I haven’t (yet) commented on the American Physical Society’s little screed against human exploration, but the membership should be embarrassed over this. Keith Cowing is being threatened with a slander suit (why slander? Why not libel–it was published on his web site?) for criticizing it.
I think that they need to get someone for their public affairs office who knows how to actually deal with the public. Professor Lubell is not as bad as this guy (yet), but he shows promise. And now I suppose he’ll send me a threatening email, too.
Mark Whittington contrasts the President’s space initiative with that of his father. Suffice it to say that the current one has much better prospects for success, or at least lasting beyond his term.
Glenn has a piece at his MSNBC site wrapping up last week’s arguments over safety and the coincidental passage of the new launch regulation legislation by the House. It’s a good roundup, but when he writes:
That’s how we took aviation from an expensive and risky activity, mostly the province of governments, to a safe and reliable means of transport.
He’s mistaken. Actually (and fortunately), aviation has never been mostly the province of governments, starting from the beginning with the Wrights. Had it been, we’d probably still be arguing about whether to build National Air Transportation System II (after the necessary technology had been proven out), or whether to just increase the fleet size of the current, dangerous “Air Shuttle” from three to five…
He also says that the legislation passed on Friday afternoon. Actually, it didn’t happen until Saturday.
I know that this proposal by Greg Zsidisin isn’t serious, but it does demonstrate just how deranged some otherwise intelligent people have become at the prospect of Democrats no longer being in power. It’s not particularly clever satire. I think it’s just sad.
And by the way, Greg, perhaps in your conspiratorial dreamworld in which the new Inquisition with corporate sponsorship by Enron and Halliburton will start any day, Tom Delay is a senator, but in this universe, he’s the majority leader of the House.
Things were a little too frenzied in the past few days to actually spend much time analyzing the legislation, but now that the shouting is over, Nathan Horsley has an analysis of the legal effects of the launch legislation passed by the House this weekend. I agree with it, and share his concern that the compromise language inserted in the bill may cause the good people at FAA-AST to be more (and possibly too) concerned about passenger safety, to the detriment of a fledgling industry.
The House has passed the new regulation bill (HR5382) with the required 2/3rds majority. Alan Boyle (who properly owns this story, with his diligent reporting over the past couple days) has the latest. As he says, now on to the Senate.
The House Leadership just announced that there would be no more votes tonight.
The House of Representatives will convene at 9am on Saturday morning to consider outstanding votes plus the Omnibus approps bill, etc… so phone calls, faxes, and emails to House Members, especially House Democrats, should continue until at least mid-morning Eastern Time on Saturday.
Remember: HR 5382 is a bipartisan bill that was developed as a compromise between the House-passed HR3752 and the Senate Commerce Committee
As of 1:19 Pacific time, the compromise version of the commercial human spaceflight bill is expected to come to a vote in the House today under a new bill number, HR 5382. The compromise in this bill allows passenger safety regulation by AST — but only after a significant safety problem has been revealed in flight. The bill is currently opposed by a Representative who wants the FAA to have unlimited authority to regulate passenger safety. We encourage timely support for this bill. Text is available at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/
[Update at 5:25 PM EST]
Michael Mealing helpfully points out in comments that:
Oberstar’s number is (202) 225-6211
DeFazio’s number is (202) 225-6416