Captain den Beste has an interesting speculation on what the world would look like to the ancient Egyptians–if they lived on Europa.

Captain den Beste has an interesting speculation on what the world would look like to the ancient Egyptians–if they lived on Europa.

There’s a nice story over at MSNBC. Hey, NASA, you want to get young people excited about space again? Here’s how.

Krieff said he was amazed at how Bass? space dreams have captured the imagination of the younger generation.

?Kids have been trying to send us checks ? which we don?t accept ? thinking that they can actually help pay for this flight,? he said. ?For 10-year-old kids … I just couldn?t get over that. If the space gods out there are listening, the kids out there are just totally into this. … I?ve been in business 20 years and I?ve never seen anything like it.?

Also, Lori Garver must be really serious. The story also says that she actually had her gall bladder removed last month, because ultrasound showed a small stone, and the Russians wouldn’t allow her to fly with it. I want to go to space pretty badly, but I don’t think I’d do that, unless it had to happen anyway.

[Update at 9:03 AM PDT]

And Mark Shuttleworth says he had a great time and would do it again if he could.

A couple of astronomers have developed techniques for tracking satellites with their ground-based telescopes, using custom software. They’ve made a movie of the International Space Station from the ground. It’s (understandably) fuzzy, but clearly recognizable.

Richard Perry has an interesting analysis of the space tourism market.

[Update at 12:15 PM PDT]

Not really related to the content of this post–it’s more of a metacomment. I just noticed that this was my thousandth post. Frightening.

This is kind of cool. It’s a picture of a Shuttle launch from the space station.

Go sign the petition at this site to allow the pilots to arm themselves.

This is great. And it’s a nice poke in the eye to Bill Clinton, to boot.

Now it would be nice to unsign the socialist Moon Treaty as well, just to make a point, both about what we think of the treaty and any treaty like it, and about what we think of Jimmy Carter, the idiotarian who signed it (fortunately, the Senate never ratified).

And as long as they’re in the process of undoing a lot of this nonsense, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to redo the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, another Cold War/decolonialism relic, and make it more friendly to sovereignty and private enterprise.

The Sacramento Bee is calling for a federal investigation into the Oracle scandal.

It will be interesting to see how the phalanx of anti-scandal Democrats responds to this, since the California governorship is the only major executive post they hold in the nation…

[Update a few minutes later]

It’s even worse now. The SF Chronicle is piling on. They’ve run a story saying that this is going to be a tough deal to get out of. Sounds a lot like the idiotic energy deals, that are costing the state billions.

When a Democratic governor can’t get the SF Chronicle behind him, he’s in such deep kimchi that he can’t even see a way out. He should have quit while he was ahead (as Jerry Brown’s chief of staff). He’s an exemplary example of the Peter Principle.

Reader Kenneth Summers emails:

This Oracle thing is really getting to be fun–even the SF Commicle (www.sfgate.com) is getting in on the action. Gray has canned one technoguru, suspended another, called in the CHP to stop the shredding, and denied that a check dated two months before the contract signing but delivered five days after has anything to do with it. Lawmakers are calling in the Feds, and apparently no one has yet figured out why the state needed more licenses than it has employees (I don’t remember the numbers specifically, but I think it was 275,000 licenses that I heard about). Even the terminally-incompetent California Republican Party should be able to make some hay with this mess.

Yes. Let’s see if the new LA paper can shame the Times into covering it properly as well.

My only fervent hope is that he takes Larry Ellison down with him. I’m sure that you are certainly familiar with the antics of Dumpster Diving Larry, who has transcended the term “Limousine Liberal” and is in the realm of “Lear Jet Liberal” (okay, “Gulfstream Jet”). He is truly the Michael Moore of Silicon Valley.

Ouch.

[Update at 1:22 PM PDT]

Here’s a link to the story at Computerworld.