Free Republic

I haven't spent this much time thinking about economics since college, when it was my second major. I have dedicated the last 15 years primarily to my first major, computer science, and my first love, entrepreneurship. But that has changed in the last six months, although my primary concern still remains entrepreneurship. I was invited by Tim Kane and Bob Litan of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world's largest foundation dedicated exclusively to the cause of promoting and fostering entrepreneurship, to a small conference of economics bloggers held in Kansas City recently. About 30 of us spent a stimulating...

(CNSNews.com) - House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) said yesterday that an unregulated “private market” in the financial industry caused a lot of problems that the Democratic Congress now needs to fix. Frank also suggested that Americans now “hate” banks and that helping people stave off foreclosure on their mortgages, government scrutiny of executive compensation, higher taxes, and prodding banks to lend more money may all be part of the solution to what ails the U.S. economy. “Well, there is no very good approach because, frankly, a philosophy of let the private market do whatever it wants, don’t regulate...

Imagine you are a young Bill Gates. You’re smart. You’re ambitious. You’re thinking about starting a business to put your talents to their best use for you and for society. Then you turn on the television and see President Obama say that “now is not the time” for entrepreneurs to make profits and get bonuses. You hear Vice President Joe Biden say of corporate CEOs: “I’d like to throw these guys in the brig.”

Vienna, Va. - October 14, 2008 - Space Adventures, Ltd., the only company that provides human space missions to the world marketplace, announced today that its orbital client Richard Garriott and his crew successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) after launching onboard the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 12. The spacecraft docked to the ISS at 4:38 a.m. (EDT) with Garriott and Expedition 18 crew members NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov. They were greeted at 6:00 a.m. (EDT) by the Expedition 17 crew, which includes Russian cosmonauts Sergei...

SpaceDev, Inc. announced today that SpaceDev Founder and Board Member James Benson, 63, died peacefully in his home. Benson was diagnosed in 2007 with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, the cause of his death early this morning. Mr. Benson had resigned from an operational role in SpaceDev in September 2006. He retained a seat on the Board of Directors of SpaceDev where he had continued to support the Company that he founded in 1997. "Jim was a true visionary," said Mark Sirangelo, SpaceDev's CEO and Chairman of the Board. "He saw that space exploration could be more effective if done...

When Richard Garriott takes off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan this month, he will not only be Space Adventures’ sixth paying customer for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) but he will also be the first one to turn his flight into a business trip. Garriott plans to carry with him a thermos bottle filled with strands of fiber, inside of which will be the ingredients to grow as many as a thousand protein crystals. Manufacturing these crystals in space has been an objective of the space industry for many years. One of the earliest of these experiments...

Space Exploration Technologies has proposed to NASA a robotic cargo lunar lander service that would be priced at $80 million per mission. SpaceX proposed the lander at a meeting with the US space agency because it is a member of Odyssey Space Research's team for NASA's Altair project office lander evaluation study that began in March. The SpaceX lander would deliver 1,000kg (2,200lb) to the Moon's surface in support of NASA's Altair missions. The unmanned Altair cargo version could deliver 14,000kg to the Moon. The SpaceX lander is launched by the company's heavy version of its Falcon 9 rocket. The...

HAWTHORNE, CA – September 28, 2008 – Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) announces that Flight 4 of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle has successfully launched and achieved Earth orbit. With this key milestone, Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth. "This is a great day for SpaceX and the culmination of an enormous amount of work by a great team," said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. "The data shows we achieved a super precise orbit insertion—middle of the bull's-eye — and then went on to coast and restart the second stage,...

Virgin Galactic today unveiled the design of its new space launch system based on SpaceShipOne, which successfully flew into space for the third time in October 2004 and won the $10m Ansari X Prize. The construction of the White Knight Two (WK2) mothership, or carrier aircraft, is now very close to completion at Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA and is expected to begin flight testing in the summer of 2008. White Knight Two will be the world's largest, all carbon composite aircraft. It is designed to have the capability of launching SpaceShipTwo -- carrying six passengers and two pilots --...

It’s a story that should be familiar to any space exploration enthusiast. In spite of the obstacles, including the laws of physics, political pressure and a limiting budget, a small but spirited group launches their dreams. It’s the story behind the current New Space movement. It’s the story behind NASA’s past and future. It’s the story of “The Astronaut Farmer.” Charles Farmer -- portrayed with just the right mix of quirkiness and sentimentality by actor Billy Bob Thornton [image] -- was well on his way to being an astronaut when he gave up on his dream of flying in space...

Russia is growing, and so are the shadows that are cast over the business proceedings there. The bureaucracy is still extremely burdensome and growing. And laws are a matter of convenience and seemingly circumvented at will -- or at least when you have the right connections. Corruption and middlemen are a matter of course, and bribes are expected and given. Confiscation of private goods -- i.e., Motorola's ongoing fiasco -- and resale for profit is old news. Legitimate dealings are called smuggling. And smuggling is called smuggling. Russian law allows confiscated material in criminal investigations to be sold or destroyed...

In the 1960s, 85% of the oil in the world was available for ownership, development, partnerships, and such. At the time, 14% of the oil reserves belonged to the Soviet Union. Today it is the reverse of that: 16% of the world's oil is available. 65% is owned by the nations that possess the fields and 19% has limited access -- that is, nations, including Russia, will allow others to invest in and partially own their oil fields. It's different now. And, shall we not forget there are some nations that will allow investment and development and then, when all...

El Segundo-based Space Exploration Technologies postponed the maiden launch of its Falcon 1 rocket, which was scheduled to take off today. Known as SpaceX for short, the company had scrubbed two previous launches because of technical problems. "After analyzing data from the static fire countdown, we decided to postpone the launch," company founder Elon Musk said in a statement Thursday evening. "The vehicle is being lowered for further investigation."

Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations For 2005 Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this ill-considered 51.8 billion dollar disaster relief appropriation. Many have come to the floor today to discuss how we must help the victims of this terrible disaster and its aftermath. But why do they think that the best way to do so is simply to write a huge check to the very government agency that failed so spectacularly? This does not make sense. We have all seen the numerous articles detailing the seemingly inexcusable mistakes FEMA made - before and after the hurricane. Yet, in typical fashion,...

Houston government has historically partnered with the city's business community when it undertakes major projects. That spirit, which drove much of Houston's development in the city's formative years, was tapped again when Mayor Bill White called on executives to help the city transform the George R. Brown Convention into a shelter for hurricane evacuees. "The idea is to get the best person available, right here, for the job," said White, who has likened the relief effort to taking care of customers. State Rep. Rick Noriega, a CenterPoint Energy executive and a Texas Army National Guard officer, for instance, was asked...

When I think about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I can't help but think of Pravda, the official newspaper and mouthpiece of the Communist Party back in the days of the Soviet Union. Now, don't get me wrong. It really isn't any of the similarities in their ideological bent that connects them in my mind. Rather, it is the concept underlying both, the idea that the government ought to be in the news business, the documentary business, or even the entertainment business. When government is involved in producing or subsidizing news coverage or political and historical documentaries — even entertainment...

Russia's richest man has been paraded handcuffed before three judges in an act of ritual humiliation not seen in the country since the communist era. Mikhail Khodorkovsky faces multiple charges of tax evasion and fraud. The oil tycoon, whose personal wealth is estimated at £6 billion, was driven to a Moscow district court in a police van surrounded by armed guards and placed in a cage with his co-defendant and business partner Platon Lebedev. The opening of the trial against Khodorkovsky marked victory for President Valdimir Putin's Kremlin in a four-year war against big business that has seen two of...

Any discussion of a permanent return to the Moon (RTM) must be centered on two overriding questions: “why?” and “how?” The answers to each of those questions are interrelated. If we go for the wrong reasons we will fail. If we go for the right reasons and do it the wrong way, we will fail. And if we don’t go at all, then we will have failed in a way that will send ripples down through the ages. There are many different answers to “why?” They include: far side observatories to seek life on other worlds; studies of Earth’s history...

SpaceDev to Design Lunar Dish Observatory Mission Poway - Jul 25, 2003 SpaceDev has been awarded a contract by Lunar Enterprise of California (LEC) for a first phase project to begin developing a conceptual mission and spacecraft design for a lunar lander program. The unmanned mission will be designed to put a small dish antenna near the south pole of the Moon. From that location it will be in near-constant sunlight for solar power generation, and should be able to perform multi-wavelength astronomy while communicating with ground stations on Earth. "We are excited about this project because it is...

A team from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), in partnership with Garvey Spacecraft Corporation (GSC), successfully conducted a static fire test of a 1000 lbf ablative annular aerospike rocket engine in the Mojave desert on June 21, 2003 using LOX and ethanol propellants. This test represents an important milestone in the team's efforts to ultimately perform the first powered flight test of such a liquid-propellant aerospike engine. Aerospike engines have received considerable attention by NASA, Rocketdyne and other aerospace organizations over the last forty years because of potential performance advantages over conventional rocket engines equipped with bell-shaped nozzles. These...