Kryten

All the christians I know insisted on telling me about it. All of the people in support of the monarchy insisted on telling me about it, everyone that prefers baths instead of showers insisted on telling me about it... All the vegetarians you know told you about it because if they didn't tell you, you wouldn't know. This is basic logic.

US orbital segment is mostly controlled from Houston (and parts from Darmstadt and Tsubaka), but the Russian orbital segment is controlled from Moscow. They're pretty much two independent space stations that happen to be connected together.

Gorillas aren't exactly typical primates, they're adapted to eating foliage-very high-cellulose, nutrient-poor stuff. Look at something adapted to eating more easily digestible plant materials (fruits, tubers, et.c.) and you'll find something similar to the human G.I tract.

Of course most of those would be pretty harmless even if they'd hit near major cities. Consider the largest on that list, Chelyabinsk; hit near a pretty major city,with 20+ kilotons energy release, severely injured 2 people and killed no-one. The TNT equivalent value may sound impressive, but they're all simply too high for that to translate to major damage on the ground.

ESA are cooperating with the chinese, they've had exchanges of astronauts between training facilities and are considering arranging visits to their station. NASA is basically the only major space agency not willing to cooperate with them, and that's only because of the congressional ban.

One module is currently being prepared, Russia's MPLM/Nauka. Given it was already over half finished in 2000 and the launch dates been shifted continually from 2009 to (as of last update) late 2015, whether it will actually launch before decommissioning is anybody's guess. EDIT: As for Chinese participation in the ISS, it has been continually vetoed by the US government, and this is unlikely to change in the future.

The first graph doesn't exactly seem reliable. 'Watts per cubic liter', seriously? A litre is already volume, and even just 'watts per litre' wouldn't actually give energy density.

Died on landing, not in flight. But my point is it's a ridiculous statement; if you exclude all of the US fatalities arbitrarily, then the soviets come out best, and vice versa. It certainly didn't matter to the astronauts on Columbia that they weren't high enough up to have died 'in space'.

Wordswordswords

The US has killed a total of fifteen astronauts while they were flying in earth's atmosphere, compared to zero for the soviets; obviously their own approach to safety is inferior.

Leaving aside the engineering issues, NASA's budget can barely stretch to SLS and Orion. The idea they could produce an Orion-powered craft without the president and both houses being replaced by space-obsessed pod people is completely nuts.

From the actual court judgement; So at least 12/13 plants were resistant. Sounds totally accidental.

That's the terminator system-it's cropped up continually in anti-GMO arguments since it was first proposed, but it was never actually used in a commercial product due to public outcry. That was a single case against a guy in Canada, Percy Schmeiser. He had a canola farm downwind from one growing glyphosphate-resistant canola, and sprayed his field with large doses of glyphosphate to deliberately select for resistant plants. Over 90% of his plants had the resistance when he was arrested. That's standard M.O. for most seed providers, it's not directly related to GMO.

The single craft would also have to be aerodynamic, being at the top of the stack, which combined with the ∆v requirements would mean a relatively long, skinny vehicle: in other words, not something easy to land under rocket power.

This place is hardly a good facsimile of 'the masses' in terms of knowledge about space.

All Dragons actually launched so far have been part of NASA's CRS contract, which stipulates use of a new capsule every launch. No, they've been recovered and stored. They're useful for taking down stuff NASA wants to inspect on the ground, as Soyuz is barely capable of bringing back more than it's passengers.

All ascent modules were left in lunar orbit. The one from Apollo 10 was left in a higher orbit than the others and ended up in solar orbit, while the rest all crashed.

Just like what happened last time NASA launched a nuclear reactor into space. Get a grip, the majority people are about as likely to seriously believe any launch containing nuclear material is a secret plot as they were to get behind the astrologer who sued NASA over deep impact.

No it isn't. All that's required is a separate power system and a bit of excess fuel for reactor cooling during the shutdown process.

If being used for the proposed reactor throttling, the radiator on the power generator would still have to be large enough to dump a large fraction of the full output, much higher than required during coast. That's still a lot of weight that otherwise wouldn't be needed, just so the engine can operate in regimes that would likely be suboptimal anyway.

Why use all that weight for a power generator that'd likely be massively overbuilt for most ships? Most NERVA concepts are for tugs, their non-propulsion power requirements are going to be far below the actual reactor output. It'd be much more efficient for them to just use a standard solar+batteries system.

The propellant flow is also the coolant flow. Reducing coolant flow without reducing reactor output is not a good idea.

Not everybody on the internet is american. Jalilbreaking is fully legal under EU law.

At those depths, there wouldn't be a hole to climb up. Ice is a lot more plastic than rock, it would just slump in on itself.

Only two NTR programs ever produced a prototype, the US Nerva and Soviet RD-0410; both were solid core. Only a few liquid-fuel reactors have been produced, all small research reactors, and gas-core designs are purely hypothetical.