News From Around The Internet: Dateline Feb 7, 2006

Sorry for not posting for the last few days. My family moved into our new house over the weekend and the cable internet won't be installed until Thursday.

• NASA is planning a investment vehicle called Red Planet Capital with the purpose of
  
  
  
  • To attract and motivate private sector innovators and investors who have not typically conducted business with NASA, including tapping more efficiently into the pool of small, leading-edge, organizations which are responsible for much of the innovative hi-tech thinking and research in the US;
    
  • To leverage existing external venture capital to encourage development of technologies and products likely to be of future use to NASA's mission;
    
  • To improve and expedite public/private partnership formation, through the redesign of administrative, management, and legal processes and procedures.
    



• China is building a tokamak fusion reactor (well of course they are).



• Jeff Foust reviews Return to the Moon. Check out my review.



• Taylor Dinerman discusses Rocket Racing in the 21st Century



• James Oberg talks about Russia's Moon Plans



• SpaceX is trying again this week. From SpaceX "The new launch time is February 8 at 4:30 p.m. California time with Feb. 9 as a backup day". [update 10:00am CST]Oops, due to testing, the new lanch date is Feb 10.
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• Michael Belfiore reviews Moon Landings, an Eyewitness Account



• NASA only gets a %1 budget increase for 2007, but the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate gets 30% to $938 million. NSF gets 7.9% increase (so the science weenies will hush up).



• Richard Branson says Virgin Galactic is on schedule.



• Bill Richardson defends the New Mexico Spaceport.