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The word "socialism" has been bandied about a lot during the last year and applied to many situations that are a long way from the traditional understanding of the word: vesting full control over the means of production in government. It has been used to describe proposed and enacted changes to laws about health care, cap and trade, corporate bailouts, financial regulation, education and even middle-class tax cuts, writes The Space Fronteir Foundation board chairman Bob Web in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The Guest Commentary is worthy of passing along to conservatives members of Congress and their staff this month. AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.
The Upcoming Movie From Colombia Pictures, The Social Network, Or “The Facebook Movie”, Is Based In Part On The Book "The Accidental Billionaires".
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The National Space Policy of the United States has been released by President Barack Obama today calling for greater international cooperation in space exploration and to address debris and other hazards in space, and the possibility of a treaty to limit space-based weapons. The President called for a "burgeoning commercial space industry."
A Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] opeartional test flight is scheduled to launch from North Vandenberg Wednesday, June 30, 2010 between 3:01 a.m. to 9:01 a.m. PDT to determine the weapon system's reliability and accuracy.
The USAF 576th Flight Test Squadron, which will direct the missile launch, installed tracking, telemetry and command destruct systems on the missile to collect data and meet safety requirements. Maintenance and operations task force personnel from the USAF 341st Missile Wing, Malmstrom AFB, Montana, are conducting operational tasks supporting the launch.
Laurie Naismith, Director Government Relations & Public Affairs for the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority [VCSFA] notes that new liquid oxygen tank slowly made it's way on 56 wheels to the Wallops Island, Va. launch facility to support the Taurus 2 launch to the International Space Station next year. The VCSFA board governs the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and seeks commercial space launch investment by commercial space launch firms.
Setting up a private rocket site in the remote Tropics of Tonga sounds like a movie supervillain plan, but Randa Milliron of the Mojave, Calif.-based InterOrbital Systems (IOS) explains why it's the best way to get us to orbit and beyond in the recent Podcast interview by Podcaster Dr. Alex "Sandy" Antunes for the 365 Days of Astronomy series [click link for audio].Whether or not InterOrbital Systems is successful in achieving orbital velocity and a sustainable Earth orbit in 2011 or thereafter remains to be seen but the dedication to a dream of expanding to a private spaceport in Tonga is interesting.
In an unusual report from Space Daily, Russia is said to be returning to its program of building the space shuttles and super-heavy carrier rockets after 2018, citing an Interfax news agency report from Moscow on Friday. The Buran flew to space once over 20 years ago.
New carrier rockets will have a workload over 24 tons, director of Moscow's Central Machine-building Institute, Gennady Raikunov, reportedly said during the Strong Russia business conference with tests of the rocket to start in 2015 and its commercial exploitation will commence in 2018.
Russian space engineers also are working on building the rocket capable of delivering to the orbit a workload over 100 ton per launch, he said adding that in the more distant future, Raikunov's institute plans to work out a new manned spaceship and non-disposable boosters.
The NASA Lunar Science Institute is pleased to announce the 3rd annual NASA Lunar Science Forum, to be held July 20-22, 2010, at the NASA Ames Conference Center, Moffett Field, California. This year's forum will feature sessions on scientific results from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, as well as the presentation of the annual Shoemaker medal and associated keynote lecture. As in past years, science sessions are structured to report on both recent results and future opportunities for lunar science, education and outreach. The event has an agenda and registration page.
A visit to Moscow this year and next would be incomplete without touring the Cosmonaut Space Museum and giving a hat tip to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin [narrated video inside the museum]. It will be fifty (50) years ago on April 12, 2011 that Gagarin rocketed into orbital space and into the history books.
And while in Moscow, one may also want to take a trek to Korolev to visit the Russian ISS Mission Control Center and Star City for look-see into the cosmonaut training center [video]. Following the early 2011 retirement of the American space shuttle, Star City will be the only avenue to space for the West at least for three or four years.
But if you are a brave human being but one who can not expend $30-million and six months training for a Russian orbital spaceflight sometime in 2012, you could also take flight on the MiG 29 OVT. The Russians will provide a commercial flight on this spectacular bird for just the right price. Yes, exceedingly cheaper than a commercial orbital spaceflight and pulls up to a ballistic 8Gs in flight!
A second video provides poor view but the distant sound of the Ariane climbing to orbit.
NASA says the International Space Station partner countries have not invited China to join the orbiting lab complex, dismissing a Russian news story proclaiming the Russian space agency contacted the rising space power about signing on to the project, reports SpaceflightNow.
President Barack Obama's space policy is coming to light on Monday, June 28, 2010 reports Space News in a document obtained by the space news outlet. The President seems to place special emphasis on international space cooperation, commercial space launch development and "innovative entrepreneurship."
Watch This New Video From Google Team. "Search Story": Ole

NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist will host an Industry Forum at the University of Maryland University College on July 13-14, 2010 to discuss the agency's proposed new space technology investments. The event will focus on President Obama's Fiscal Year 2011 budget request for NASA's new Space Technology Programs. Representatives from industry, academia, and the federal government are invited to discuss strategy, development, and implementation of the proposed new technology-enabled strategy for exploration.
Music and foto stills from Stonehenge, England 2010.
It's no secret that the sun has been acting rather strange lately, and it's very difficult to predict what it will do next. Although the likelihood of a devastating solar flare is low, damage to our infrastructure by solar activity has happened in the past and it will happen again.
In 1859 a huge solar storm burned out telegraph wires across Europe and the United States. Dr Stuart Clark has written a book, The Sun Kings, about when that happened. He says that the “Carrington flare”, as it was known, “smothered two-thirds of the Earth’s skies in a blood-red aurora a night later, and crippled all of global navigation and global communication, such as it was at that time. Compasses span uselessly and the telegraph network went down as phantom electricity surged through the wire.”
The sun's 11-year peak -- or "solar maximum" -- is due in 2013. The last one in 2001 did one billion dollars [USD] infrastructure damage.
There’s going to be great big bangs and lots of bright lights for the July 4th Fireworks Extravaganza on Sunday, July 4, 2010 at the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo. “We probably have at least a third more fireworks this year than last year and our fireworks company promises a grand finale like never before!” said Museum Marketing Director Cathy Harper, a Space Frontier Foundation Advocate.
Japan's space scientists are now gaining political and funding support for a new asteroid mission named Hayabusa-2 as a follow on to the now completed return of the Hayabusa space capsule likely to contain asteroid materials brought back to Earth for the first time, according to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan [Time].
Millions of miles from Earth, two astronauts hover weightlessly next to a giant space rock, selecting pebbles for scientific research. The spaceship where they'll sleep floats just overhead. Beyond it, barely visible in the sky, is a glittering speck. It's Earth.






Russia's Roskosmos signed a deal on Saturday to sell more than $500 million of space rocket launchers to the France's Arianespace company for flights from French Guiana following direct talks beteen Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in St. Petersburg, Russia this past weekend.
The International Space Station Expedition 23 crew sent this photo to Earth taken of the Aurora Australis or "Southern Lights" from orbit. The limb of the Earth and some stars in the background are seen from nearly 200-miles above the planet.






