Free Republic

My father died a few days ago. He was 100 years old. I never met his parents, he barely knew them himself. His mother, the daughter of a Russian Jewish immigrant who fought for the Union, taught second grade in New York City public schools. She died when he was three, in the flu epidemic of 1918-1919, one of the greatest disasters in American history. A quarter of the American population, including President Wilson, caught the disease, and 700,000 died from it -- twice as many as fell in World War II. In New York City people were dying so...

Despite a declaration from President Barack Obama that the moon is not a planned destination for American astronauts, senior NASA engineers have quietly begun reconsidering using it as a staging point for an eventual mission to Mars.William Gerstenmaier, the chief of human exploration for NASA, does not see the president's plan of a direct, 900-day mission to the red planet as achievable. Instead, Gerstenmaier believes large amounts of ice at the lunar poles may provide an important reservoir of oxygen and hydrogen fuel to propel rockets and spaceships across the 40 million miles of space to Mars."If propellant was available...

The current presidential campaign hinges on jobs and the economy. Yet most of the debate has centered on peripheral issues such as the Bush tax cut, when there is a Tyrannosaurus in the room that is being virtually ignored. That monster is the EPA.The EPA is today the primary enemy of economic growth in the United States, and through it the world. The damage that it has done, is doing, and threatens to do in the future is immense. Virtually since its birth in 1970, the agency has committed one atrocity after another. As one of its first acts...

I was stunned to discover that, I recieved an email from Robert Zubrin himself apparently! Man famous for his Mars Direct plan. A plan to send people to Mars as cheaply as possible. I know many people here think he is a little crazy with his whole Mars Direct thing. Though I share the same dream of one day seeing people on Mars, there has been a big question as to whether or not his plan is the best. You can read all about his plan at his site here at http://www.marssociety.com But this topic focuses on another aspect of...

I'm listening to Coast to Coast AM right now. Robert Zubrin is on talking about, no surprise, Mars Direct. He, along with our favorite Mars conspiracy guy Richard C. Hoagland, talked about Mars, how to get there, why O'Keefe is evil, for the second hour of the show. The first hour was all about Hoagland and his whack theory. What I found intersting though was in the third hour is Zubrins NON-Mars book. Its basically a Sci-Fi book in which, these people who rely on logic (hence, really hated) are helped by this "liberal" democracatic alien society (or was it...