Amid all the flash and glitter online, you can learn alot. Even from comments, like this one on the Space Politics site:
[Human spaceflight] has never transitioned to being just another form of transportation for the general population being run by private companies. Unless that happens, all we will ever have is token efforts by a government agency that are constantly changed every new political cycle. In other words, what we have now.
Coming up in September will be a knock-down bare-knuckle grudge match between the aerospace wing of the traditional military-industrial complex (That's companies like Lockheed or Alliance Techsystems, etc.) and newer, smaller commercial space companies (That's companies like SpaceX or Serra Nevada, etc.) competing for government dollars. I don't know who will come out on top this go around, but the fact that Newspace has gotten this far against those legendary behemoths is damn near a miracle.
- PZ Myers gets all pessimistic and grumpy, and sends me off to read a very well written post by sci-fi writer Charlie Stross who is not optimistic about manned travel and colonization of the solar system.
- July 2010 global land-sea temperature data (.pdf) in context. Source James Hansen.
- Medical journal retracts Religious Miracle paper, and you know what that means: conspiracy!
- Climate of the late Ordovician Period, about 445 MYA, was surprisingly similar to present day. Especially considering what transpired before that time and between now and then.
- Via A Tribute to Carl Sagan.