Space Forum / Space Policy / June 2004

For those curious as to what might possibly make JP Aerospace's
Airship To Orbit vehicle possess the L/D ratio required (in the
ionosphere where, amazingly enough, there are a lot of ions) might
want to take a look at this article, originally published in "New

Space Race II: Not NASA's space program
By Irene Mona Klotz
United Press International
A UPI series exploring the people, passions and business of suborbital

Anybody see it yet?
I went to this site:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/2004/index_vthome.htm
and haven't seen any images yet.

Besides destroying the Soviet Union, liberating the captive peoples of
Eastern Europe, lifting the specter of nuclear war, and many other
feats beside, President Reagan did a number of things that have
affected space policy.

Just a reminder:
Venus will move across the face of the Sun on June 8 (June 7 for the Western US)
for the first time in 122 years!
For information, see

Está aquí:  http://www.fas.org/spp/civil/crs/RS21744.pdf

Say you were in the US government and knew with certainty by secure and
non-public means that an incoming asteroid or cometary nucleus was less than  a
week out from hitting the earth. No other country knows, just for the sake of
argument, all the astronomers have died in a horrible ...

The obvious choice is Mr. O'Keefe, arguably the worst NASA
Administrator ever. If you have any doubts, check out his performance
in regards to the 3 of NASA's major programs: Shuttle, ISS and Hubble.
Since O'Keefe will likely exit NASA after the election, the bigger

As you may know, the National Academy of Sciences has organized a committee
to evaluate options for extending the life of the Hubble Space Telescope
(see
<http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/852563d50053f0c285255d8b004e349a/4fe00675d8ef5a358525
6e78005823e2?OpenDocument>).

A gentleman claiming to be their physicist has been posting to a
thread on Slashdot about the Ascender.  His comments may be seen at:
http://slashdot.org/~Alfred%20Differ
Among other things, he strongly hints that there is an engine other

RobertMaas@YahooGroups.Com wrote in message news:<REM-2004may30-001@Yahoo.Com>...

The latest, more for the record than anything else.
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/d20040528PRC.pdf
         FY04 REPORT TO CONGRESS ON PRC MILITARY POWER
 Pursuant to the FY2000 National Defense Authorization Act

Armchair Astronaut
   Space tourism may be many decades away, but small satellites with
multiple cameras might catch on if the price were right.  Relayed
through a geosychronous satellite and recieved by a small dish, like