Mark Whittington (and former Congressman Walker) will disagree, but Jeff Foust has a good piece at the Space Policy Review that explains why it won’t happen, and more importantly, why that’s A Good Thing. I think he’s got it pretty close to right.

A desire for a race with a China that’s simply recapitulating Russian hardware is nostalgia for the sixties and Apollo, and that’s a mindset that we have to break ourselves out of, instead focusing on commerce and lower cost of access. If we ever actually develop an American, free-enterprise space industry, we’ll leave all of the command economies (including NASA) in the dust.

On a related note, Laughing Wolf has a good post on why many space entrepreneurs fail, and why we seem to have made so little commercial progress to date. It’s a lot more fun to draw pictures of rockets than it is to sit down and do the hard work of figuring out markets and drawing up realistic business plans that a non-insane investor will fund. This was a perennial kvetch of the late G. Harry Stine (who used to harangue the attendees of the Space Access Conference on this subject every year).

Fortunately, I think that’s changing. I’ve tried to pick up the lecture where he lamentably left off, and I think that it’s finally sinking in, because we did see some serious companies with serious proposals, starting to raise serious money this year.

I’m very optimistic about this industry right now. We’re not going to get to orbit overnight, but some interesting things are going to happen in the next couple years that I think will have dramatic effects on both the quality of business plans, and the receptiveness of investors toward them. And it will ultimately get us into orbit much faster than any number of NASA programs (from which the prospects of the latter are, in my opinion, null).

Here is a graphic illustration of the absurdity and meaninglessness of labeling everyone on a left-right axis.

It has Glenn in the center, and the only two people further to the right than me are (possibly–it’s hard to tell for sure) Susanna Cornett and Iain Murray. I’ve never done a calibration, but having known him for many years, both on and off the internet, I suspect that my views line up with Glenn’s with about a ninety percent correlation (though it’s been much longer since I was a Democrat than it’s been since he was).

Sorry to disappoint, folks, but I’m not a conservative, regardless of how many people mistakenly call me one.

I’d like to know the methodology (for instance, why two instantiations of Little Green Footballs?), but, as I said above, it doesn’t matter, because the whole notion of trying to put people on a simplistic one-dimensional axis has no utility.

There are many “artists” in Hollywood who I wish would emulate this guy. He sets a great example.

Speaking of the New York Post, John Podhoretz writes that it’s not enough to get rid of Raines, and Boyd, Bragg and Blair. The rot comes from the top, and there’s nothing to indicate that the basic arrogance, and ongoing delusion that the paper is objective, will go away with them.

I’m reminded (as I often am) by a Simpsons episode. It’s one of the Halloween shorts, in which Mr. Burns is a vampire (as opposed to most episodes, in which he’s merely a blood sucking parasite). After putting the stake through him, they realize that it wasn’t enough–they had to kill the head vampire (which turned out to be Marge).

The board of the Paper Formerly Known As The Paper Of Record still has to kill their head vampire.

A bill has been introduced in the House to provide tax credits for private investment in space transportation.

I don’t know whether or not this will actually become law, or even if it should.

I’ve got mixed feelings about about it. I’m all in favor of things that encourage investment in this area, but I hate the idea of further mucking up an already-complicated tax code, and I’m afraid that it may result in some things getting funded that aren’t necessarily viable, just for the tax credit, which won’t help the credibility of the industry. I don’t want it to become another hothouse plant like solar energy.

I also wonder how reasonable the process will be to determine whether or not company qualifies.

The front page of today’s New York Post has a headline, in Second Coming font, “Paper of Wreckage,” with a picture of Raines.

There’s also a want ad:

Help Wanted

Executive Editor for Manhattan-based newspaper of record. Lefty francophile with diversity obsession and knack for plugging circulation leaks.

Allergic to Republicans okay. Tolerance for high taxes a must. America-basher a plus.

Respect for facts optional.

The front page of today’s New York Post has a headline, in Second Coming font, “Paper of Wreckage,” with a picture of Raines.

There’s also a want ad:

Help Wanted

Executive Editor for Manhattan-based newspaper of record. Lefty francophile with diversity obsession and knack for plugging circulation leaks.

Allergic to Republicans okay. Tolerance for high taxes a must. America-basher a plus.

Respect for facts optional.

The front page of today’s New York Post has a headline, in Second Coming font, “Paper of Wreckage,” with a picture of Raines.

There’s also a want ad:

Help Wanted

Executive Editor for Manhattan-based newspaper of record. Lefty francophile with diversity obsession and knack for plugging circulation leaks.

Allergic to Republicans okay. Tolerance for high taxes a must. America-basher a plus.

Respect for facts optional.

FBI agents are getting lessons in how to be teenage girls–from teenage girls.

“Around the FBI offices, Karen, Mary and Kristin have become like the agents’ adopted daughters, getting hugs and high-fives from their students. But naturally, the adults often think they know best.

One agent kept insisting that he was right when he answered on a quiz that Justin Timberlake was more popular than Destiny’s Child. Another was miffed when the girls told the class that Led Zeppelin was just not cool…

…And the younger female FBI agents assumed that teenage girls would think actor George Clooney is cute.

We’re, like, no,” said Mary, making a face.

“He’s, like, 50,” Karen exclaimed.

[via Geek Press]

[Update at 9:09 AM PDT]

Heh. Fark (no surprise) has a comments section running on it:

There once was an agent in disguise,
In search of some paedophile guys.
He tried to pretend,
But could not transcend,
The gender Led Zeppelin implies.

FBI agents are getting lessons in how to be teenage girls–from teenage girls.

“Around the FBI offices, Karen, Mary and Kristin have become like the agents’ adopted daughters, getting hugs and high-fives from their students. But naturally, the adults often think they know best.

One agent kept insisting that he was right when he answered on a quiz that Justin Timberlake was more popular than Destiny’s Child. Another was miffed when the girls told the class that Led Zeppelin was just not cool…

…And the younger female FBI agents assumed that teenage girls would think actor George Clooney is cute.

We’re, like, no,” said Mary, making a face.

“He’s, like, 50,” Karen exclaimed.

[via Geek Press]

[Update at 9:09 AM PDT]

Heh. Fark (no surprise) has a comments section running on it:

There once was an agent in disguise,
In search of some paedophile guys.
He tried to pretend,
But could not transcend,
The gender Led Zeppelin implies.