Started today, on February 20th, 1962. Amy Teitel has the story (though the URL is wrong — it’s fifty, not sixty years), and Clark Lindsey has some other links. I’ve written a piece that I hope will go up at PJMedia, but if not, I’ll post it here later.
[Late morning update]
My piece is up now.
The preliminary agenda is out. Looks interesting, but there will no doubt be changes leading up to it. For one thing, I’ll probably be on the program.
Thoughts on the strange political bedfellows of bioethics, from Ron Bailey:
These progressive bioconservatives fear that the rich and powerful will use technology, especially biotech, to outcompete and oppress the poor and weak. In their view, human dignity depends on human equality. It turns out that “the party of science” really is just the old-fashioned “party of equality,” science be damned (unless its findings conform to egalitarian ideology). Left-wing biocons seem to believe that protecting human dignity requires the rich and poor to remain equally diseased, disabled, and dead.
It’s always amazing to me to see the people who claim to be the “party of science” so fundamentally in denial of human nature. But of course, if they recognized it, their entire ideology falls apart. But this conflict is one more reason we need to expand off planet.
I agree with Bob Zubrin, and I don’t disagree with his speculation about the motives behind it.
For the record, I think that these people are nuts. But it’s a good example of a recreation that is very hazardous, but that people are allowed to engage in without federal regulators looking over their shoulders. Why shouldn’t the same be true for spaceflight at this stage of the technology? I think that any of the serious vehicles currently under development (i.e., SS2, Lynx, Armadillo whatever) will be far safer than free diving or extreme mountain climbing.
[Late evening update]
Bad link, fixed now, sorry…
Thoughts from Eric Berger. NASA is going to remain a mess until actual accomplishments in space become more important than targeted job preservation. And I don’t expect that to happen any time soon, at least with the current political leadership (and I think that Santorum is likely to be a very bad president when it comes to space policy, as will Mitt).
This won’t be news at all to people who’ve been reading blogs like Space Politics, but I have a piece up at Open Market about the recent (shortened) extension of the moratorium on FAA regulation of space passenger safety.
Jeff Lord is disappointed with both Romney and Santorum’s lack of space vision, though more so with Santorum:
Instead of Bain bashing, Santorum is attacking Gingrich over the ex-Speaker’s vow to return America to space exploration with a vengeance — in the form of a moon colony. An obvious intent to carry forward with the Reagan space legacy made all the more potent by the Obama administration’s deliberate halt to the very idea of a serious 21st century American presence in space. Appallingly, if predictably, Gingrich’s decision to carry forward with Reagan’s vision has already been mocked by the Obama-lite Romney. But Rick Santorum? The would-be “Authentic Conservative”? Bashing Ronald Reagan’s vision?
Emphasis mine.
As is often the case, he doesn’t seem to understand the new policy, because this is a gross mischaracterization of it. If anything, it was the first serious policy for American presence in space, in that the goal was to finally make it affordable to do so, which the Congress not-so-promptly undid with its insistence on a NASA-developed heavy lifter that will not in any way advance the goal while underfunding or eliminating funding for the things that will. I wonder if he is aware that Gingrich was actually supportive of the Obama policy?
…that Newt needs to give. My advice to him, over at PJMedia.
My latest piece, based on a conversation with the proprietor of SpaceX, is up.