. Apt told Space.com.

Actually, it makes a lot less sense. At least the rental truck was actually used for a terrorist act. No one has ever committed terrorism with a model rocket engine.

Zheng He, Again

It’s predictable as clockwork. Whenever space policy raises itself to public awareness, one can always count on someone to warn us about the lessons of the Ming Dynasty. This time, Orville Schell does it in the WaPo.

As usual, the talk is about “space exploration” (as though that’s the only purpose to send people into space, and as though the Shuttle and ISS have much to do with “exploration”). Once again, the great tragedy and decline of China is discussed as though it was caused by the ending of the treasure fleets, rather than the latter being simply the symptom of much deeper problems, and largely a waste of money, anyway.

For new readers, my thoughts on Zheng He and the analogy with space exploration can be found here.

[Via Thomas James]

Unfamiliar With The Concept

The “human shields” in Baghdad have apparently packed it in, after being told by Iraqi officials to actually act as human shields.

Abdul Hashimi, the head of the Friendship, Peace and Solidarity organization that is officially host to the protesters, told the shields to choose between nine so-called “strategic sites” by today or leave the country.

The Iraqi warning follows frustration among Saddam’s officials that about 65 of the volunteers had so far agreed to take up positions at the oil refineries, power plants and water-purification sites selected by their hosts.

It heightened fears among some peace activists that they could be stationed at non-civilian sites. Mr. Meynell and fellow protesters who moved into the power station in south Baghdad last weekend were dismayed to find that it stood next to an army base and the strategically crucial road south to Basra.

Many shields had earlier asked to be stationed at sites such as schools, hospitals or orphanages, but Iraqi officials said there was little point in guarding low-risk targets in any aerial assault.

These folks take the phrase “useful idiots” to a whole new, transcendant plateau.

[Update at 2:20 PM PST]

Everyone else has probably already linked to this, but Charlotte Edwards has the inside story.

And so ends the modern Childrens’ Crusade–not with a bang, but a whimper.

The End Game Approaches

I heard the French ambassador say at the UN today that France doesn’t believe that a second resolution is necessary. On that, they apparently agree with the US-led coalition (though Tony Blair would still like one to provide him a little political cover at home).

Of course, they disagree with our (correct) position that the present one, 1441, allows us to go in and remove Saddam and his weapons by force. They have made it abundantly clear that they never meant for that resolution to be taken seriously–that it was simply a means of buying time last fall until they could come up with another means of buying time. In so doing, they continue to render the UN increasingly irrelevant, because it’s also abundantly clear that Saddam is so far beyond being in material breach at this point that he can’t even see it from where he is, sans a gravitational lens.

It would be nice, for Blair’s sake, if they can get a resolution passed, or at least get a majority for one, with a French veto. The latter would probably finally get the British public firmly on the PM’s side. But either way, it’s hard to believe that we won’t be actively sanitizing the once-Fertile Crescent of dictators and WMD within a couple weeks.