WHAT'S NEW Friday, June 11, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 11 Jun 04   Washington, DC

Paul Gresser contributed to this week's issue of What's New.

1. THE REAGAN LEGACY: AN EPONYMOUS EPIDEMIC GRIPS WASHINGTON. 
The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project is dedicated to making sure that
Americans are reminded of Reagan every day as they go about their
business.  The top priority is to replace Alexander Hamilton on
the $10 bill.  But Reagan is too big for a sawbuck.  Too big even
for Rushmore.  So why not go for the moon?  Everybody loves the
moon, and it's badly in need of a real name.  Other planets have
moons with dynamite names like "Phobos" and "Titan."  What do we
call our moon?  "The moon."  It's an embarrassment.  Why not call
it "Reagan"?  We were there first, and we should name it.  But
we'd better do it before China gets there and names it "Mao."  

2. IT'S THE PITS: GOP LAWMAKER SLASHES FUNDS FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
The infamous Nuclear Posture Review, which leaked two years ago,
http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn031502.cfm , outlined a secret plan
to develop a new class of nuclear weapons, while publicly
opposing nuclear proliferation.  David Hobson (R-OH), powerful
chair of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee,
and a true fiscal conservative, was having none of it.  Funding
was eliminated for a new pit facility, clearly capable of making
plutonium pits for new weapons, and a nuclear bunker-buster bomb.

3. DARPA: A MOMENT OF SILENCE TO REFLECT ON OUR FALLEN PROGRAMS.
Last week marked the demise of the Isomer Energy Release Program, 
http://www.aps.org/WN/index.cfm but this was only the most recent
DARPA program to be too strange even for the Pentagon, like Total
Information Awareness http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn122002.cfm . 
Then there was the Policy Analysis Market, a plan to base
intelligence estimates on betting in a futures market (maybe
that's where the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq came from), and the LifeLog comprehensive personal database  
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62158,00.html .  

4. SPACESHIPONE: IS "LOW-COST SPACE FLIGHT" AN OXYMORON?
Scheduled for launch on June 21, SpaceOne is the first attempt to
send a private spacecraft beyond Earth's atmosphere with a human
cargo.  If it can safely ferry three passengers to an altitude of
100 kilometers twice within two weeks, SpaceShipOne will win the
$10 million Ansari X Prize, a contest intended to stimulate
interest in the space tourism industry.  They hope to "show that
people can fly to space for very low cost" by using "the lowest
technology possible, not the highest."  Perhaps they'll be kind
enough to fix Hubble (WN 26 Mar 04) while they're up there.


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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