First, Ryan has posted an excerpt of a speech by Charlie Bolden addressing common misconceptions about the new NASA budget. The speech confirms that (1) the goal of the US space program is to get people to Mars, (2) NASA will be pushing the technological envelope to do that, (3) the human presence in LEO will be going full-throttle all that time, and (4) Constellation was going to fail at all those things. I’m happy.

Second, the Big Picture has a great series of photos from the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics. It’s a fantastic collection of photos, and I wonder why those events aren’t televised. Many of them look even more exciting than some of the analogous Olympic events. Best wishes to those athletes!