This post, linked by Glenn from the ISDC, reminds me of this post I wrote when this blog was only four months old. It’s not that long, so I’ll repeat. It was titled (as shown over in the left sidebar) “Why This Blog Bores People With Space Stuff”:

As a follow up to today’s rant over our “allies” in Europe, over at USS Clueless, Steven den Beste has an excellent disquisition on the fundamental differences between Europe and the U.S. They don’t, and cannot, understand that the U.S. exists and thrives because it is the UnEurope, that it was built by people who left Europe (and other places) because they wanted freedom.

I say this not to offer simply a pale imitation of Steven’s disquisition (which is the best I could do, at least tonight), but to explain why I spend so much time talking about space policy here. It’s not (just) because I’m a space nut, or because I used to do it for a living, and so have some knowledge to disseminate. It’s because it’s important to me, and it should be important to everyone who is concerned about dynamism and liberty.

And the reason that it’s important is because there may be a time in the future, perhaps not even the distant future, when the U.S. will no longer be a haven for those who seek sanctuary from oppressive government. The trends over the past several decades are not always encouraging, and as at least a social insurance policy, we may need a new frontier into which freedom can expand.

Half a millenium ago, Europe discovered a New World. Unfortunately for its inhabitants (who had discovered it previously), the Europeans had superior technology and social structures that allowed them to conquer it.

Now, in the last couple hundred years, we have discovered how vast our universe is, and in the last couple decades, we have discovered how rich in resources it is, given will and technology. As did the eastern seaboard of the present U.S. in the late eighteenth century, it offers mankind a fertile petri dish for new societal arrangements and experiments, and ultimately, an isolated frontier from which we will be able to escape from possible future terrestrial disasters, whether of natural or human origin.

If, as many unfortunately in this country seem to wish, freedom is constricted in the U.S., the last earthly abode of true libertarian principles, it may offer an ultimate safety valve for those of us who wish to continue the dream of the founders of this nation, sans slavery or native Americans–we can found it without the flawed circumstances of 1787.

That is why space, and particularly free-enterprise space, is important.

Glenn Reynolds has filed his first report from the ISDC, on the status of the Chinese space program. Or to be more accurate, the status of our knowledge of the Chinese space program.

I’m long on record as being concerned about the Chinese in space, when it comes to the military, and sanguine when it comes to them going to the moon. I remain that way. As Glenn notes, when it comes to manned space, they’re simply recapitulating what we did in the sixties, except much more slowly.

Clark Lindsey doesn’t usually editorialize, but he does in this report:

Cooke:

– Powerpoint graphics showing Ares I/V, Orion, Altair

– Factors in selecting architecture include performance end-to-end, risk, development cost, life-cycle cost, schedule, lunar surface systems architecture.

– Implementation according to NASA institutional health and transition from Shuttle, competition in contracts, civil service contractor rules.

– Discusses the studies that justify the Constellation architecture that Griffin had decided on long before he came to NASA as director and long before the studies were done.

– Will get problems like thrust oscillation solved.

– NASA proposes to stay on course through a change in administrations. Surprise, surprise…

Emphasis mine. Are they actually openly admitting that Mike ignored all of the CE&R studies, and just did what he planned to do before he was administrator?

This was amusing:

The Coalition for Space Exploration shows a brand new NASA space exploration promotion video. Gawd. After the last panel I felt like killing myself. No problem. I can watch this video again and die of boredom…

He has some other pretty tart comments as well.

[Early afternoon update]

As Clark notes in comments, that reference to Griffin’s plans were his words, not Steve Cooke’s.