And on slashdot

They took a couple of weeks to put this up too - and oddly, changed the title (maybe Barnes and Noble has a different title for it)? Weird. Anyway, nice to have this getting some attention - and lots of posts!

Stephenson Review Up

My review of Stephenson's "The Confusion" just came out in the Huntsville Times. Hope you all like it :-)

Recommendations to Aldridge Commission

I finally got around to writing up what I'd been thinking about and sending it in to the commission.
Comments are welcome here or there.

Two specific recommendations:
1. Establish a National Space Board, similar to the National Science Board, to provide stable long-term planning and oversight of the nation's space activities, including policy recommendations on budgets, taxation, regulation, and technology incentives to the President and Congress.

2. In planning, focus on enabling the key components of potential virtuous economic cycles: lower-cost access to space stimulating space markets, lunar oxygen for in-space refueling, production of energy in space for sale on Earth, etc... These are the pieces that, as we've experienced in use of computers to design new computers, can lead to truly exponential economic growth. This focus would appear in two areas: the general policy recommendations and incentive structures recommended by the Board, and prioritized lists of demonstration projects that could jump-start these new economic engines.