Free Republic

When the Amerian Rescue Plan was passed, it included a provision setting aside $29 billion for farmers, restaurant owners and other businesses that were heavily impacted by the pandemic. The language of the bill raised eyebrows immediately because the grants and loan forgiveness being made available were to be prioritized for “socially disadvantaged” owners of such businesses. That provision became relevant to Adam Faust, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. Faust has two prosthetic legs but manages to operate his small farm with 70 dairy cows and a couple of hundred acres of feed crops for them. Keeping his business going during...

Now comes the latest gun-grabbing set of liars. Check-out their ridiculous website, which claims that ARPA is a "common sense set of hunters and target-shooters" who want to be "a third voice" in the gun debate. The web page asks you to sign-up. There is no article or link that actually tells you who they are or why they want your name and email. The site offers absolutely nothing. Noted in this month's "First Freedom."

The American Rifle and Pistol Association wants to be a nonpartisan alternative to the NRA, but critics are calling it a Democratic gun control group. When the American Rifle and Pistol Association launched July 4, it hoped to attract gun owners across the political spectrum who were looking for a "sane" alternative to the NRA. So far, that effort doesn't appear to be going well. [READ: New Gun Group Aims to Be Nonpartisan Alternative to the NRA]On various gun forums and blogs, the reception has been anything but friendly. Instead of being depicted as the new and improved NRA, the...

Fifty years ago, a small Soviet satellite was launched, stunning the U.S. and sparking a massive technology research effort. Could we be in for another "October surprise"? Quick, what's the most influential piece of hardware from the early days of computing? The IBM 360 mainframe? The DEC PDP-1 minicomputer? Maybe earlier computers such as Binac, ENIAC or Univac? Or, going way back to the 1800s, is it the Babbage Difference Engine? More likely, it was a 183-pound aluminum sphere called Sputnik, Russian for "traveling companion." Fifty years ago, on Oct. 4, 1957, radio-transmitted beeps from the first man-made object to...

"'La force motrice' of Reusable Launcher Development: The Rise and Fall of the SDIO's SSTO Program, From the X-Rocket to the Delta Clipper" Introduction. NASA commissioned me to document the development of the X-33 in March of 1997. The X-33 is an advanced technology demonstrator vehicle intended to flight test technologies deemed critical for eventually building a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket transport. Those technologies include a metallic thermal protection system, an aerospike engine, and composite cryogenic hydrogen tanks. As part of the history project, I chose to write about the SDIO's SSTO Program as a predecessor to the X-33, even though...