Sally Baliunas goes on a trip through space program history with Robert Jastrow.

No posting today–I’ll be attending an all-day meeting that just came up last night, and then at the LA Press Club event this evening, where other bloggers will presumably abound.

Manana.

Will Warren channels Kipling for an hilarious sendup of the Torch.

O it?s Torchy this, and Torchy that, and “Torchy, pack it in.”
It was “Robert, you?re a wizard” when the money helped
    ?em win?
The money helped ?em win, my boys, the money helped
    ?em win,
It was “Robert, you?re a wizard” when the money helped
    ?em win.

Unchastened by belated criticism from his own party, Jim bin McDermott is still at it. He’s apparently bidding to fill the idiotarian gap in the House created by the upcoming departure of Cynthia McKinney.

I enjoyed one of the protestor’s signs.

“Saddam Good ? Bush Bad. This is Baghdad Jim’s Mind On Drugs,” said a sign carried by Brandon Swalley of Lakewood.

Daschle is backpedalling so fast on Iraq that we could probably replace the Saudi oil energy just by hooking him up to a generator.

He also finally got around to criticizing “Baghdad Jim” McDermott.

This is hilarious.

Taking a page from the Dem’s book in New Jersey, Cynthia bin McKinney is now claiming to a court that she should be declared the primary winner because Republican cross-over voters deprived black voters of their right to elect a certifiable loon.

The problem with this novel legal theory is that, if my recollection is even slightly accurate, she didn’t win even if you took out the crossover votes.

Boy, when Cuba says that votes against whites are racist, you’re so far around the bend, you can’t see the bend from there…

I don’t know whether or not the DC area shootings are Middle-Eastern terrorism or not, but they certainly look like some kind of terrorism to me. Let’s see, random people murdered, with no obvious gain to the murderer (i.e., robbery, rape, sick pleasure in watching people die, etc). Yup, I’d say that’s terrorism.

What worries me is that even if it’s not Al Qaeda or related organizations, they may see what a furor it’s caused, and how apparently easy it is, and the light bulb (albeit a dim, five-watt one) goes off above their heads…

Paul Mulshine says that Torricelli wasn’t just corrupt–he was power mad.

“No one would ever really understand why I couldn’t give an accounting of the day,” the future senator wrote of his youthful reveries. “But how could one explain dreams of life and plans of empire with a story of quiet hours in a nearby stream?”

How indeed? American kids are not supposed to spend their after-school hours indulging in “plans of empire.” The typical kid at that age wants to grow up to be a jet pilot or a pro athlete, Chuck Yeager or Joe Montana. Little Bobby Torricelli’s role models seem to have included Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte.

The little boy was thinking big. Perhaps too big. Emperors are by their very nature imperious. Politicians in a democracy, however, generally try to charm their way to power. Not Torricelli. The scream was his regular mode of communication, followed by the threat. “I’ll call your editor!” was the response I got from him once when I asked a simple question. I pointed out to him that he could just answer the question. That was not his style. He wanted to silence the questioner.

This reminds me very much of the biographies of Bill Clinton, who clearly had ambitions to be President from a very early age. A person who is that pathologically power hungry is, in my opinion, a danger to the Republic. I’d much prefer the reluctant but competent candidate.

Unfortunately, our system is set up to select not those are best at being President, but those who are best at, and most enthusiastic about, running for the office. Hence Clinton’s eight-year long, never-ending campaign.

I’m not sure how you’d detect or enforce it, but a Constitutional amendment that disallowed anyone from being President who wanted it that much would be a salutory thing. George Washington established a good model, but we’ve strayed far from it.

There’s a new startup company that claims that it will be able to deliver a half a ton of payload to orbit in less than a year and a half.

Based on their web site, it seems to be Beal Aerospace redux–a big dumb booster, presumably expendable, though it doesn’t state this explicitly (though not as “dumb” as the Beal project–it uses pumps…) funded by a millionaire to go after the existing launch market.

Our first launch vehicle, named Falcon, is a two stage, liquid oxygen and kerosene powered rocket capable of placing half a ton into low Earth orbit. We expect to have the Falcon ready for launch by late 2003, with the actual liftoff date subject to Air Force and NASA safety approval.

This statement in itself would seem to indicate that they don’t know what they’re doing. Assuming that it’s a commercial vehicle, neither the Air Force or NASA provide approval of “safety.” This is done by the FAA.

That’s not to say, of course, that they don’t actually know what they’re doing–just that they don’t appear to, based on that statement at their web site. The personnel list looks competent enough, though it seems a little engineer heavy, and I don’t see any actual launch operations experience there (which will be necessary to jump through all the AST hoops). The only name I recognize, other than Elon Musk (the guy who founded Paypal, and has been funding some ventures for the Mars Society), is Gwynne Gurevich, formerly of Microcosm.

It’s possible that some PR type put the web site together, and thought that it might sound more impressive to say they’ll get Air Force and NASA approval, to the general public who’s unaware of these issues. If so, it’s sad in a different way, because it still means that NASA is associated with space in the public mind, and that nothing is possible without them.

My prognosis, regardless of the technical talent: based on the stated business plan, it will fail. My opinion is subject to change, given more information.