Scotius

Parents... I was watching one of the first Falcon 9 landings, and my mom came to check what got me yelling so loud. She took one look at the booster touching down in a cloud of smoke, said "Oh, it's from one of your space games." and went back on her merry way. And she watched lunar missions of Apollo program live! I felt so alone...

Probably as a weight reducing measure. Also, it's easier to manipulate a huge cylinder, than a huge cylinder with four big legs

Guys, guys... GUYS! Check this fragment of Wikipedia article on Star Trek TOS: " The Federation starship USS Enterprise responds to a distress call from an uncharted planet. A landing party beams down to locate the source, and finds a humanoid male and female, Rojan and Kelinda of the Kelvan Empire, who paralyze Kirk and the landing party, and order Kirk to surrender the Enterprise. Rojan tells Kirk that the Kelvans originate from the Andromeda Galaxy, and have come to find planets suitable for conquest in the Milky Way Galaxy. As their own ship was destroyed by the negative-energy barrier at the galactic rim, they need the Enterprise to make the 300-year return journey. Three other Kelvans transport aboard the Enterprise, and quickly gain control of the ship." I don't know about you, but i'm rather spooked right now. Link to the article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Any_Other_Name

But what about intergalactic stars? They were most likely ejected from galaxies. Also, wouldn't such bubbles prevent galactic collisions? Or at least make them very, very weird looking

Central There is a central pole, right?

Pole

Where are the money? Is there any infrastructure or hardware being built and\or tested? Until one or both of these aren't reality, do not expect much enthusiasm. Sorry, but that's the way cookie crumbles with long-time space geeks. We've seen way too many pretty presentations that remained on paper.

No point of sending an experiment up, if specimens would die due to starvation or food poisoning. Not to mention it would be animal cruelty.

Well, according to ever-useful Wikipedia, Bennu is a typical C-class (carbonaceous) asteroid. It was picked specifically because of that, to study carbon ccomponents on the surface - which might provide important data about space organic chemistry. Ryugu on the other hand is a bit of anomaly - it belongs to Cg type, which is relatively rare variation. Basically it is placed between abundant C-class, and somewhat rarer G-class asteroids composition wise. Interestingly, Ceres is G-class obiect - so Hayabusa might shed some light on her too

Maybe she is trying to get first hand experience in space travel? Incognito of course

But is there? We've seen big players in the game - SpaceX, ISRO and others launch tens and dozens of small satellites in one go, using one of their full-sized rockets. Why would they relinquish that particular part of the market to small guys? Granted - clients might appreciate elasticity of small launch providers. Instead of waiting for big provider to gather enough contracts to justify sending a full load, they could rely on a smaller provider to launch just a handful of smallsats for a much quicker turnaround. But how much money there is for time sensitive contracts? Most satellites are planned years ahead - i would think there is plenty of time to book a rocket ride for any payload.

Not the good PR - that's for sure. Quite frankly, i don't get those guys - it's not like their tiny launcher can put anything serious in orbit. And for some reason i'm not exactly scared of SpyCubeSats. So why bother with cloak and dagger stuff?

Holy Moley. That was beautiful. But there was a lot of image processing involved - i fear that a lot of people will scream "FAKE!!!" over this.

Bizarre system indeed. Compared to it, our own little corner of space looks very cozy and peaceful. And science-fiction writers thought Mercury Venus is the most awful place Also... sunscreen clouds? I've read about planet with glass rain, but this is new to me.

Hey, if military is willing to pay money for such development and service - awesome. Take their money i say - just make sure advancements trickle down to civilian and scientific sector ASAP.

Opportunity is tough little cookie - i believe all will be well

It's alive! ALIVEEEEE!!!

This is so sad. Once proud and powerful bird, now decaying abandoned and forgotten. Disgrace.

It's so close! And it's getting closer with every second Maybe it's time to take another look at Project Daedalus?

Well, it would be simpler if inhabitants of one (or both) planet actively tried to communicate with the other planet. Even before development of radio communication, late XIX century scientists dreamed up plans of contacting highly developed, canal-building civilisation on Mars Plans included draving enormous geometrical figures on the surface of Sahara, or felling millions of trees in Siberia in hopes that Martian telescopes would be sufficiently advanced to pick up images of human activities clear enough. Early Polish sci-fi writer Władysław Umiński wrote a charming novel about such low-tech communication attempt. It involved lighting up nine extremely bright signal lights on the "cross" plane in South America during the Great Opposition of Mars. Protagonists of the book barely survived the adventure (locals were not too happy with crazy foreigners turning their peaceful night into an EXTREMELY bright day without any warning) but the attempt was ultimately successful, as couple of months later astronomers photographed bright spots on Mars' nightside forming another cross. You can use something similiar - we can't be only sentient beings in the Universe obsessed with finding neighbours we could chat with

It would be hilarious to watch Spaceship bouncing off the docking ring like a rubber ball LOL Let's not do that, though - too risky

I'd love to hear their opinions about practicality of Dragon's cabin setup. And SpaceX spacesuits

This reads like a plot of a soap opera - with twists, recastings half-season and people hating each onther both as played characters and privately

It was to be expected. with all technical problems Kepler faced recently. Still sad, but it's the way of things. I think Kepler returned a lot of bang for the buck it costed Hundreds and hundreds of exoplanets found... that's a heck of legacy to leave

I thought about it too. Iron atoms inside carbon nanotubes? How much iron\magnetic material we would need for an elevator to gain "traction" with electromagnetic field?