What an absolutely amazing time to be alive.  We’re in the midst of another presidential election, and surprisingly, this one’s got my interest a lot more than previous ones have, a lot more than I expected.  The X-Prize has been won by the first commercial manned spaceship to reach the boundary of space…  that’s just the beginning.  We have a war going on in Iraq, still, though it’s not called a war anymore, it’s just “insurgents” now.  On top of all this, Conan O’Brien’s set to take over for Jay Leno in five years.  Amazing.

            I skipped out on most of the debate tonight to spend time with a friend.  Yeah, yeah, I’m being bad, but I’m sure I can find recordings of the debate lying around the internet tomorrow.  From what I heard of the debate tonight, Kerry was taking some pretty sharp jabs at Bush.  I also heard Bush break from debate rules and demand / force a response to something Kerry had said.  Instead of being civil and following the rules, the debate sounded like it was getting bloody.  Good.  J

            All of the polls lately say the race is a dead tie between Kerry and Bush.  At this point, I’m not entirely convinced that Kerry would make a better president… but hey, I look at it from this standpoint:  I know Bush has fucked up the economy.  I know Bush has fucked up our reputation / foreign relations.  A report was just released yesterday that confirmed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  I continue to believe that Bush is a moron who is driving this country deeper and deeper into a hole.  I don’t know if John Kerry would do any better or worse, but hey, I say it’s time to take a chance and go for the unknown here.  Instead of voting for someone that’s a guaranteed fuckup, I’m probably going to end up voting for someone that’s potentially going to fuck us over. 

            And, there’s something Kerry said tonight that I agree with.  The sanctions in Iraq did do their job.  If they hadn’t, we would have found WMD in Iraq… but guess what?  We didn’t, and we probably never will.  The UN sanctions weren’t geared towards removing Saddam Hussein from power, they were geared towards keeping him at bay.  He posed absolutely no threat to anybody on American soil.  Since we destabilized Iraq, I believe the country is now probably more of a haven to terrorists than ever.  We’ll see as this unfolds… 

            Yes, I’m a Nader voter.  I’m sure this upsets my democrat friends, and probably pleases my republican friends at the same time.  But, I do not believe Nader has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning his 5% popular vote this year to qualify for matching federal campaign funds for the next election.  I wish he did… but it just isn’t going to happen.  Now, I have friends that are still going to vote for Nader anyway (I’m still hedging on whether or not this’ll happen for me too), and I fully support them.  We need a third party, we need to rock the boat.  We need to blast this two party system out of the water.  We need to either scrap the electoral college and go to popular vote, or we need an overhaul of the system.  But, I guess I shouldn’t think too much about this now:  why?  Utah will most certainly go to Bush, so it doesn’t matter if I vote for Nader or Kerry.  Enough of politics for now… I’m sure I’ll have much more to say about this later.

            The X-Prize:  SpaceShipOne crossed the barrier twice in 6 days.  They won the $10 million dollars and much more.  I find it wonderful / thrilling that Scaled Composites became the first company to build the first private manned spaceship that reached space.  This is no longer going to be the frontier that only governments can touch.  Here’s what I’d like to see about space operations / exploration:  The governments will fund the major expeditions and breakthroughs (like a mission to mars, the casini probe, etc.) while private companies will take over the routine operations (satellite launches / repairs, shuttling people to and from space stations, near zero gravity manufacturing, scientific research in orbit, etc.).  It seems like it’s only a matter of when, rather than if this’ll happen anymore. 

            The aftermath of the X-Prize:  This will now be a yearly competition, with prizes awarded to groups for various categories such as fastest turnaround time.  I do not have details on this, but I’m sure it’ll have a hell of a positive impact on improving space planes.  The day the Scaled Composites team won the X-Prize, Virgin Atlantic announced the formation of a new division called Virgin Galactic.  If memory serves, they want five spaceships like SpaceShipOne built so they can book passenger flights into space within the next three-to-five years.  Instead of a flight into space costing $30 million, it’ll be more in the $100,000 - $300,000 range.  I’m sure this’ll spur all sorts of competition… so it’ll get even better from here.

            It gets even better than this:  Shortly after the X-Prize was won, a new contest was announced:  The Orbital X-Prize (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6187724/).  A team will win $50 million if they can develop a manned spaceship that reaches Earth orbit.  Reaching orbit will be much harder than reaching the edge of space…  150-200 miles (I think) as opposed to hitting 62 miles.  There’s more exposure to radiation, the ship will need stronger maneuvering thrusters, a much bigger tank for fuel, heat shields, etc.  I can’t wait.  

            We still have a war going on in Iraq, but I’ll save that for another time.  Yes, I know it’s not officially called a war anymore, but we still have soldiers dying over there.

            But, that’s it for now…  enjoy.