No evidence Chinese debris took out Russsian satellite

NASA has taken down a popular technical reports server after the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the space agency complained the website was particularly popular in China. Shutdown of the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) follows the March 16 arrest of a NASA contractor employee as he awaited takeoff at Dulles International Airport on a flight to his native China.

Immediately after Congress passed a spending bill last week to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2013, lawmakers' attention has turned to the fiscal 2014 budget. While Congress continues to wrestle with how to reduce the federal deficit and overturn sequestration before its potential consequences become a chilling reality, that does not mean it will be any easier to agree on spending Pentagon dollars. Last year, Congress thwarted Air Force plans to put Global Hawk Block 30 aircraft in storage.

Inspired by two Roman palaces, the National Building Museum was constructed in the 1880s with the dual purpose of housing the U.S. Pension Bureau and providing “a suitably grand space for Washington's social and political functions.” On March 7, nearly 300 aviation and aerospace luminaries from around the globe gathered in the cavernous building for Aviation Week's 56th annual Laureate Awards.

In a budget environment where it is hard to find money for experimental aircraft, the 2013 Laureate for Aeronautics and Propulsion goes to a program that used a modest but sustained investment in ground demonstrations to mature technology, culminating in wind-tunnel tests of a model larger and more complex than many X-planes.

If the U.S. Congress manages to pass a new NASA authorization this year—certainly not a sure thing given the riptides of ideological debate roiling Capitol Hill— there's a chance that it will order some new organizational changes at the space agency. A growing refrain in the relevant congressional committees and across the U.S. space community finds post-shuttle NASA dangerously adrift, with its sails in need of patching and weak hands on the tiller.