Rakaydos

Not to mention leaving the earth smaller and with a thinner atmosphere than it would have otherwise been- both very good things for early spaceflight.

Species similar to Dolphins are probably quite common in the universe- highly inteligent, perfectly adapted to their enviroment, no tech base (but willing to work with people who do have tech bases) and no ability to expand to the stars. Humanity's combination of highly delevoped manipulatory appendages (a leftover from our tree based evlutionary roots) and Persistance and problem solving ability (part and parcel of being a Persistance hunter), on the other hand, is probably quite rare. Netherlindals would have probably ended up like dolphins.

To be fair, it successfuly pretended to be a troll for at least 7 pages...

Im almost convinced mpc is a turning spambot. His arguments are literal copy pastes of each other, even when refuted earlier. If so, I congradulate mpc's creator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil

Our evolutionary line is specialized in endurance and heat management, with secondary specializations in visual tracking (that is, inteligence), and swimming, (unlike dogs we can swim UNDER water) and a vestigial climbing capability from when we were still in the trees. In short, we were social pack hunters that literally chased things to death, over savannah, over rivers, and through the trees. We were slenderman, we were the zombie apocalipse. We didnt fight lions, tigrrs or bears, because they would eat us... but we could follow an antelope herd for DAYS until they died of heat exaustion.

Isnt that putting the cart before the horse? Elon : Let's put a greenhouse on mars as a PR stunt! NASA, Russians, ESA : Here's the price to put something on mars. Elon: WT-F? bullcrap. NASA, Russians, ESA : that's the way the industry works. Elon: Let me call my friends. BRB. SpaceX: Hey, Nasa, Elon here. We got our Falcon 1 into orbit for a fraction of the normal dollar-per-pound. Can we have some money for something bigger? Nasa: *looks at numbers* wow, who'd have thought trimming the easy fat would be so effective. *looks at empty shuttle hanger* Uh, sure, you and that other guy with the old russian engines can both try, I guess. SpaceX: Thanks, here's a Dragon that brings cargo down from the ISS. We heard you cant do that since the shuttle was retired. Nasa: Oh, that's cool, we'll get you some cargos. SpaceX: Oh, and we're gonna try some landing experiments on the same rockets to save R&D costs. Nasa: Will it affect our cargos at all? SpaceX: Hmmm... No. Nasa: Sure, whatever. R&D away. Nasa is paying ULA and spaceX to do things for Nasa. SpaceX is working on going to mars- one step at a time. ULA is just working for their Cost Plus Contract.

Except gravatons are exactly as efficent as photons, and we all know that this is magnitudes more efficient than a photon drive.

Hmm... But hypothetically, if the aether is weakly interacting massive particles ("dark matter") there might be some edge cases. In this hypothetical, the EM drive would work because when the microwaves bounce around the ends of the resonance chanber, they are somehow stickier (energy density, whatever to the weakly interacting particles (thous transfering momentum easier) on one than on the other end.

What's not to believe? that a rich guy has a dream? That he has an idea how to make it happen? that he has a financial plan to pay for it? Or is it that someone would pursue such a financially and scientifically irresponcable goal as a manned mars mission in the first place?

That's like saying the car industly only exists because the road network was heavilly subsidised by the goverment. /you're right, of course, but it doesnt change how spaceX is changing the industly.

Heck, the first flight is probably going to be all trained astronauts from all the space agencies, collectively splitting the bill.

I'm guessing it's something like an Electrical short- a spark wont leap between two wires unless it can make the whole leap between the wires.

that's cause Mars 1 was a scam, and anyone could tell. By the time SpaceX is offering tickets, they'll already have regular cargo flights for the initial mars base setup, and people will take it seriously.

As I read the article, the idea is "If he builds it, they will come" Mars 1 was a scam. But Elon Musk is making it so MArs 2 doesnt have to be. The first wave, like mars 1, will have to sell their life posessions to afford a ticket, but there are people who will buy those tickets anyway, and THEY are the buisnes model, just like the Tesla Roadster was only affordable by Ferarri people before the Model S rolled around. But like Tesla, profits on the super-elite deluxe package go towards making a more affordable version, along with increasing ecnomies of scale in a positive feedback loop. Also, "overcharge 1st class passangers to subsidize coach" was a serious suggestion, that technically "brings down ticket price" for ecommy seating, at least, without any technical breakthroughs whatsoever, just ecomomic min-maxxing.

So just hypthetically... if there existed a drive that interacted with a medium that we have not otherwise detected, (lets be classical and call it the luminus aether) and any momentum transferred to the aether is "Somebdy elses's problem", would we expect different thrusts in different directions? (a simulated "preferred frame of reference", where the so called "frame of refrence" is the current local aether currents, not a true global preference)

A gauss rail still has recoil. If the EM drive is pushing off something exotic like the gauss rail would be, the equations would balance out.

We dont know hw it works, but it's doing SOMETHING that we havt explained yet. The expiriment has been tested at different Q values with results scaled to earlier empirical equations. The empirical observation is starting to give way to predictive modeling... we just need to figure out where the effect is coming from.

Even if it's not producing practical power, at the very least a dying RTG shuld nicely cover the energy costs of keeping the electronics warm enough to reboot, for a very long time.

Lunar Lagrange. Can be repurposed as a counterweight when upgrading the station with a lunar elevator.

No, they're polititions with trouble at home, who want to divert attention towards an external enemy so they can consolidate their power, and pork money to their space-rock-throwing lobbyist friends.

E. M. D. protests his innocence, saying the world just doesnt understand their relationship.

Anywhere on earth, however, is still working with the same biosphere, and so is still vulnerable to most of the same truely world-ending threats. If you built an underwater colony, you can bet the military complex will figure out a way to point nukes at it, and a world ending disease will find a way there. For an interplanetary colony, "space is hard" becomes a survival trait. Whether it's a nuclear missile or a lethal pathogin, it'll take months to reach mars.

Yea, LEO is not the place to mine asteroids. If you can mine in solar orbit, however, you can use dross material and foam it into a heatshield for the payload, do a slight course correction for earth intercept, and aerobreak the cargo into an earth capture orbit.

So far, it's just "how does it work in 0 g", not yet a commercial endevor. It's plausable, though.