When President Obama recently released his budget for NASA, he proposed a slight increase in total funding, substantial research and technology development, an extension of the International Space Station operation until 2020, long range planning for a new but undefined heavy lift rocket and significant funding for the development of commercial access to low earth orbit.

Although some of these proposals have merit,  the accompanying decision to cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating.»

Open letter to president Obama.

Update: theregister.

Major-general Robert M. White, the first person to fly a winged aircraft at four, five and six times the speed of sound and the first to reach the space by the same means, died last March 17th at the age of 85.

When I was a kid I spend many hours reading my elder brother’s book of planes. Man, X-15 was the speed itself.

Find this obituary at Los Angeles Times.

Via gizmodo.

I’d like to remember also Michael J. Adams, who died in 1967 flying another X-15 beast.

This and «Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You» are very inspirational speeches.

You can rewind 40 years and «revive» the historical moment of the first trip to the Moon here.

It is good to find inspiration in such challenges and achievements and it is good to recognize and match them to our everyday activities.

Via gizmodo.