Kryten

The Brazilian Alcantara base is even closer to the equator than Kourou is; not that that helps the Brazilians much, given they're 0-for-3 in getting something to orbit at all.

We already now how to produce immortal human cells; we call it 'cancer'. Mechanisms for senescence are in place for very good reasons.

Probably sometime in the past few minutes, given LRO is still functioning.

Phonesats aren't a new idea, and certainly not a unique hook. NASA's launched no less than five of them.

Nope. One small (20kg) student-built sat has entered heliocentric orbit, but it failed almost immediately afterwards.

Streaming video feed from a 1U cubesat was achieved by Ecuador's 'NEE-01 Pegaso'; albeit with much higher investment than would generally expected for this kind of mission.

Part of the program requirement is hitting Mach 10, so a 747 isn't exactly going to cut it.

If you think putting something in GEO is harder than putting it into solar orbit, you know nothing of the launch market. Secondary launch opportunities to full GSO, while not exactly cheap ($490k for a 1U cubesat) are available; flights to solar orbit simply are not.

The image is only something DARPA knocked up. Despite the name, the requirement isn't actually for a winged vehicle, and there's a good chance they'll produce a more conventional-looking VTVL rocket.

Yes, that abstraction was only added in (IIRC) 0.11; previously, craft actually did demonstrate stuff like gravity-gradient stabilisation.

Astronaut time isn't free. That's the point of the cubesat standard; all sats have same size and mass distribution, so all launches can use the same deployer layout; meaning there's little calculation or modification needed. If they can't fill a slot or the sat fails tests, they just replace it with cubesat-shaped bit of ballast.

Secondary payloads are deployed from stages, not primary payloads. Most cubesats are released from stages after insertion of commercial payloads into earth orbit and quite a few are released into GTO in the same manner (for a good bit more money). Launch from the ISS after delivery with cargo is possible (and allows checks to be made before deployment), but is going to be one of the most expensive options.

How exactly do you intend to do transfer to and landing on Phobos using a cubesat? Precursor missions don't help if your goal is physically unfeasible.

You tend not to get a choice of LV or orbit. You pay the middleman a price, they get you a launch; any launch.

Only around the bottom of the spacecraft. This does makes communication with the ground impossible, but data can be relayed out via satellite.

A 1U cubesat flight opportunity is going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars more expensive than one for a 1P pocketqube. A structure isn't exactly going to cost enough to wipe that advantage, and most cubesat operators make their own frames anyway.

Pocketqube format is going to be a better fit financially than a cubesat.

A freight train heading up a mountain simply isn't going to work, and you haven't said anything about how to deal with the 'dropping rocket stages on French Guiana or northern Brazil' issue.

Almost all rockets are transported by rail or barge, and with very good reason. Trying to move a heavy-lift LV by road, up a mountain, is complete fantasy.

Having to drag rockets up a mountain and drop stages on northern Brazil is not a 'win-win' for anybody.

The expenses of keeping a launch site on a mountaintop would far outweigh the savings from the minor performance increase; and where exactly is the US even supposed to build an equatorial site?

That's a maneuver to avoid bits of the pad infrastructure; it happens every Antares launch.

Hypergolic fuels don't use N2O, they use N2O4 (nitrogen tetroxide), a very powerful oxidiser. N2O4 entering the crew cabin nearly killed the astronauts on ASTP.

The most common hypergolic fuels have exposure limits in the parts-per-million range and have to be handled in sealed positive-pressure suits. Hydrogen is hardly in the same league.