Kryten

Here's the eBay listing. Recommended as a museum piece, but that's explicitly for liability reasons; it definitely wasn't deactivated. It's 1957 technology, so I don't think even ITAR would apply, and it's internal US so no awkward questions at customs. Would have some trouble getting some of the ingredients for that fuel mixture without ending up on a watchlist though. EDIT: Had a look through that eBay category ('complete engines'). No more rockets, but did find a working jet engine with afterburner. Including this gem;

Replace it in what way? It's not planned to do any of the same things.

Actually you do find these on eBay occasionally. Full engine with turbopump, Soviet military surplus, not deactivated. Only $3500. Oh, and you need red fuming nitric acid to fuel it, which is every bit as nasty as it sounds.

... This. Read it. Seriously, how old ARE you? It looks like you haven't even done the periodic table yet.

Gold is effectively useless. The amount actually used for applications like soldering is far behind the amounts hoarded by human magpies and fox news viewers, and that only happens because of the rarity. Start importing gold in large amounts, the bottom falls out and you might as well be importing dirt. That is, of course, assuming you could actually return it cost-effectively, which is certainly not a given.

Helium-3 has the same rough power output as standard deuterium-tritium fusion (incidentally, that's the mixture all current or concretely planned fusion reactors use), and is far, far harder to collect. The only advantage it would have is no neutron production, but that's only in theory. In practice, Helium 3-helium-3 fusion is almost impossible (activation energy too high), and deuterium-helium-3 fusion will inevitably produce deuterium-deuterium fusion as well, making the whole exercise pointless.

With Antares launched, the next orbital launches are a progress launch on the 24th, and two launches on the 26th; a chinese one with a civilian imaging sat, and a spare GLONASS sat for russia. We can expect live coverage of the prgress launch, and probably also of the chinese one, due to ecuador's first sat being one of the secondary payloads. In other news, we'll probably see the first powered flight from spaceshiptwo before the end of the month.

In numbers far higher than there would ever be payloads available for an orbital rocket, with a manufacturing process that resulted in a 50% failure rate, with literal slave labour, and still for several million pounds a unit. Rockets are never going to be easy to manufacture, that's the main issue.

What do those have to do with Moon trips becoming viable for the average person? That investors will give money if they see big handouts from nasa at the end want in doubt.

We're talking about crewed spaceflight here. Nothing goddard built would even cut it as a sounding rocket, even the late ones built with-get this-government funding.

The first aircraft was built by two people, in a shed. People have been homebuilding aircraft since the 1910s. It's not comparable to spaceflight, and it's not remotely comparable to lunar spaceflight.

Why? Do you expect the rocket equation to stop applying?

Do you know what the prices are predicted to be to put two people on the lunar surface and back, with spacex launch, according to the people who actually plan to do it?$1.5 billion. Space adventures can't even get another person to pay $150 million for their lunar flyby.

How the heck is a corporation supposed to get that money? Especially for something with effectively no potential for revenue.

I can, and I can see in both countries nothing exists for landing, never mind bases, except initial studies with a trickle of funding.

Could you give any proof to your claim that either China or Russia have moonbase plans?

All three of the phonesat secondary payloads have been confirmed to be functional.

Irreversible means the seas will definitely rise, not that we're going to run out of breathable air or something.

Would any of these result in a planet less habitable than Mars or the Moon? The first wasn't enough to wipe out life on earth the last time it happened, so we know it'd still be more habitable than your average dead rockball, the second is impossible (there's simply isn't that much carbon), the third would have similar effects to the first, and in the last, what we run out of that isn't unavailable elsewhere anyway?

A good day for Ukrainian engineering.

What do you think could possibly happen that could make earth a worse choice than any place elsewhere in the solar system?

One minute

About ten minutes left, basically no chance of scrub at this point.

Why is 'becoming a spacefaring species' worth that much money? You've just moved it back slightly; if what we get out of it is to 'become a spacefaring species' (by your own arbitrary definition), then what do we get out of that?

Looks like it's going to be third time lucky, probability of scrub from weather is at 20%. Stream already up, albeit without sound.