Congress shares the blame, but OMB is part of the White House, and they are the ones trying to scrap the Mars program to pay for the big rocket. NASA is unable to get the cost of the rocket down, so the White House had three choices: 1) ask Congress to send more money to pay for their rocket or remove the mandate, 2) tell NASA to change its ways and built the rocket more cheaply, or 3) through the robotic missions under the bus. #1 probably would have worked because it's asking the powerful Senators who designed the rocket to send more money to their home states, but it would require Obama sticking his neck out for NASA, and what President is going to do that in an election year? #2 makes the most fiscal sense, but would have made enemies in the Senate and Congress (they don't care if NASA goes anywhere, they just want the money spent in their home states). So they chose #3.

I want to do Apollo Again! Apollo was very exciting. Everyone was excited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4J9uvhJQM0
(youtube video about how exciting Apollo was)

I always hated OS X Server because I was brought up on the old UNIX boxes and I liked to do everything on the command line... but the #@$@#$ GUIs in OS X Server would clobber all of my config files (and they were not well documented either). I'm very glad to see OS X server go back to the command line and be more like Linux.

Put the money into Apple or Google stock and buy a tablet when the profits are enough to cover it. That's how I paid for my first iPhone (and then some).

Check out this link on how much money could be made by buying Apple stock instead of Apple products: http://www.kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php

LH2/LOX engines will perform better than this new compound no matter what. The only way to get better performance than LH2/LOX (for a chemical rocket) is to change the oxidizer.... maybe liquid ozone... or Fluorine. Fluorine is the best oxidizer you can get. Problem is that it tends to oxidize its container and then oxidize you.... nasty, nasty stuff.

Shuttle SRBs are more expensive and less reliable than equivalent liquid boosters. This is the main reason why SpaceX is only using liquid engines in the Falcon-9. ULA uses solid boosters for extra thrust on the Atlas V, but these solids are cheaper and more reliable than Shuttle SRBs. In addition, based on recent conference papers, I think they want to get away from solids in their next generation of rockets.

So why is NASA planning on using boosters based on the lower performing, more expensive, and less reliable Shuttle SRBs in their new Heavy lift rocket? This is because the Utah Congressional delegation is lobbying heavily for the company that makes the SRBs. The Utah senators inserted text into the continuing resolution that NASA is currently operating under that they claim prevents NASA from even doing trade studies to consider any alternatives to using the Shuttle SRBs.

Solids might have made sense in the 60s, but with current technology they are no longer needed except in a few specialized applications for robotic planetary exploration spacecraft.

Tai D'oh!

Interesting, but it will never work... it wouldn't cost enough to pay for the lobbyists

THANKs! I didn't know that USAA did banking :-) We have them for insurance and they're amazing.

When I had WAMU they once took a week to clear a Cashiers Check from another bank. They would routinely take 3 days to clear a WIRE transfer.

We also once had to send a canceled check into a company to prove a bill was paid... and WAMU let that company re-cash the canceled check, and it was very difficult to get our money back.

Heh. If you want to teach them something that will make them rich, set them up with Objective-C and an iPhone :-)

C can be good for introductory programming classes at the college level because it also teaches you about how computers work.... but for kids I think a higher level language like python is a good starting point.

I personally don't like python for numerous personal reasons... but I'm teaching my son Python as his first computer language for the simple reason that there's a very good kid's programming book out there, and it uses python: "Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners"

link: http://www.manning.com/sande/

The link above has some sample chapters to look at.

I've also set him up with Ubuntu to learn with. Ubuntu has a lot of free educational software (with the edUbuntu bundle), runs very well on a cheap netbook, and the unix security model keeps him from installing tons of junk programs off the web that cripples his computer. Though it would be nice if ubuntu had some of the OS X parental controls... especially with email and chat.