Congress passed the Commercial Space Act of 1988 with the purpose of encouraging commercial space development. It was followed by other Commercial Space Acts, and the transfer of commercial space regulation to a special section of the FAA, and over time a generally more favorable atmosphere for commercial space. Henry Vanderbilt\u2019s Space Access Society<\/a> and other such outfits have annual meetings. Space X, X Corp, Burt Rutan\u2019s Scaled Composites, Kistler Aerospace, Carmack\u2019s Armadillo Aerospace, and a whole raft of private space companies, some big, some small, some successful and some not so much so have sprung up. The engines of capitalism were turned on, and the successful docking of the Dragon is a major step in the renewal of interest in space.<\/p>\n Government arsenals can do great things. Projects organized to implement a strategy of technology can be very successful, as witness the X projects<\/a>, and for that matter Apollo; but projects don\u2019t build industries. The best thing government can do to build industries is to provide certain markets, or in the absence of markets, prizes. Of course we\u2019ve said all this before, and many times. See ACCESS TO SPACE<\/a>. <\/p>\n This is just the first step, but it\u2019s a big one. I have been asked by a colleague why this is different. NASA paid for this, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n Yes, but not in the old NASA way, with cost-plus contracts and with NASA trying to run things as they did with Space Station. Dragon wasn\u2019t designed at Marshall or in Houston, and NASA inspectors weren\u2019t wandering around the factory floor and insisting in \u201ctesting\u201d components (as Marshall did with the tanks for DC\/X, which they managed to break and had to weld back together \u2013 it was the failure of the weld that caused DC\/X to burn up, thus ending the DC\/X threat to NASA\u2019s plans). Just as NASA doesn\u2019t operate the trucks that deliver the chow to Fort Hood mess halls, it\u2019s not NASA\u2019s job to build and fly the Falcon and Dragon. They just collect the cargo. And that cargo was delivered.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a first step but it\u2019s a big one.<\/p>\n Hurrah!<\/p>\n This is supposed to be \u201cEverybody blog about Brett Kimberlin Day\u201d but since I never heard of Brett Kimberlin I can hardly do that. More interesting is that looking for Brett Kimberlin gets a little complicated. His Wikipedia entry is gone, gone gone, although there is considerable controversy over why. It does not seem to be controversial that he was convicted of domestic terrorism and sentenced to 50 years, but was released on parole after some 17 and is out now, possibly unsupervised. He seems to have generated rage among some \u2013 see http:\/\/wormme.com\/2012\/05\/25\/you-are-not-a-terrorist-brett-kimberlin\/\u2014as<\/a> an example \u2013 and he is certainly no favorite of Glenn Beck — http:\/\/www.glennbeck.com\/2012\/05\/25\/glenn-talks-to-bloggers-about-brett-kimberlin-terrorism\/<\/a> \u2013 but finding a news report about him is a bit more difficult. He seems to have friends, some powerful, as well as many enemies. http:\/\/atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com\/atlas_shrugs\/2012\/05\/speedway-bomber-brett-kimberlin-threatens-blogger.html<\/a> <\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure I have ever come across a situation in which someone this controversial has no Wikipedia entry. It may say something about Wikipedia and it may not. Of course one cannot rely on Wikipedia since articles there change like dreams, but it can be a good place to start. <\/p>\n T H White (Sword in the Stone) wrote a charming novel suitable for children although it\u2019s not really a children\u2019s book: Mistress Masham\u2019s Repose. There is a Kindle edition<\/a> and I strongly recommend it not only to all my readers who have children of ten or older, but to readers who like a good story. It is full of White\u2019s observations about the world. One of the characters in the book is The Professor, who has spent his life verifying quotations. He would have greatly enjoyed the Internet, I suspect. Incidentally, children who read this book will not know it\u2019s not a children\u2019s book; like Sword in the Stone there are a number of levels at which it can be read, and most people like every one of them.<\/p>\n Aside: Mistress Masham\u2019s Repose is a fantasy, whose premise is that a small colony of Lilliputians were brought to England in the 18th Century by Lemuel Gulliver after his travels; they were exhibited in a travelling carnival until they escaped and took refuge in a small folly in an island on a great English estate, where they have lived in seclusion ever since. The story is about a little girl who discovers them, Since it\u2019s a Tim White story, you\u2019ll believe it without much effort and be disappointed to realize when you\u2019ve read it that it was just a story. (Or was it? White seemed to know many things\u2026) The Wikipedia article on the book<\/a> will tell you more.<\/p>\n Anyway have a good weekend. I\u2019ll try to get out a couple of mail bags. I\u2019ve been working on fiction.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n View 725 Friday, May 25, 2012 The Space Station has caught the Dragon by the tail. It\u2019s the first instance of the success of the new NASA policy. A long time ago some of us said that NASA shouldn\u2019t be running operations, they should create markets and let the industry \u2026 Continue reading ![\"clip_image002\"](\"http:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/clip_image002_thumb17.gif\" "\\"clip_image002\\"")
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