Links 12/9/10

More like this

$6/Kg to orbit -- KarlSchroeder.com "The fact is, there is only one problem worth speaking about in space development, and that is the problem of cost-to-orbit. It currently costs around $10,000/kg to launch anything at all. That price will never come down as long as chemical rockets are the…
House Science Committee chair Sherry Boehlert--who has countered attacks on science before--isn't going to stand for the current games at NASA that are being played to restrict scientists from speaking. In a letter to NASA administrator Michael Griffin, Boehlert writes the following: It ought to go…
So, President Obama is getting an honorary degree and giving a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, and some folks aren't too happy about that. Why? The stated reasons is his support of limited abortion rights. Let's examine why this stance is hypocritical and nonsensical, then…
Actually, it will probably be several decades. While details of the budget ceiling negotations haven't been released, the initial reports sound pretty awful, with $2.4 trillion of cuts over ten years with $1 trillion in discretionary cuts (that's stuff like NIH and NSF, by the way). It's pretty…