SOXBLOX

We still have tons of land area, and even more resources. Until we run out of those, Terra is cheaper. Maybe we need higher concentrations of some specific things (rare earths), but for the most part, there's no economic reason to go to space. Or to build colonies and vacuum-adapted factories at great expense for little reward. On the other hand, if BO did pull this off, then Amazon would be the first space megacorp. Weyland-Yutani, here we come!

Mmm, I don't see it. I just have a hard time believing space logistics will outdo planetside supply chains.

I vote yes! It would instantly improve the SLS program...

So, how much of the engines can we expect to survive, based on past events? If it comes down on a non-PRC landmass, and is (sort-of) intact, then I expect it would be analyzed...

First, we hope there's an operational station up there by next year.

At which point it will be pushed back again, and so on, ad infinitum...

They should fly it and land outside the Smithsonian.

YEEEESSSS! Hooray, SpaceX! The naysayer crowd is beginning to run out of ammunition!

Fingers crossed...

I wouldn't like this. These are things for the community to pass on, not the game proper.

Besides KSP, I play Stellaris, and I give my own names to every star system, and almost every other planet in my saves. I would love a feature like this. Sending Kerbals to explore the Redrock Gorge, in the Southern Gap area of Duna? Or the Sea of Night on the Mun? Heck, yeah! It would be nice if we could toggle a display in map mode which would project the names over the planet.

Magic ray guns!

The article says they plan to use this for a lot more. De-painting and repainting, and working with larger aircraft.

Without reading anything but the name of the thread... ...Imma guess no.

I get that the Shuttle didn't work as intended. You keep pointing that out gleefully. But it was still a capable vehicle, and one of the most important in spaceflight history, after the Saturn V. Um, no. It's cheap. Common sense says people prefer "cheap" if money is a priority. And NASA does hand out contracts to other companies. If they want money, they've gotta undercut SpaceX, or get close. That's called a free market. Than who? And these people are engineers. They're doing engineering. What's sinister about that? And who would you rather have paying them? Should they work for, say, Roscosmos, so as not to look like they're (gasp!) getting money from NASA?

Exactly. If this were possible, it would reduce us to creatures which belong in a zoo. Not cool. But seriously, what jobs would we do? Flip hamburgers?

Nuts!

Nah, no coincidence. People who wrap up careers at NASA usually go on to work in related fields. Is that corruption? No.

What's their production rate for Starlink sats? It must be pretty high...

Can we guarantee that? And if these are designer mutants, can we ensure that there are similar mutants for each "variety"? Blech. Sorry, these terms are really sickening to me. This is literally eugenics in new wineskins. So yeah, I think that if anything like this were possible, all decent nations would put the kibosh on it faster than you could blink.

We actually could tell that. PAC-3 can discriminate between reentering objects of different densities. The engines would stand out, if they were detached. As you say, that's a big "if".

Robots are cleaning F-16s here in Texas! Kinda cool; saves a lot of time. Here.

And this is where I have real problems. Do transhumans have different rights? Are they treated differently than baseline humans? And remember, these are people who have been forced, and had no say in, to be distinct from their fellow humans.

I thought you said the entire stage would break up, and one fragment would be the engine cluster... In that case, yeah, we could hit it. If not...

I assume you know I mean during reentry? No, they're actually very high. It'll be coming in at a shallow angle, which makes it easier. Early Patriot systems had trouble with high-angle inbounds. It's larger than a ballistic missile warhead, and might be slower, given that it's not designed to have as little drag as possible. With the current practice of firing two or more missiles at a single RV, I think we can safely say it would be hit and destroyed. If we're trying to hit it while it's still in orbit, I think a SM-3 or two could do it.