Looks like a compromise Senate bill has been worked out for NASA, and like most Senate compromises there are plenty of raw deals:
The continued provision of seed funding to the commercial sector to help it develop low-cost "space taxis" capable of taking astronauts to and from the ISS. The funding arrangements would change, however. Instead of the White House's original request for $3.3bn over three years, the Committee's approach would provide $1.3bn. (Obama had wanted some $6bn in total over five years)
I have more here and here. But it's simple arithmetic folks: as long as ten thousand highly paid people are needed to put a dozen or so government astronauts into space every year, the cost per astronaut has to remain enormous.
- Remember that cool Size Does Matter video about how large objects in space can get? Astronomers may have found a new blue hypergiant that dwarfs the mass of the red hypergiant, VY Canis Majoris, shown at the end of that clip.
- Everyone's buzzing about the movie Inception, but turns out researchers have been working on technology that could record, or even generate, your dreams for years. HT @BlueJessamine
- How about a $35 touch-screen tablet PC?
- This video shows the mood in the U.S., as inferred using over 300 million tweets, over the course of the day. California and east coast tweeters appear happiest, people seem the most pissed off on afternoons, and all day Thursday.