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JFK space race myth
It’s been half a century since a young president was cut down by a deranged communist assassin, and a little longer than that since humans…
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Safety shouldn’t be NASA’s top priority
It has been a century since the Panama Canal was completed. It was the greatest transportation project of its time, made possible only by new…
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Lockheed Martin joins forces with Louisville-based Sierra Nevada in building Dream Chaser
Rand Simberg, a space analyst and adjunct scholar at the Washington, D.C.-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, said Sierra Nevada’s partnership with Lockheed gives it…
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A New Space Pioneer
This is the first operational private space flight,” Rand Simberg said; the adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute is an expert on space technology…
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Obama, Romney unlikely to share Bush’s space-travel ambitions
From Gus Taylor’s article in The Washington Times: “The real problem is Congress. They don’t really care about actually doing anything in space,”…
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Solyndra In Space?
Here we go again. It's unfortunate that so many conservatives are opposed to competitive markets in spaceflight, to the point that they are willing to…
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Capitalism In Space
Over at National Review Online today, I have a piece on the current state of play in U.S. human spaceflight. It’s…
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The Other Scandal In Unhappy Valley
So it turns out that Penn State has covered up wrongdoing by one of its employees to avoid bad publicity. But I'm not talking about…
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Losing the Universe with LOST
The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) has been languishing in the Senate for decades, but led by Massachusetts senator John Kerry, there is growing…
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Tapping Space Resources
Over at The Washington Times, Bob Zubrin says that we need space property rights. Gee, I wonder…
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Cut The Budget By Cutting Republican Sacred Space Cows
Over at Forbes, Cato’s Doug Bandow says that the Republicans need to lead by example: Presumptive Republican Party nominee Mitt Romney…
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New Space Property Rights Criticism
Over at the Space and Cyberlaw blog, Eric Dawson takes issue with my issue analysis on space…
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A Fit of Sanity on ITAR
Over at Space Politics, Jeff Foust reports that the House has passed a bill allowing the administration to remove satellites from…
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The Constellation Empire Strikes Back
Constellation, the Bush administration's plan to return to the moon, was canceled a couple years ago. But not all of Constellation was canceled. The Orion…
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Republican Space Socialism Update
Last time we checked in on this topic, House Appropriations Chairman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) was decrying the wastefulness of competition. Well,…
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The Remote Sensing Problem
Over at the Washington Post, in discussing the coming crisis in weathersats, the editorial board can't resist taking an ignorant dig…
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When Commodities Analysts Should Stick To Commodities
Some analysts at Barclays attempt to understand the business case for Planetary Resources, and massively fail: Their…
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A Bad Week For Shuttlyndra Supporters
Two serious blows were struck against the Senate Launch System this week, though based on previous behavior, when knocked down by…
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Technological Challenges Aside, Is Asteroid Mining Legal?
From Rebecca Boyle’s article in Popular Science: Some space colonization advocates argue that guaranteeing ownership of celestial real estate is a necessary precursor…
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Profit Shouldn’t Be an Alien Concept
From The Gulf Coast Business Review: Although Star Trek fans are not alone in thinking it would be fun to take a cruise…
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The Space Property Rights Discussion Continues
As I (sort of) predicted last week, Tanja Masson-Zwaan, president of the International Institute of Space Law, has weighed in on…
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One Small Step for Human Spaceflight
The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) have been a thorn in the American space industry’s side for almost fourteen years, ever since Congress moved…
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Further Space Property Rights Responses
Since my previous post on media reaction to CEI's press briefing on Thursday, Popular Science has provided a…
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Could Legal ‘Loophole’ Lead to Land Claims on Other Worlds?”
From Alan Boyle’s post on MSNBC.com: The concept was unveiled last week by Rand Simberg, an adjunct scholar at the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise…
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Stalking a Claim on the Moon
From Jeff Foust’s article in The Space Review: The current round in the debate over property rights in space started with the publication…
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Initial Media Reactions to CEI’s Space Property Rights Paper
On Monday, CEI published an Issue Analysis on a possible new approach to establishing private real estate off planet under the…
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Legal Loophole May Pave Way For Private Ownership Of Outer Space
From Andres Jaregui’s article in The Huffington Post: A shift in policy could open up the moon and other celestial bodies to ownership…
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Loophole Could Allow Private Land Claims on Other Worlds
From Adam Mann’s article in Wired: Full blown colonization and settlement of other planets, moons and even asteroids might actually happen, says space…
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Ground Control To Major Tom…Keep It Local, Man…
From Anita Cooper’s article in RealtyBizNews: Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Adjunct Scholar, Rand Simberg, has been working to make the recognition of lunar property…
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GOP Elders Conflicted About Future NASA, Commercial Space Projects
From Gene J. Koprowski’s article in The Daily Caller: This week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based free-market think tank, released a…
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Homesteading the Final Frontier
A proposed law requiring the United States to recognize land claims off planet under specified conditions offers the possibility of legal, tradable land titles, allowing…
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Free-Market Fans Encourage Rush for Off-Plant Real Estate
From Rebecca Boyle’s article in Popular Science: Getting to the moon is a noble and ambitious goal for any country, and other nations…
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More Space Socialism From Republicans
Over at the Beyond the Black blog, Bob Zimmerman does what I haven't had time to yet --he excoriates the chairman…
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Good News/Bad News On Human Spaceflight Regulation
In a bill passed last week authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration for another year, the moratorium on regulation of the safety of spaceflight participants, in…
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Nine Years Of Space Policy Disaster
On the ninth anniversary of the loss of the Columbia space shuttle, I have some thoughts on what’s happened since, over at PJMedia: The problem…
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Newt’s Lunar Base
Over at PJMedia, I discuss the technical, economic and political feasibility of what Newt proposes. But as I note there, the…
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The Non-EU Space Code of Conduct
For over a year, there has been concern that the White House would sign an executive order requiring U.S. space activities to adhere to the…
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Stuck in a High-Priced Box
The United Launch Alliance just got an Air Force launch contract for 159 launches, which I guess means that they didn’t get the 40-launch block…
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The Lunar Yellow (Non)Peril
Over at PJMedia today, I have a piece on the recently released white paper from the Chinese space program that lays…
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Newt’s “Zany” Space Policy
Over at PJMedia over the weekend, I asked some space policy questions of Mitt Romney: So, Governor, if you want to…
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A Reprieve For NASA Commercial Crew Contractors
There has been a great deal of concern over the past few months among the potential providers of crew services to NASA over their stated…
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Newt’s Moon Mines
Over at National Review Online today, I have some thoughts on the little dust up between Newt and Mitt Saturday night…
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Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish on NASA
On Sunday, flights to the ISS resumed for the first time since the retirement of the Shuttle last summer. As I’ve…
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Crony Capitalism and the Space Program
Over at The Weekly Standard today, I describe how the desire of politicians to steer pork to their constituents is undermining…
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The Heavy-Lift Empire Strikes Back
Readers of this space will recall that there was a leak of an internal NASA document a couple weeks ago that…
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Pay the Americans Now, or Pay the Russians Later
I’m attending the International Symposium on Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Also attending is Alan Boyle, science correspondent for MSNBC, who…
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Shuttlyndra and the Smoking Rocket
Over at Pajamas Media today, I have some interesting news on the Shuttlyndra situation, which would be a huge scandal if…
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Continuing Irrational Risk Aversion by NASA
About a month ago, I discussed the potential consequences of NASA's extreme aversion to loss of crew. Over at NASA Space…
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Shuttlyndra and Bipartisan Crony Capitalism
Over at Pajamas Media today, I tell a tale of crony capitalism that makes Solyndra look like a model of government…
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Blame Congress and Pork, Not NASA
Over at National Review today, I have a lengthy but necessary rebuttal of a misbegotten post at…