What's New Friday April 20, 2007

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 20 Apr 07   Washington, DC

1. BIGELOW SPACE STATIONS: BUDGET SUITES IN LOW-EARTH ORBIT. 
"Space is just another place to do business," they used to say in
the Reagan White House.  What business, you might ask?  The
latest venture in space is Bigelow Aerospace, which revealed its
plans last week at the National Space Symposium in Colorado
Springs.  Robert Bigelow, the founder and president of Bigelow
Aerospace, intends to have three manned outposts, assembled from
inflatable modules, in low-Earth orbit by 2015.  Bigelow is also
the owner of Budget Suites of America, a hotel chain, but he'll
leave space tourism to the ISS.  Bigelow is courting two markets:
foreign space agencies that don't have access to a space station,
and multinational corporations that want to get into micro-
gravity research.  That was the fatal miscalculation of previous
space station programs: industry couldn't find anything worth
doing in micro-gravity.  So, is this crazy?  Decide for yourself:
Robert Bigelow also founded the National Institute of Discovery
Science in Las Vegas, a secretive research group with links to
the Pentagon that focuses on alien abductions and the paranormal. 

2. SEX EDUCATION: ABSTINENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER. 
Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just
as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study
ordered by Congress.  Nor did they have fewer sex partners, or
wait longer to become sexually active.  The report, released late
last Friday, comes just after the abrupt resignation of Dr. Eric
Keroack, an anti-birth control zealot, appointed by Bush just
four months ago to head the Office of Population Affairs of the
Department of Health and Human Services.  A non-board-certified
gynecologist/obstetrician who operates six Christian anti-
abortion centers in Massachusetts, Keroack had been notified of a
state investigation into his private practice.

3. STUDENT LOANS: EVEN HIGHER EDUCATION HAS SUCCUMBED TO BRIBERY.
In 1994, Congress established a program of direct student loans
at lower interest rates.  Bank of America and Citibank, the
biggest banks in the student loan business, lavished millions in
bribes on colleges and universities to get them to drop out of
the federal program.  The banks were led to the trough by Sallie
Mae, the largest private student lender.  Sallie Mae began  as a
quasi-governmental agency in 1972, but began privatizing 10 years
ago.  This week Sallie Mae announced it is selling itself and
will become will become fully private.  The CEO will walk away
from the deal with about $257 million, while 10 million students
will graduate with debts that average nearly $20,000.

4. MISTAKES: READERS TELL US WN HAS BEEN GETTING A LITTLE SLOPPY.
Everyone in the APS Washington Office used to stop what they were
doing late Friday to proof WN.  We are now making the transition
from APS to UMD, however, and "we" now means "me."  We will try
to be more careful, but mystakes are possible.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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