NASA awards $50 million in grants to private companies to develop technologies for Low Earth Orbit. A couple of the usual suspects are here , including Boeing, but also a start-up associated with Amazon’s founder, Jeff  Bezos.

The current US administration’s proposed budget kills the Constellation/Ares rocket program that would have been the next step to getting the US back to the Moon. A worthy goal, the Moon…someday but short-sighted right at the moment. In the Sixties there was a race worth winning. Now not so much. Now’s the time for sensible outside-the-box thinking. But is NASA capable?
The administration may have made the right choice for the wrong reasons, but who can say what the reasoning might be? Can’t be to save money. It’s the biggest budget ever.  Spite …

Prawn!
The Oscar nominations were announced today and somehow or other District 9 is among the Best Picture nominees. Now I enjoyed the movie but let me go out on a limb and predict that it will not win the Best Picture Oscar. You might say, well, this is the first years of the expanded 10-nominee, watered- down category…but wait. It’s one of two science fiction flicks in the running. So, pro-rating back to the smaller list and, well…Avatar would still be there.
So. No big deal, you say…but wait. This is …

Fascinating and reality-based analysis of space warfare in the context of imaginary futures at Rocketpunk Manifesto.
And the Open Luna Foundation is a volunteer organization working to get Earthlings back up there to harvest all that green cheese.

Here they are.  Adaptive intelligence in robots. Predator-prey behaviors. Is self-preservation inherent in intelligence? 
Don’t know who Janet Dash is? Read Kite!