A new competition, the America's Space Prize will award $50 Million to the maker of a spacecraft which can take a crew of five people 400 km, complete two orbits, and then repeat the feat within 60 days.

I think these competitions are absolutely fabulous, and are coming around way too late. We should have done this long ago. If you look back a little while, this sort of competition is how the airline industry took off. Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic was to win a similar type of competition. And when air travel became more feasible, did the government setup a national airline? Of course not. It hired private companies to carry mail cross country. Imagine where our space industry would be today if the government had done the same thing in the 70's and 80's instead of continuing to support NASA. What if the government had hired private companies to carry satellites into space? I have a feeling a trip to Beijing would only take a couple hours. Government funded and controlled is rarely the best solution.

You hear that George? Remember all that talk earlier about an ownership society? Privatizing Social Security? Reforming the tax code? Insurance reform that is not socialized? I actually expect results on those promises besides the whole War on Terror thing. No more worrying about re-election now. Time to pay the piper. And while your at it... maybe it's time to take another look at NASA. Make it a scientific endeavor for space exploration, not our future for all space travel.