Bill Phil

Maybe bombard Venus with base-rich asteroids. Ads hydrogen and the acids may react with the bases, making water. Problem is, we then need to keep it that way.

Source? And I remember reading that there was all kinds of acids in the Venusian atmosphere. Plus, you kind of missed my point. My point is that you shouldn't limit what you want (hydrogen) by just talking about water

Good job! However, I think the end of the Epilogue could have been made into a reference to the Apollo Program. "The men in this room are going to the moon." "The Kerbals in this room are going to Jool, besides me." -Director guy

Why not make "Planet" a broad term? Then divide planets into "Major", "Minor", etc. That way everybody wins. People who say Pluto is a dwarf/minor planet, and people who say that Pluto is a planet.

Considering the engines had "passed" the ground testing, I suspect it's just faulty equipment. That engine's number came up and it's fairly likely that it had a bad pump or bad pipes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does't acid have Hydrogen in it? If that's so, the von Neumann machine idea could work quite well... But feel free to correct me. I'm honestly not sure. EDIT: Yep. There's Hydrogen in acid, probably a lot of it. Enough in one sulfuric/carbonic acid molecule for a single molecule of water, and there's plenty of oxygen in the upper areas of the atmosphere in CO2. Maybe if the von Neumann machines could directly manipulate molecules, so then chemical reactions could be more easily undone. Perhaps beamed power from orbital arrays?