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Rules Set for $50 Million America's Space Prize
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that The rules have been set for Robert Bigelow's $50 million 'America's Space Prize'. The gist of it is that the winner needs to get a crew of five people up 400km, complete two orbits of the Earth, and then do it again within 60 days. I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!
..until Rutan does this?
I've got a gremlin and a huge rubber band... now if I only had 4 friends!
;)
The confessions of a true geek, eh Taco?
That said, the time frame for this thing seems a little too high -
And one more thing. They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010.
I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing -- 3 years might have been nice, but 5 years seems a little too long to me.
Anyway, this is really good. Hopefully, the space race has started again!
PS - why the _HELL_ is Slashdot having an applet in the ads? It freezes up my browser in Windows for a while. It's getting to be a pain. At the very least, provide some way of turning off Applet ads.
It seems like spaceship one spent significantly more than 10 mil on their first ship. Is 50 mil a large enough reward for other participants?
The spacecraft must reach a minimum velocity sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before returning to Earth; It doesn't say that it actually has to orbit twice though, just reach the velocity necessary to do so.
Wow, no more than 20% expendable and attain a real orbit. I have a feeling this money is safe.
...must be Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Ashcroft, and Oreilly. Successful reentry is not required to receive your prize.
Space Travel is exciting - but everyone who wants to experience space is already a scuba diver - and the experience is largely the same.
Cost effective Wind Power (Kilowatts/Construction costs) would mean the end of middle east conflict, global warming, rural poverty in developing countries, lung disease in Beiging.
How else could you solve so many problem with a 10 million dollar prize. If Burt Rutan was focused on a lightweight scalable wind turbine - My guess is we'd be there by now. Instead we've invented a private version of the vomit comet.
AIK
No.
The basic problem is not that we do not have enough power, it is that we have too many people stuffed in a limited volume (I'm going to avoid having to have two meanings of "space" in this comment, dammit!). Getting to space efficiently allows us to have a larger volume in which humanity can live.
It doesn't solve every problem in the world, but being to run very very far away from your problems helps. It's how the U.S.A. got started.
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
I'm a little disappointed with the name. Even if the money is put up by Americans and will almost inevitably be won by an American it just seems a little well clique-y to put America in the title. I'm aware this is private enterprise and they have the right to call it what they like, I'm just a little sad about their choice.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
Yeah, sure, and the moment you start sucking gigawatts of wind power out of the atmosphere, you'll be shifting the climate in new and interesting ways. Then you'll get a new generation of enviro-nutters on your case.
There's a huge difference between flying a neato rocket plane like "SpaceShipOne" and actually achieving Low Earth Orbit. This will be a much more difficult challenge!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active.
If people die in the course of attaining this prize, say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations. The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong.
This contest also has the potential to create an international incident.
The rules say that only 20% of the vehicule can be expendable. Why have this requirement at all? If someone can send a ship cheaply and reliably that doesn't meet this rule, then why not?
Stephen
"Bigelow Aerospace will be hiring astronauts, as well as conduct the training of "space novices""
;)
NASA does intense training; will these new spacecraft pilots have heat resistant learner plates?!
The contestant must have its principal place of business in the United States of America.
Isn't this is very restrictive and unfair?
Now, using a rubber band would be impractical -- when you apply an impulse to an idealized orbit, the trajectory will change but it will always return to the same point at which you applied the impulse. Therefore your Gremlin would crash into the Earth's surface. You would need a second rubber band floating in space to actually reach orbit.
Now, this is *unless* you take advantage of perturbations of a second body -- like the Moon -- to alter your trajectory enough to bring the perigee up to 400 km. This is what I am assuming you meant.
Sincerely,
Pedant McGee
I don't think the prize money is enough. It cost about half that to attain something much less by SpaceShipOne. My guess is that it will cost closer to $100 mil to do such a thing and claim the prize. Furthermore, I think the timespan is too short. It took 8 years for someone to claim the Ansari prize. How can we expect something much difficult to be accomplished in much less time? Sure, some of the development is in place by the teams that lost, but there are many hurdles to be overcome for orbital flight.
A blog like any other.
Rutan's accomplishment was impressive, but as has been pointed out in other discussions, it was essentially a high-flying airplane rather than a true spaceship, and doesn't scale well. Anyone who wins this prize will have built something much more directly applicable to real space travel.
...
Which isn't to say I don't want Rutan, or someone else whose approach is essentially aviation-based rather than big-boom-straight-up-based, to get it. When I was a kid, I spent endless hours reading my Dad's old 50's sci-fi collection, and somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that a real spaceship has a needle nose and delta wings
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The end of Middle East conflict? In your dreams...
When the Arab nations realize they can't eat sand and can't afford to import food because their oil is worthless, there'll be hell to pay.
" The risks involved increase polynomially the longer the craft is active."
I don't mean this the way this sounds, but I think you made this up completely. You may be right. But I don't see any data to support this.
"If people die in the course of attaining this prize"
People die skydiving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, skiing... all the time. Unlike many people, I don't think the loss of a spacecraft with 6 people on board is any more tragic than the loss of 6 people in a minivan accident on the freeway.
"say goodbye to private space travel and hello to new laws and regulations."
New laws and regulations are inevitable anyway. Or did you think Virgin Airlines (Branson) is just going to fire up Spaceship one and start taking reservations? Its really hard getting FCC certified for any kind of commercial flights.
"The chilling effect from "Columbia" is nothing compared to what will happen if a private attempt goes wrong."
What chilling effect? The space shuttle is a piece of crap; it should be grounded because its too expensive.
"This contest also has the potential to create an international incident."
So does fingerprinting and retina scanning all foreigners entering the country, but that doesn't seem to have stopped us.
Stop worrying about the sky falling.
WTF are you talking about? What does Burt have anything to do with this? Also realize that by moving the contest rules to the U.S., this will have the potential to bring great minds at one central location to tackle the task. It's a fact that materials, services, and general cooperation is much better in the U.S. than abroad. But yes, it is also very America-centric, but hey, if you have $50 mil, start your own contest with your own rules, instead of bitching about someone else's. It should also be noted that Bigelow is doing this for the promotion of his own inflatable modules, not for the betterment of humanity.
A blog like any other.
How else could you solve so many problem with a 10 million dollar prize. If Burt Rutan was focused on a lightweight scalable wind turbine - My guess is we'd be there by now. Instead we've invented a private version of the vomit comet.
Let's see:
Invention #1, if it can be invented, will provide cheap and unlimited energy to the world population. Profit value: Gajillions.
Invention #2, if it can be invented, will provide trips to low Earth orbit for the lucky few who can afford it. Profit value: a few million a year.
Seems to me the key phrase here is "if it can be invented" and not "10 million dollar 'prize' for inventing it". There is a heck of a lot more of a prize in cash terms waiting for invention #1 without a group of hobby enthusiasts offering anything. Doesn't appear you thought before you ranted.
We're agreed that cost-effective wind power would be a good thing, however unlikely it may be. I'm not sure that I agree with your list of miracles it would cause.
the end of middle east conflict,
Does that mean that you think the Muslims are fighting the Jews and Christians for oil? Better think again: they've been killing each other, and us, since about 624 AD.
global warming,
You might be right on this one, but us Northeners like global warming.
rural poverty in developing countries,
Wish you were right on this. It should help, but poverty is caused more by government corruption and lawlessness than by lack of infrastructure. Given good government, Uganda would soon be more like Canada than Uganda. Unfortunately, no one knows how to ``give'' good government.
lung disease in Beiging.
This one we can agree on.
See what I've been reading.
The idea that we should escape the world and live in space...
Why not jsut say lets live on water? Sure as heck easier to get to, and you can have sub-aqua settlements for those hoping to have gone to space.
Benefits of living on water:
No rocket accidents
Cheaper to ferry supplies
Less Gamma radiation
If the global warming occurs, water prices (like land prices, get it!) will plummet! Coastal regions will always be prime real-estate! (for the land views)
You can use desalinisation to drink sea water, you can use devacuumisation to magic up water in space.
You can have solar power and wind power and wave power.
You have a comfortable 1G, and sea level air pressure, and a salty air that will put a healthy hue in your cheeks.
Topless sunbathing.
Can move around the oceans, and fish.
Benefits of being in space:
0g sex
wearing silver clothing
Well I can think of a few more arguments, but going to space 'to live there' is so dumb, living in the desert is easier and cheaper than living in space. Many poor people with camels already do it!
Recycling and filtering our pollution is easier than recycling and rebreathing space station air.
Terrorist attacks are worrying on a space station, which brings us to the question:
So why do people want to go to space and offer prizes for new space technology?
Not for living! not for Star Trek/Wars/n!
But for commercial flights, transports, satellites, RIAA, Micheal Jackson and Military purposes.
So there, I hope we are all done pandering to the space race, as we will be living int he oceans before we live on mars.
Actually, we will all be dead from all the new space weapons.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Apples and Oranges.
They should pursue both inventions. Why does everyone think that a space program is the entity stopping other inventions from happening? It's not. NASA is not stopping the creation of efficient wind power. God damnit. Bitch about the military's budget instead. Stop messing with the real estate investment opportunity of a lifetime.
Moderation: +1 pwnage
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Others have already pointed out that you have attributed the prize to the wrong person.
The rest of your statement is absurd. Don't like an American contest like this? Scrounge together your own 10 million and offer a contest of your own. Surely there are rich companies and coporations in your part of the world that can pony up the cash?
When I look to donate money to a cause, I don't donate to an "adopt an african child" program, I donate to a local foodbank. When I volunteer time, I don't go to South America and build schools, I help Habitat for Humanity.
I can't help the whole world, and these charities and organizations focus on my neighbours and the people in my community. One could even say that my actions are not altruistic, as these are the same neighbours and community my children and family live in. They may one day need the help of these services.
Not every action and event has to be balanced for some metric of global fairness.
A desire to foster innovation and advancement in your own country is only reasonable. Since this is private money, it can be used any way he wants to.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
I think his point is that the way it is worded, the winner must achieve that velocity, but they don't actually have to complete two orbits around the Earth. It's the velocity that is required, not the orbiting. So maybe they could orbit just once, then land, because they did achieve the required velocity.
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
What we really need to do is offer a prize for someone to convince all the myopic NIMBY types to give the pebble bed reactors a try. And yes, if you want to build one in my backyard, go right ahead.
The Earth has been warm before, and it was good.
From that link:
Those who don't know history will only repeat the bad parts of it.See what I've been reading.
Look at it this way: he/them could build another $50M house with 20 bedrooms, 50" plasma display in each room and five swimming pools, instead of funding this prize.
For one, (very) efficient Wind Power Station itself would give immediate cash prize to any inventor. From the market. If it doesn't happen, perhaps it can't be done in foreseable future.
And, perhaps for someone "putting your eggs in more than one basket" is more important goal than taking care of energy distribution. I understand that "worthy goals" are not universal, but you're free to set your own prize, or nag the wealthier of us to set one.
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
"Is it wrong for America just to care just about itself?" Nope. If America doesn't care about America, no one else will. It's human nature to want to see the mighty fall. Nationalism isn't a bad thing. And besides, is anyone saying there is nothing Euro-centric? That all things should be global?
True - but the trade-routes went through there too, so it was worth fighting for. The only bit that matters in that respect now is the Suez Canal; otherwise, we have lots of alternatives these days for importing Eastern goods!
Ok since noone has said it:
Who wouldn't be able to find 4 friends when you have a gremlin and a huge rubber band!
How is this a better idea? Bigelow needs a way to get tourists into orbit to visit his space hotels; his dream. Can you think of a more cost effective why of achieving this goal? A better wind power station would not help one bit.
If you are saying that in general money could be spent on more altruistic goals, then that may be true, but it has no relevance to this conversation. You might as well go bitch at people for spending money on new SUVs instead of funding wind research. It's their money, they can spend it how they wish.
If you truly believe in a prize for wind power then you should found an organization to fund a W-Prize and start stumping for donations, much like the founder of the X-prize did when he wanted to help further space travel. Corporate donations for such a concept might not be that hard to obtain, I can see big oil companies signing up for the good advertising, for example.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Others have already expressed dismay at the USA-onlyness of the prize. The solution, of course, would be for a Non-USA billionaire or corporation or consortium thereof to offer a similar, but better, prize. Keep most of the rules the same, except that the corporation couldn't be American, and development & launch would have to take place outside of the United States. I agree that $50 million seems too low. How about €100 million to €150 million?
I think the math suggests that 2000 difference may be better spent on sustainable power generation because it indicates that the affordable-effeciency gains for the current refridgerator have been exploited. If the remaining choice is non-cost effective exploits or more cost effective generation - then the smart money goes with the higher cost/benefit.
AIK
...why is it open only for Americans?
I think people forget that Burt Rutan's company is probably the leading candidate to win this US$50,000,000 prize.
Scaled Composites did a lot of development work for both the McDonnell-Douglas Delta Clipper and Lockheed Martin Venture Star projects. This means Scaled Composites already has enough technical knowledge to start work on a space vehicle to win this prize as soon as they get enough funding to pull it off (Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures could easily part with the US$200,000,000 estimated development cost; Allen's group paid US$30,000,000 to develop the X-Prize winner).
if there was an X-prize for finding the tooth fairy, it still couldn't be found.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
... Schröder, Chirac, Blair, Sharon and Berlusconi on the second trip?
Schroder will attract hordes of angry east German protester who will block the launch, Blair will give the plans of the ship to the US government with offers of complimentary sexual gratification to any senior member of the administration, Sharon won't get in the ship because it will probably fly over a moslem country at some point, Chirac will ask for United Nations meetings, counter-meeting, commissions and detailed reports on the size and orientation of every single joint in the fuselage, and Berlusconi will just run away with the prize !
Thomas-
Wish you were right on this. It should help, but poverty is caused more by government corruption and lawlessness than by lack of infrastructure. Given good government, Uganda would soon be more like Canada than Uganda. Unfortunately, no one knows how to ``give'' good government.
Give them the Canadian government. Canadians are basically good people and would behave without their government.
This piece discusses some of the reasons for the decrease in influence of the Middle East starting in the 18th century, one of them being the shift of world trade from the Mediterranean Sea out to the oceans, but also the unwillingness to be involved in the Industrial Revolution, and several other internal issues.
[rant]
g ives-you-cool-stuff-in-the-afterlife has to be the best thing since gays. Gays don't make babies, Athiesm doesn't make terrorists. We need more gay athiests (et al).)
That's right, hell to pay and they'll have plenty of our money to pay it back to us with. Endless amounts of money are funneled out of the USA and into the Middle East without any real checks or balances. They've got oil, we think we need it. Once we stop thinking we need it, we'll stop buying it, then they'll have a little oil and a whole lot of money. What does one do with a little oil and a lot of money? Well buy/build airplanes that drop bombs of course!
I'm sorry, but the Middle East is unfortunately a land beyond hope. There are too many people with too many conflicting ideas who are willing to kill one another over those ideas. The last part is the key, the part where they're willing to kill over their different ideas. We need to nuke them and turn the whole desert into a giant solar panel before the "conflict" in the Middle East will be resolved--I'm not saying we should, I'm saying that is what it would take for there to be peace in the middle east, as thousand-year wars don't just up and get resolved. By acting in the middle east though, we're no better than they are. We might be in a different PLACE but the whole philosophy is the same, you're forcing your ideas on somebody else by either controlling or killing them. A lot of people over there are after power, and they achieve it through instilling fear and committing murder. I don't know if power gives them a hard-on and they go home and stroke after gunning down some civillians or what, but there's some very strong driving force behind this perpetual power-seeking and idea-forcing. It's probably religious: they think that if they do certain things here they'll get certain things in return later from their deity. The Christians do it too, remember that Christianity CAME from the Middle East.
(Parenthetically, Agnosticism/Athiesm/Religion-without-a-deity-who-
[/rant]
In sum: I totally agree with you.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
The aerodynamics of a Gremlin are such that the giant rubber band will give insufficient lift to attain orbital velocity. You'll be better off with a good strong plank and one of those weights from Acme that read 16 TONS on the side.
The only drawback is that the sudden acceleration may cause your passengers to look like pancakes of mercury on the floormats, assuming they don't just flow through the rust holes in the floorboards.
If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
The formula for these space prizes seems to be very predictable:
1. Build private spaceship funded by yourself and your startup.
2. Bring X people up Y km, do it again in Z days.
3. Profit.
All your Sybase are belong to us.
Someone better check these ships for rockets and/or lasers. For $50 million these guys are going to be trying to take eachother out should they pass in orbit.
MG
Most new installations are "bird friendly" - larger, slower rotating blades, turbines designed to prevent birds from landing or nesting on the housing, and placement taking into account migratory patterns.
.126 kills / year / turbine. This is a worst case, since it is generally accepted that Altamont Pass has an unusually high kill rate because it was built without taking into consideration migration paths and bird friendly engineering.
.126 kills / turbine year = 6804 dead birds a year
Using this as a reference, there are approximately 180 turbines in use or proposed by this provider. At full capacity, this would account for 1/3 of a percent of the US electrical demand.
Using Altamont Pass (not included in the above calcuation) as a reference, and this page for kill rates, you get about
So, 180 turbines * 300 (needed to supply the whole US) and you get 54,000 turbines. Which converts to:
54,000 *
Sounds like a lot, right?
Well, according to this (note: facts from a wind energy provider), 57 million birds are killed by automobiles each year, 97 million die from "sudden plate glass deceleration", and 1.5 million die from running into things that aren't even moving.
I don't know about you, but 7000 birds a year to generate all US electricity via a renewable resource with no emissions seems to be a good deal. Especially when it only costs 2.54 cents / kWh above non-green power.
- Tony
We're all overlooking one key fact:
It must also demonstrate the ability to dock with Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space habitat and be able to stay docked in orbit for up to six months.
This prize is not an act of goodwill - it is subcontracted commercial R&D! Presumably this "Bigelow Aerospace" (doesn't that sound like something out of the Jetsons?) company is in need of a launch vehicle, and finds it cheaper to launch a "contest" than to develop the vehicle themselves. Remember, Rutan & Co. spent well more than $10 million developing SS1... it's likely Bigelow will actually save money if the contest is completed successfully...
Think of the early space walkers and how even the most simple tasks caused them to flail about and sweat buckets. You know, Newton's Laws, action and reaction, and how partners having sex will probably have to be tied down with Velcro or something similar.
As far as solo sex, no one is admitting to that one either and whether there are any particular problem areas. Michael Collins said that the docs had recommended this activity for long-duration space station missions, you know, so a guy doesn't get prostate problems in space (one of the Apollo 13 guys got really, really sick with a UTI because he was holding it because there was some miscommunication whether they had enough electric power to take a leak), but the astronauts were indignant that the docs would even talk about such a thing.
On the other hand, these guys on 90 day cruises inside of missile submarines, don't tell me that no one has had solo sex, although the Navy doesn't check to see if you are imagining it with a chick or a dude.
The whole bird thing is a red herring. In the US, glass windows kill 100-900 million birds per year. Housecats kill another 100 million. Cars kill 50-100 million. 174 million are killed in collisions with power lines. 67 million are poisoned by pesticides. An unknown number are killed by land development. 4-10 million are killed by communication towers. An unknown number die in stock tanks. 1-2 million die in oil and gas extraction. An unknown number die in logging and mining. An unknown number die in commercial fishing. More than 1000 raptors are electrocuted each year. 100+ million birds are hunted each year.
m
Wind power kills a tiny amount in comparison to other human activities. About a third of sites studied thusfar have zero recorded bird fatalities. There is a strong standard deviation, however, so careful location selection can make a big difference.
Source:
http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.ht
http://www.currykerlinger.com/studies.htm
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
The thing is Burt Rutan isn't into designing wind turbines - he's into designing airframes. If there had been a $10M wind turbine prize, Burt Rutan wouldn't have been a competitor - it's not one of his interests.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
500!!! that's all???
I could run over that many scientists on my way home. Just one of the buildings I'm in every week easily has that many scientists in it.
If you could only come up with 500 that agree with your hypothesis, then you may be doing something wrong.
Perhaps you need to phrase your questions in a different way.
This prize appears custom-tailored for a win on a Falcon V, a new rocket aiming for first flight in 2005 carrying a Bigelow Aerospace test module. The Falcon V is manufactured by SpaceX, Elon Musk's new rocket firm. Assuming that the Falcon V is a successful rocket, all of the prize rules are within the design capabilities of the Falcon V.
This appears to be part of Bigelow's demonstration to Musk that he will have a sufficient private market should Musk invest in designing a capsule plus ground infrastructure. Look at it as $50 million cash plus hundreds of millions in solid follow-on business. The prize reduces the risk of Musk's business case, which is important since the technical challenges of a capsule are certainly non-trivial.
No, you illiterate (or lazy) fool.
Some American guy wants to get tourists up to a LEO inflatable space hotel his American company is going to build. He wants to deal with an American company - the article suggests that there are practical logistic reasons involved. It's just a guy investing domestically. There is nothing evil, arrogant, or ethnocentric about it.
It's his $50 million. It's a business venture, and if he doesn't want to deal with foreign crybabies like you, more power to him.
Don't like it? Make your own prize, then make your own rules.
Stop. Giving. The. Goatse. Guy. Ideas.
That is all.
While this may seem like a rip-off, everything is much more open than a typical commercial R&D subcontract. Those are usually done like NASA has done things, or worse, especially for the sub-contractor.
At least in this situation everything is going to be out in the open, you don't have to worry about missing deadlines, because the deadlines are something that you set personally. It may be influenced by competition, but even then it is quite straight forward, and if you miss the prize because somebody else beat you to that... that is simply the rules of the game. Normally if this were an R&D subcontract like you were implying, there would be the primary contractor or customer who would be breathing down your neck asking for status reports every couple of days, if not daily or hourly (depending on how anal the customer is and mission critical the project is).
On the other hand, I agree that this is a very cost-effective solution in terms of getting needed components on a very visible project. It would be impressive if GM or Ford did something similar in terms of building a hydrogen-fueled engine or even a major utility company in regards to highly efficient power generation. Set the specific requirements and guarentee a certain minimum buy of the power generated from such a facility, such as a wind farm, geothermal vents, or even a nuclear power plant with an established maximum of nuclear waste generation. There is some real engineering that could be accomplished using this model that would be incredibly effective.
This could even be done for software components that implement a certain technology. Just for instance, if you set up a contest to pay for the first implementation of a new audio or video codec that also has features X,Y,Z (like a plug-in to winamp, and LGPL libraries, etc).
The main requirement here to do such a contest is that 1) the discussion of the project can be done publicly and 2) the resulting product while complimentary to your product line, does not directly compete with what you do for your main line business or with the industry (when a large number of corporate sponsors are involved).
In this case with Bigelow Aerospace, they really need to have these spacecrafts available, but don't really intend to build and fly them.
Not every engineering challenge can be solved this way, but there are a number than can be done. This is also why Thiokol won't be a sponsor (although perhaps a competitor?), because this does directly compete with what they do for a business.
Let me help further that point.
Spreading the Word (w/photos)
Col. Gary Brandl: Satan lives in Fallujah
In preparation for the attack, Christian Heavy Metal.
As for other interesting Iraq news for today:
US forces demolish a hospital and target another for releasing casualty figures; 70 journalists are embedded for the invasion; mot of the troops doing the invasion have no major combat experience; and a Georgia man commits suicide at Ground Zero to protest Bush and the war in Iraq.
"Now we're getting to Science -- I love this!" -- Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary confirmation hearings.
This is not a hidden agenda. It's the explicit goal of a company that wants to (gasp!) make a profit.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....