Free Republic

. . . Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. . . . The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline. The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend...

"'La force motrice' of Reusable Launcher Development: The Rise and Fall of the SDIO's SSTO Program, From the X-Rocket to the Delta Clipper" Introduction. NASA commissioned me to document the development of the X-33 in March of 1997. The X-33 is an advanced technology demonstrator vehicle intended to flight test technologies deemed critical for eventually building a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket transport. Those technologies include a metallic thermal protection system, an aerospike engine, and composite cryogenic hydrogen tanks. As part of the history project, I chose to write about the SDIO's SSTO Program as a predecessor to the X-33, even though...