Greg Klerkx, who I met at the EZ-Rocket rollout a couple years ago, has a piece in the NYT that resonates with my Fox column this week: The Citizen Astronaut.

Greg also has an interesting-looking book out, that I'll have to read before finishing mine, so as to avoid redundancy.

By the way, do you think the President would have benefitted politically from embracing a stingier, libertarian space policy rather than the current $100-billion manned lunar initiative?

Let's assume the President had announced on Wednesday that "I favor free enterprise and risk-taking All-American entrepreneurs, I dislike big bloated inefficient federal bureaucracies and therefore I hereby announce some nebulous "goals" (space prizes for RLV companies, launch vouchers, zero-G taxes for space tourism ventures etc.) that essentially mean I do nothing but watch 'the silent hand of capitali$m' conquer cosmos for me while strengthening my anti-big government credentials. What would the political impact of this be?

If this initiative were supported by a decision to end the Shuttle program by 2010, it would send a signal that he was committed to reducing the size of unproductive government agencies while reducing non-essential spending on federal programs in order to reduce the budget deficit. There is also a populist message that might go down well ("let the market forces launch a million private citizens into space as opposed to a handful of government astronauts only"). Even if the entrepreneurs fail despite the new incentives, the government arguably loses nothing.

MARCU$

That's an entertaining strawman, Marcus, but since I'm never proposed such a "libertarian" space policy, or proposed that the president do so, I see no need to respond.

Perhaps the presence of the Internet will make a difference. In the late 60's you had the national media and if an issue didn't interest the vast majority of the audience (say 60%+) it tended not to be covered. (I know I am being a little broad here).

But with the internet the true interest of the public can be shown. Plus space site don't really have to cater to just the broadest audience but can offer technical data that satisfy the most rabid space geek.

I experienced a little of this with my projects for Orbiter Sim. While I know that what I do doesn't compare in popularity with say Doom, Quake, or even Flight Simulator 2004, there are lot more than I ever expected.

Not entirely related, but a quote from Pete Aldridge, the head of the new commission for Bush's lunar program:

"Trying to do something cheaply is a first indication of failure," he said. "It can't be done that way."

Good to see we have forward thinkers leading the way.

Well we better hope that the White Knight/Spaceship One project works out otherwise with statements like Aldridge's we're not going anywhere.

I have to say that its good to see Rutan's approach is the same one the Air Force was doing before being pulled out of space research by NASA (ie the X-15 air/spacecraft. ).