Kryten

Lower average molecular weight for products leads to higher exhaust velocity. Also, it's all-solid, so there's no expensive plumbing to worry about.

Moto E is even cheaper and still very good, but only has 2Gb onboard storage; even with transferring stuff to SD, it can prevent installation of large (>1Gb) apps.

If you are just throwing a 1KG brick of stuff out the back you'd get the same performance for the same energy regardless of the exact kind of stuff, but in practice you're throwing out millions of smaller bricks. The two processes aren't equivalent because one is a continuous process while the other is a single event; you have to use the rocket equation, not simple kinetic energy. The reason basic kinetic energy calculations don't work is not all of that kinetic energy will enter the ship; the fuel from the last part of the burn will carry with it kinetic energy that was given to it at the start of the burn.

That's aluminium with ammonium perchlorate, it's rather more complex. 3NH4ClO4+3Al--->Al2O3+ AlCl3+3NO+6H2O

Pulled from here. Not checked it, but it sounds right. If you wanted to do it from scratch, you'd have to calculate via working out the kinetic energy per product molecule.

The much higher weight of aluminium oxide relative to water means you end with lower exhaust velocity, and thus ISP, despite the higher theoretical density. To be more specific, you get about 2,800m/s (285s ISP), compared to 4,600m/s (465s) for hydrolox.

You'd need a reducing agent of some kind.

LM-9 isn't an approved project yet. Are you thinking of LM-5?

Yes, but not released yet. It's unlikely to be much better though, it was taken under similar conditions.

The only difference between the two cases is a change in the relative velocity of the observer by 5km/s.

You must have misunderstood something; there's no difference between a collision between two objects moving 5km/s in opposite directions and one between a 10km/s and a static object.

So how about if we slowly remove all of the neurons, one by one?

Let's say we remove a single neuron from the human brain. Is this likely to have a large effect?

I doubt any modern ICBM would be able to put a payload on Mars. Even R-7 required entire extra stages for planetary payloads, and it was built for far larger warheads than any today.

What's that got to do with anything? It's not like you can uncouple the light-driven and light-independent reactions.

It's not even out yet.

http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Close approach distance is about 80,000km for MOM and about 140,000 for the other orbiters.

The shuttle DOD missions were putting up very large recon sats; X-37 can't exactly fulfill that function.

Not a lot. Will still look like that of standard Oort-cloud object.

A filter to stop a green laser won't stop a red laser, and either would be heavily tinted. One to stop both would be basically opaque.

Nothing, as far as anyone can tell. It would hardly need to stay two years just to drop something off, either.

This has just been cancelled due to major delays with producing the actual spacecraft component. NASA will take delivery of the complete sail and may use it for something else in future.

Using CO2 as buffer gas would not exactly be a great idea. Concentrations above about 8% are lethal.

Voskhod's life support was only rated for ten man-days. I'll pick danger of failure over certain suffocation any time.