Commercial space race gets crowded behind SpaceX

English: Artist rendering of SpaceX Dragon spacecraft delivering cargo to the International Space Station. Credit NASA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Seth Borenstein – A privately built space capsule that’s zipping its way to the International Space Station has also launched something else: A new for-profit space race.

The capsule called Dragon was due to arrive near the space station for tests early Thursday and dock on Friday with its load of supplies. Space Exploration Technologies Corp.—run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk—was hired by NASA to deliver cargo and eventually astronauts to the orbital outpost.

And the space agency is hiring others, too. more> http://tinyurl.com/co9ljp8

related>

• SpaceX Selects Siemens’ Fibersim for Designing and Manufacturing, Siemens PLM Software, Product Design & Development

Romney says Obama ‘attacking capitalism’

English: President Barack Obama walking with Vice President Joe Biden in The White House
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Justin Sink – Mitt Romney accused President Obama of “attacking capitalism” and defended the record of Bain Capital as “solid” in a rebuttal Thursday (May 24, 2012) to the president’s critique of his tenure at the private-equity firm.

The presumptive Republican nominee added that it “certainly sounds like” the president was attacking the free market system.

“There’s no question but that he’s attacking capitalism, in part, I think, because he doesn’t understand how the free economy works. He’s never had a job in the free economy; neither has Vice President Biden,” Romney said. more> [VIDEO 1:36] http://tinyurl.com/bngvagb

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• More Bain pain: Mitt Romney clings to Rush Limbaugh, says President Obama ‘is attacking capitalism’ (dailykos.com)
• Romney’s Bain Bucks: Execs At Mitt’s Old Company Have Given Nearly $2 Million To His Campaign (politicker.com)
• Why Obama Should Be Attacking Casino Capitalism: Both Romney’s Bain And JPMorgan – OpEd (eurasiareview.com)
• Joe Biden On Bain: ‘They Make Money Even When A Company Goes Bankrupt’ (politicker.com)
• TIME Interview: Romney Responds to Bain Attack, Hits Obama on Economy (thepage.time.com)
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Greeks not alone in bank savings exodus

By Steve Slater and George Georgiopoulos – It is not only Greeks who are worried about their savings. Data shows depositors have also taken flight from banks in Belgium, France and Italy. And on Thursday, Spain’s Bankia was reported to have seen more than 1 billion euros drained by its customers in the past week.

Greeks are afraid they could be hit by rapid devaluation if the country leaves the European single currency, while customers at Bankia have been rattled by the government’s takeover of the recently floated bank on May 9 and growing uncertainty about the final cost of Spain’s banking reforms. more> http://tinyurl.com/78lc5fz

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Why We’re So Bad At Teaching Entrepreneurship

By Cathy Ashmore – Decades of research have shown that students are very interested in being their own bosses. In the ’90s, for example, a Kauffman Foundation study found that two-thirds of high school students wanted to become entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the same study found that more than 80% felt they had not learned anything about entrepreneurship in school.

In fact, over the past 30 years, I’ve discovered many barriers preventing teachers from effectively teaching entrepreneurship. In fact, it became obvious that educators at the local and state levels were themselves among the major barriers to providing experiences in business creation.

• Funding Has Been Paltry
• It’s Extremely Hard to Change the Curriculum
• Teachers Rarely Have Entrepreneurial Experience — or the Right Mindset
• Colleges See Entrepreneurship as Their Exclusive Territory

It is now widely accepted that effective entrepreneurship education must be built around real-world experiences, not textbooks. more> http://tinyurl.com/bpr76mk