A couple of moons to build bases and way-stations on for asteroid mining, and whose escape velocity is so close to nothing that a spring-loaded catapult would be enough to launch spacecraft without burning a lot of expensive reaction mass.

Too bad they don't just go ahead with the original DC-X plans; then they'd have a launch vehicle, an orbital transfer vehicle, a fuel tanker, and a lunar lander.

Oh, that's right; Boeing *ATE* McDonnell Douglas and cancelled it.

Well, they could have always finished off the National Aerospace Plane (the X-30), and separately developed a lander.

Oh, that's right, Boeing *ATE* Rockwell and cancelled it.
 
...I'm sensing a pattern here...

I don't think "good grades" means what he thinks it means.

If you've got actual good grades, this program is unnecessary, because you're already getting a scholarship. If you aren't already getting an academic scholarship, then your grades aren't actually "good", they are some amount less than that.

I didn't see in any of the articles covering this story exactly what the president believes constitute "good grades", but I'd wager they're at about the level that might get you the switch, out behind the woodshed, in a number of Southern red states, should you come home with them on your report card.

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I really see this as no different than "another two years of high school so you can put off working and making a decision about your future for another two years", unless there's going to be a requirement that they pursue an associates degree of some kind. An associates degree will largely transfer towards a bachelors degree - and will completely transfer, if it's the right one, and the local 4 year college has a matriculation agreement with the community college for that field of study. Four years of dinking around, however, will get you at best 6 moths to a year of your general studies requirements out of the way.

Technically, you can pretty much come out of high school with high scores on 4 or 5 AP tests, and then CLEP for 3-12 credits per $80 exam for one of 5 subject areas covered by 33 tests, and pretty much have an associates degree the day you enter college, if you are willing to test out locally of a small additional number of additional general subjects.

It think that in this case, he's probably referring to "C+ and above students".

Let NOAA do that; it's *their* job. It's *not* NASAs job.

Note that one of those articles I linked to had the NOAA administrator pissed off that NASA instruments were taking up space on his orbital platforms, and disrupting his people's ability to do their job, which, among other things, includes monitoring climate and climate change.

Please tell me that these include being faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Laptop day
See you there
Turbo boost
Turboing

Want to say
Why a game machine
But I'm just
Mumbling

With my freeze spray
I will stop the heat

With my freeze spray
I will install a CPU
A much too big CPU

Tell you how
Jam it in
Make it work
A laptop case

Like a fool
Kind of sick
Special needs
Anyways

With my freeze spray
I will stop the heat
It's not some heat paste or a big fan
That's all Ars Technica

I just think you need time to know
That I just want a gaming machine
I'm finally going to come clean
I'll say what I actually mean
Play games on a company machine

That's the plan
Halo 2
You and me
Any day

Why a game machine
("What?")
"No I . . I, uh . . . compiling's ... keen"
Anyway

With my freeze spray I will stop ?

Per the Snopes Article:

"The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the "9/11 Commission") investigated these rumors and found that although some unusual (and initially seemingly suspicious) trading activity did occur in the days prior to September 11, it was all coincidentally innocuous and not the result of insider trading by parties with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks."

We aren't debating whether the puts occurred, we are merely debating the reason for the puts. See also:

http://www.sfgate.com/business...

Yes, I can document NASA's task change.

Under the auspices of the White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), the NTSC (National Science and Technology Council) created CENRS (Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability) as a response to a presidential mandate in 1989 (in case you were wondering, this was under president George H.W. Bush).

The CENRS created as part of itself the SGCR (Subcommittee on Global Change Research), which is the steering committee for the USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program), which consists of 13 organizations:

- Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense (Acting)
- Smithsonian Institution
- Department of Agriculture
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.globalchange.gov/ab...
From their web site.

As part of this, as a result of a presidential budgetary mandate by President Obama that an additional $1.8B (for a total of $2.4B) be earmarked for the Earth Observation Satellites (effectively canceling the asteroid capture mission - this i a redirection of existing budget, not an increase of funds):

http://www.nasa.gov/about/obam...
Obama's April 15th 2010 speech at Kennedy:

"We will increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world -- science that will garner tangible benefits, helping us to protect our environment for future generations."

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...

"NASA’s about to lend a heavier hand in the fight against climate change. The news that President Obama would be rearranging NASA’s budget to focus more on what can be done to stop global warming was met with some opposition, but we’re elated that he’s bringing some of that cash down to Earth."

See also:

http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
http://spectator.org/blog/5978...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-...
http://inhabitat.com/new-nasa-...

Meanwhile, actual NASA budgets have remained flat, so these monies have come from actual space and aeronautics programs, rather than new budget:

http://www.behindmyback.org/20...
"NASA’s investment in the 13-AGENCY CCSP is 58% of the total amount of the President’s 2009 Budget Request for CCSP."
= most of the money is coming from NASA.

See also this report, which indicates that 37% of the 2014 NASA budget went to the Earth science program, supporting climate change research - and NOT space or aeronautics research:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/m...

But you know... feel free to argue with the congressional record, newspapers, NASA itself, and President Obama's speech at Kennedy.

Inaccurate. My sister's condo in a not fantastic area of Salt Lake City, Utah, has an HOA, and typical unit price is ~$80-$100K, which will buy you ... nothing ... in most richer areas.

Typically, an HOA is a corporation the developer creates to market and sell lots and houses in a subdivision (or units in a condo complex). After that, membership becomes part of the restrictive covenants on the deeds of the properties sold within the development boundaries, and after a certain number of units have been sold, the ownership and responsibility is passed off to the owners within the development.

HOAs cover about 25 million houses in the U.S., and close to 60 million people, which i to say, 20% of the U.S. population.

Last time I checked, not even 20% of the U.S. population count as "wealthy" (i.e. not having to work unless they choose to do so).

While in general, terrorists have been largely incompetent, they by and large haven't had real goals that would be achieved by the attacks they have staged. For example, the 9/11 attacks didn't really state a goal, they didn't really have a clear result from which we could infer a goal, and credit was never actually claimed by a group with a preexisting set of stated goals.

I expect that eventually, we will have to face a "Heavy Weather" [Bruce Sterling] style terrorist scenario, in which the emergent goals would be readily apparent by the fact that they are obvious after the event. Alternately, there will be an obvious goal, such as "crash western economies", and they will target an attack which could actually be effective in achieving it (e.g. blowing holes in the clean areas of 11 chip fabs on the same day, and that sort of thing, where it would take at least months to get semiconductor production back on line).

I also think that if terrorists obtain a nuclear weapon, they are unlikely to actually utilize it on a population center. In particular, I find it much more likely that ecoterrorists (or even non-eco terrorists) would stage an "Energized" [Edward Lerner] style terrorist scenario in order to contaminate a resource region for a particularly necessary region (e.g. in "Energized", the Middle East oil fields were rendered contaminated by radiation within the oil itself by deeply buried bombs).

I also think you are thinking very much inside the box, when you are talking ground vs. high altitude nuclear bursts (assuming the desired outcome if the EMP, rather than the explosion itself). Frankly, there was no need for the commercial aircraft hijack in the 9/11 attacks, other than to manipulate airline stock price (and airline stocks of the airlines involved in the attack *were* shorted via Germany leading up to the attack, so someone made a lot of money on it), since you could just load rented or purchased private aircraft with available explosives, and accomplish the same goal. This was, in fact, the premise of "Executive Orders" [Tom Clancy], written well before the 9/11 attacks.

So it's really rather lame to say what terrorists *could* do, just because the ones we've had so far have been pretty darn incompetent.

You mean like the current executive mandate for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to focus on issues surrounding climate change, rather than, say, Aeronautics and maybe Space?

Personally, I'm quite looking forward to the Department of Energy operations to fix potholes, and the Internal Revenue Service solar farms. What bothers me though, is that the Department of Agriculture is going to want to grow the amount of income tax they collect.

THIS IS FRICKIN' AMAZING!

I mean *who wouldn't* want to be buried in a "tomb from space"!?!?!

This lends total credence to the story the other day that India has interplanetary aircraft flying in the interplanetary air! This must be *how* Genghis Khan *got* hi tomb from space!

I TOTALLY agree that we should be looking for Genghis Khan's frickin' *tomb from space*!!!!!!

Unless you are a bored billionaire, and your quick calculations are what propelled you into being a bored billionaire, please forgive my skepticism about *your* calculations, compared to the calculations being made by those with a demonstrated track record of making profits.

No, it wasn't.

The Iraq war was basically to prevent Iraq setting up a Euro-baed petroleum exchange, thereby undermining the commodity-baed dollar and turning it back into a fiat currency, which would have been disastrous to the U.S., since the price of the dollar is pinned to the price of oil by the fact that almost all oil sales of any note are done in dollars.

It was also a bailout for Europe, which gets most of their oil from the Middle East. What oil the U.S. gets from the Middle East does not end up shipped to the U.S., it's used by the U.S. military overseas, which, given active operations, consumes bout 24% of the total of all U.S. petroleum consumption. The U.S. gets almost all its oil from local or hemisphere local sources.

The variability in U.S. pump prices has everything to do with the futures market, and self-restraint on refining by the petroleum companies in order to control the supply of refined oil, and almost nothing to do with the availability of top sweet crude.

It's about economics, not resources.

That's because LEDs do not have an E26 screw base...