Tag Archives: presidential power
Wednesday’s Book Review: “New Weapons, Old Politics: America’s Military Procurement Muddle”
New Weapons, Old Politics: America’s Military Procurement Muddle. By Thomas L. McNaugher. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1989. A muck-raking analysis, the author uses case studies to illuminate concerns at the heart of the ongoing debate over defense acquisition, especially a … Continue reading
Sputnik and Free Overflight in Space
It came like a shock to the system on October 4, 1957. The Soviet Union launched a beach ball-sized orbital satellite to usher in the “Space Age.” The act in itself proved neither particularly shocking nor threatening but what it … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age”
Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age. By Matthew Brzezinski. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2007. The fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, sparked the publication of … Continue reading
Eisenhower as Sputnik Crisis Leader
Since tomorrow is the anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, I thought it appropriate to reflect on the Eisenhower response to what became an important crisis in his presidency in the fall of 1957. Without question, in reacting to Sputnik … Continue reading
Key Developments in USA/USSR Space Cooperation During the Cold War
The post-Cold War era has seen the United States and Russia undertake fundamentally significant cooperative ventures in space. This was an enormously significant development for the pursuit of aggressive human space activities, no doubt, but it tends to overshadow a … Continue reading
Gerrymandering, Safe Districts, and Political Extremism
We are in another election season, one of the strangest in modern American history, and there is much speculation about the race for both the Presidency and Congressional elections. It seems appropriate, therefore, to say something about the Congress, safe … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Safe is Not an Option”
Safe is Not an Option: Overcoming the Futile Obsession with Getting Everyone Back Alive that is Killing Our Expansion into Space. By Rand Simberg. Jackson, WY: Interglobal Media, LLC, 2013. 242 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0989135511. $19.95 USD, paperback. Rand Simberg may state … Continue reading
A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 – by Isao Hashimoto
Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a truly fascinating–as well as undeniably scary–time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos in 1945 and concluding … Continue reading
Setting Course for the Red Planet: Early Flyby Missions to Mars
Robotic exploration of Mars has been one of the persistent efforts of the space age. It began, just as lunar exploration had, in a race between the United States and the Soviet Unionto see who would be the first to … Continue reading
Recalling the Challenger Accident Thirty Years Ago
Thirty years ago on January 28, 1986, NASA and the nation suffered loss of the space shuttle Challenger during launch from the Kennedy Space Center. Many Americans had been excited about this mission, even more than those that had gone before, … Continue reading
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