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I do not propose anything. Musk and SpaceX are the ones proposing and building.

You're kidding, right? Soyuz has had dozens of major failures. Even killed a guy in 2002 when the rocket failed seconds into launch and fell back on the pad. Also, the manned Dragon costs per seat are $25M. For Soyuz it's $75M. Hardly cheaper. Same for cargo comparisons, Soyuz is said to be as little as $6000-7000/kg++, Falcon 9 is $4500/kg, and Falcon Heavy is supposed to come in around $1700/kg.

++ - Doubtful in general; looking up actual delivered contracts makes one question whether that's actually that cheap. For example, Soyuz STB launches for the Galileo satellites were contracted at $114m per launch. That rocket has a max capacity of 7800kg to LEO. That comes out as a whopping $14,600/kg.

OK, here may be some related items
Space-X leases Cape Canaveral pad for landings
http://spacenews.com/spacex-le...

Space-X breaks ground on Brownsville commercial launch facility
http://www.space.com/27234-spa...

So, that would prevent overflight of the continental US and landing to the East for use of limited fuel
Is there any indication that this is the actual plan?

The Space News article indicates that Space-x has plans to build a landing pad at Vandenberg as well. Any ideas what would be landing there?

Yeah I think that's likely: if they become a large company with multiple large contracts, they'll end up spread over the US.

Heck they're already doing a little bit of spreading out. They have a significant test facility in Texas along with some engineering offices, and are building a new facility in Seattle to build satellites. I don't know if this is strategic/political or just happenstance at this point though. For example I believe a big motivation for the Texas site was that they were able to buy facilities off the defunct Beal Aerospace cheaply.

SpaceX just recently signed a lease agreement with the Air Force to construct a landing pad for just that purpose. If you have a chance to read through the whole proposal, it's quite interesting. They are using an old launch complex that hasn't been used in 30+ years.

http://spacenews.com/spacex-le...

Link to PDF providing some detail used for the proposal: http://www.patrick.af.mil/shar...

Here's the PDF for the environmental assessment:
http://www.patrick.af.mil/shar...

SpaceX just recently signed a lease agreement with the Air Force to construct a landing pad for just that purpose. If you have a chance to read through the whole proposal, it's quite interesting. They are using an old launch complex that hasn't been used in 30+ years.

http://spacenews.com/spacex-le...

Link to PDF providing some detail used for the proposal: http://www.patrick.af.mil/shar...

Well there were questions raised, but it's all settled now- they're her mementoes now.

http://spacenews.com/obama-sig...

I agree with the Bill, but am re-reading Michael Collins' excellent autobiography and he's not completely effusive about many of his colleagues - he also shares the bewilderment over the David Scott Apollo 15 mailbag. [talking about heroes with leaden feet, the book's autobiography is by Charles Lindbergh].

Except for the nit-picky fact that they've said nothing of the sort.

On the contrary, they even prepared the lay-off notices to most of the staff working on the CST-100:

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40931boeing-preparing-layoff-notices-in-case-of-commercial-crew-loss

It was a prudent business move none the less, but Boeing certainly didn't seem ready to compete in general commercial spaceflight endeavors. Now that they've won the award, I guess all of that paperwork gets burned, which should be a relief to those working on the CST-100.

http://www.spacenews.com/artic...

Seems NASA started this over the month ago.

If there is anything to know about Russians, is they do not like getting bullied. And before you say "OMG, Russian are bulling Ukraine!", this is not the first time east Ukraine and majority were told to take a hike by the so-called "westerners".

Quick note: East Ukraine was Russia. West Ukraine was Poland. Borders were redrawn and now you have populations with different leanings. Imagine that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

yeah those idiots at NASA that landed a buggy-sized nuclear powered rover on mars. they have a pretty good track record. i tend to put more credence in what NASA has to say than you. nice analogy though.

You're missing the point. NASA is not one thing. The NASA scientists and genius engineers who actually build all the cool stuff say it'll cost $2 billion. Administrator Bolden, the political appointee who's in charge of figuring out how to pay for it all, says he doesn't want to budget more than $1 billion. I guarantee you he has no good ideas about how to make the mission fit into a $1b budget: he himself says "that may or may not be possible."

http://www.spacenews.com/artic...

And SpaceX might even allow them to use the pad anyhow, if BO actually comes up with a launch vehicle that needs it.

Elon Musk quote:

However, rather than fight this issue, there is an easy way to determine the truth, which is simply to call their bluff. If they do somehow show up in the next 5 years with a vehicle qualified to NASA’s human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs. Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct.

http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/37389musk-calls-out-blue-origin-ula-for-%E2%80%98phony-blocking-tactic%E2%80%99-on-shuttle-pad

The contracts are for designs studies only and, at a combined value of only about $340,000, are a long way from a commitment to purchase space hardware.

Through merchandise sales and donations, Mars One had raised $183,870 as of Oct. 31, according to the company’s website.

Finally, more than 200,000 people applied to the company’s astronaut program, each of whom paid an application fee ranging from $5 to $75, depending on country of origin.

The Phoenix craft on which Mars One’s lander will be based cost NASA about $475 million to build.

The cost of the first crewed launch to Mars will be about $6 billion, Mars One estimates, with subsequent crew launches estimated at about $4 billion each, according to the company’s website.

If anything this press release reinforces my conviction that these guys lack the right stuff and won't even come remotely close. They raise 180k in merchandising, something in the vicinity of 10mil max in their 409 become a reality TV astronaut scam, and they need $6bill to deliver. This whole thing will fizzle out over a few years without any real or serious progress to their stated goal and the founders of it will put their hand on their hearts and insist that their endeavour was fair dinkum and could of succeeded all along.

The most recent setback for efforts to restart Pu-238 came Sept. 7 when the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee followed the example set by U.S. House of Representatives appropriators in June and approved a 2012 spending plan without any money for the program in the Energy Departmentâ(TM)s budget. The administration of President Barack Obama asked for $20 million for the Pu-238 program in 2012, split evenly between NASA and the Energy Department. Lawmakers also denied funding for the program in the Energy Departmentâ(TM)s 2010 and 2011 budgets.

NASA officials did receive congressional approval last spring to use money in the space agencyâ(TM)s 2011 budget to begin working with the Energy Department to study resumption of Pu-238 production. Lawmakers authorized NASA to begin looking into the issue in 2011. That effort was delayed, however, because Congress failed to pass a 2011 budget bill and instead provided the space agency with money through a series of stopgap spending measures designed to support ongoing activities. To spend money on new programs, including Pu-238 production, NASA officials needed congressional permission.

Interesting article on Space News
http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/36112proton-launch-failures-more-likely-when-russia-footing-the-bill#.Ud2DnPkyZ8E/
that points out that the Proton launch failures have a mysterious correlation to whether the customer is private or government (with government launches being the unlucky ones).

After they saw Gingrich's hail mary, I'm sure they'd simply love to have more pork-barrel spending in their districts. Meanwhile, they continue to mess with NASA's future, making planning projects impossible.

There has been a notable lack of enthusiasm for the asteroid mission among some of the Republicans who hold key NASA oversight roles in the House — including House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) — since the mission was proposed. The mission would require development of a robotic spacecraft with solar-electric propulsion, and the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket NASA is developing.

There is no funding authorized for a crewed planetary lander or deep-space astronaut habitat in the bill.

Another provision of the draft authorization bill that originated with House Republicans is an overhaul of NASA’s leadership structure. The proposed changes would give Congress greater influence over the selection of the NASA administrator, and give the administrator a six-year term. The NASA administrator is currently a political appointee who serves at the president’s pleasure.

House Republicans led by Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) included these changes in their Space Leadership Preservation Act (H.R. 823), which was introduced in February and has lingered in committee ever since. That bill was itself a rehash of a similar proposal introduced back in September 2012.

Oh, of course. The Texans are at it again.

It's not the first time Space X has covered up an engine failure.

Had some fun looking up and finding some more information about the project and why it is being done.
Seems that ONERA, the French aerospace research institute, builds military radar among other things, and their bistatic experiment worked so well it is practically a finished product, so they are expanding it already. The OP project is probably based on this. So these things are dual-use though the OP's ESA project says it is to protect satellites and European citizens.
Overview of ONERA radar products: http://www.onera.fr/demr-en/references.php

Details about the French GRAVES experimental bistatic radar facility and how it works with Germany's TIRA.
So successful they are being upgraded now. France, Australia and Canada cooperate with the USAF.
GRAVES was built in 2004 and is owned by the French arms procurement agency.
GRAVES is for objects in Low Earth Orbit, up to 1000km altitude. The upgrade will allow it to broaden the swath of sky and to eliminate errors in trajectory position to more precisely determine on its own whether or not two objects are destined to collide.
TIRA belongs to the German military. Though the new system is for all Germany not just the military they say.
"... Space situational awareness [is seen] as an important element in Germany’s national sovereignty."
From 2012, TIRA personnel will be trained by French and Americans.
http://www.spacenews.com/military/110531-france-germany-anchor-europe-ssa.html

GRAVES, The French Space Surveillance System
http://www.onera.fr/dcps-en/graves-space-surveillance-system/index.php

Aerial views of GRAVES, apparently. Explains that it can make angular measurements and get radial velocity.
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/GRAVES_French_Radar_Surveillance_Facility.html

A bit more info on the OP article (French so use Google translate)
http://www.smartplanet.fr/smart-technology/un-futur-radar-europeen-contre-les-debris-de-lespace-17211/
It adds:
- work begins Sept. 2012
- The goal is to help European satellite operators to exclude collision risk and improve safety in Earth orbit, an area in which France has recognized expertise, says ESA.
- "The two demonstrators radar will be part of an initial network of sensors that will also include optical telescopes and data processing centers to ensure observation of space debris on all types of orbits. '
- In the case of new experimental radar, the transmitter will be on the influence of the former airbase Crucey-Villages (Eure-et-Loir), about 100 km west of Paris, and the receiver will near Palaiseau (Essonne), south of Paris.
- The SSA ... first phase, the preparatory program, [was] authorized ... in November 2008. As part of this program, the ESA is to acquire the ability to monitor any danger to the area, since the risk of collisions between satellites and space debris to the impact of a celestial body through natural by space weather related to solar activity.
- The SSA program exposes the ESA will provide the final of Europe's ability to detect, predict and evaluate the potential risks to life and property represented by space debris, atmospheric reentry, explosions in orbit launches , collisions, disruption of missions and services using satellites, the potential impacts of NEOs, and the effects of intense space weather events on infrastructure both space and on the ground.
- In summer 2011, a U.S. report had alerted the critical level of waste in orbit . This amount has become so important that it may trigger a snowball e

Guess you haven't read the latest; http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110706-nasa-budget-cancel-webb.html

In fact, I wonder if there is any tie from that guy back to L-Mart? These days L-Mart is working hard on hit jobs on SpaceX. They have done loads of lobbying jobs on SpaceX, trying to prevent them from even getting a CHANCE at a job, and now has started an astroturfing 'journalists' similar to MS's use of Rob Enderle against Linux and Android. Sadly, it means that SpaceX has had to waste time and money fighting not just Valador, but L-Mart's lobbyists and hitmen.

There are now many companies that are fighting against all that Musk attempts to do. He really is shaking up the Global industries as he decides to go into them.

Here's a better link. http://www.spacenews.com/launch/110617-spacex-sues-expert-questioned-falcon.html
Valador's VP who allegedly did this, has his background about halfway down.

comcast / weather channel has the funds to have there own weather satellites.

False.

Pentagon Pegs New Cost Estimate For NPOESS At $11.5 Billion
"The Pentagon's latest cost estimate for the scaled-back National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program is $11.5 billion through 2020"

Lockheed Martin Lands $1 Billion Weather Satellite Contract
"The GOES-R system — whose total estimate life-cycle cost is $7.7 billion — will replace the GOES-N satellite series"

These are the two major NOAA weather satellite programs under current development. For comparison, check out Comcast's current market cap: $65B. No way in hell they'd undertake a risky $7-10B investment for a single cable channel requiring expertise in satellite design, construction, launch & operations that they don't have.

There are plenty of joint ventures for weather satellite projects (JASON 3 being the current most visible project underway) as well as data sharing from foreign satellite programs to the US (MetOp for example), but basically it all comes down to money. We can afford to build them. NOAA has a long history of operating these polar orbiting satellites. The program under discussion here was called NPOESS. It was a joint project with DoD and it was more or less a complete disaster - after a decade and $11B spent, no satellite was ever launched, and the ground systems have been sitting idle for so long they're due for a technology refresh. So the White House blew up the program and NOAA took the valuable pieces and it became JPSS. So the budget cuts are a sort of "punishment" for mismanagement - basically Congress wants them to get the damn birds up already.

Unfortunately even that realm is getting threatened with a decrease in funds.

Not according to this article: "the refueling vehicle would dock at the target satellite’s apogee-kick motor, peel off a section of the craft’s thermal protection blanket, connect to a fuel-pressure line and deliver the propellant"

And the lucky lottery winner for 2011 is... ATK

OK, I know it's not a lottery -- it's on purpose (I'm sure someone intended this to happen). AND perhaps I shouldn't be picking on ATK since there's a lot of good people who work there -- I mean them no personal insult.

It looks like the bulk of the rest of the money goes to Lockheed for work on the Orion. That won't go to waste as it's likely Orion, or parts of it, will get used in some future system. It even appears Lockheed might try to put it to use on a commercial launcher:

Lockheed reserved Delta for 2013 test flight Lockheed Martin wants to Launch Orion on Delta IV Heavy

I don't blame them for the end of the shuttle program, but they certainly do get the blame for canceling any hope of future manned space flight!

Huh?

The NASA bill recently passed by Congress funds a new government launcher for Orion and deep space missions and includes $1.2 billion in funding over the next 3 years to start building commercial crew vehicles. This money will be distributed to commercial operators under a commercial crew contract in a similar manner to the COTS contracts for cargo that were awarded to SpaceX and Orbital.

And really, this path will get us back into space faster than Constellation. Ares I was not going to be ready until 2017 according to the Augustine Committee. The new government vehicle is supposed to be done by 2016 and several of the potential commercial crew providers have said they can have their vehicles ready in 3 years.

Human spaceflight in the US is far from dead.

The Falcon-9 is about to get 50% more expensive.
Musk has just proposed to NASA that Space-X will fly only two demonstration flights of Falcon-9, instead of three... but he still wants to be paid for all three.

Several demonstration flights this year? Despite what the SpaceX site says, there was a news story last week wherein SpaceX had told NASA that there would be at least an eight-month gap between the first two COTS demo flights. The first, according to the story, is still apparently planned for sometime in July, but an eight-month gap suggests that the C2 flight won't be until at least March 2011. Another story yesterday mentions that if things went well today, they would be looking to skip one of the COTS demo flights, specifically one that would have the Dragon approach no closer than 10km from the station, and instead have the grapple mission be the second flight, and that was mentioned as being in the second quarter of 2011.

Perhaps, but there's still the part where the whole rover gets covered in hundreds of pounds of dry ice. Maybe an RTG could have kept it from being buried, who knows.

If RTGs get your heart going, just wait for the Mars Science Lander, scheduled for next year's launch window. It's an RTG-powered rover that should last on the surface for quite a while. How long? After 10 years, the RTG should still provide 100 watts.

The two Viking landers were also nuke-powered, and Viking 1 lasted for some six Earth years (2246 sols). Opportunity only just passed Viking 1's longevity record last week.

One other note about RTGs: it's not like you can just order them out of a catalog. They're expensive, they require a lot more intensive mission planning than solar-powered craft, and they are hard to come by. The RTGs that run on Pu-238 are in short supply, because Pu-238 is in short supply, because we aren't manufacturing nuclear weapons anymore. It is in part for this reason that the Juno mission to Jupiter will use solar panels.

...is a friggin' sensationalist claim that has no place in science reporting, either on a primary site or on a news aggregation site. Should the first Falcon 9 fail, they will learn from it and launch better designs in the future. Orbital still is working on its Taurus rocket. The EELV program (Atlas and Delta) are still pushing strong in the commercial market. If the first Falcon 9 flight fails, it will not be the end all be all of either Obama's current NASA vision, nor America's role in the space program. So please, keep the hyperbole out of the damned summaries guys.

I totally agree. I'm a huge fan of SpaceX and have a lot of hope for them, but even if they suddenly disappeared into the ubiquitous ether the new NASA plan would still be going strong. As you mentioned, there's quite a few other companies getting fixed-price milestone-based funding from NASA to develop launch vehicles and spacecraft for crew. A quick summary:

Launch vehicles:
* SpaceX Falcon 9 (vehicle mentioned in summary): medium development risk, low-cost
* Lockheed/ULA Atlas V: low-risk (development risk, that is), high cost, but still drastically lower cost than Space Shuttle or Constellation (has been operating for a number of years now, with all 20 launches so far successful)
* Boeing/ULA Delta IV Heavy: low-risk, high cost (could potentially lift Orion spacecraft)
* Orbital Taurus II: medium-risk, medium-cost, although probably better suited for cargo than crew

Spacecraft (potentially launched on a variety of different launch vehicles):
* SpaceX Dragon: capsule is pretty much ready, with a number of test articles, but the development "long pole" is a to-be-developed launch escape system
* Boeing/Bigelow capsule: sometimes termed the "Orion Lite", Bigelow's also interested in this as a way to get to his private space station modules
* Blue Origin: composite capsule, also designing a novel push-based (instead of the traditional tractor-based) escape system adaptable to other capsules
* Sierra Nevada/SpaceDev Dream Chaser: more novel design, using a lifting-body based on the well-tested HL-20; this sort of design provides a gentler reentry from LEO (and potentially upgrades well to lunar/Lagrangian return); the company has already spent at least $10M of its own funds developing the design and building test articles
* Orbital Cygnus: optimized for cargo deliveries to ISS, but can potentially be extended to crew

It's also worth noting that Blue Origin, ULA, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada are all being funded on CCDev contracts (in addition to a certain amount of private funding, which they're all required to have). With these contracts, they only get the full payment if they meet all of their pre-determined milestones (building test articles, performing tests, etc.) by September of 2010. IMHO, this September is when we'll get a better idea of which companies will be competing for crew/cargo delivery in the future, and

The linked article didn't seem to mention it anywhere, but it's worth noting who the heads of the new committees are:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=29537
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/091030-bolden-revamps-nasa-advisory-council.html

* Commercial Space Committee: Bretton Alexander, current head of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
* Education and Public Outreach: Miles O'Brien, pretty much the best and most clueful space journalist around
* Technology and Innovation Committee: Esther Dyson, well known for her tech entrepreneurship work
* (IT Infrastructure Committee chair seems to be pending)

All in all, they seem to be rather good picks. It also seems that Wesley Huntress has been chosen as the chair of the Science Committee. In 2004 he was head of a study, The Next Steps in Exploring Deep Space, a rather fascinating report proposing a space exploration infrastructure which would initially focus on Lagrange points and Near-Earth Objects, quite similar to the Flexible Path option proposed by the Augustine Commission.

The proposal to kill the Space Station comes up and is killed every year. It was never a serious threat. What is a serious threat is that the $1 billion in cuts to NASA's budget were included in the bill and passed (here). These were targeted specifically at the non-manned missions, so the NASA cuts we were all debating a few weeks ago went through.