Scotius

100% cloud cover in Poland Hopefully someone will be able to take good photos and post them on the net.

The Kraken will be fed. He shall dine well on a space stick filled with hydrocarbon residue and covered in a tasty layer of high quality soot. Small addition of nitrogen and helium will provide interesting tang to the taste. All hail His Tentacleness!

Does roaring shark in "Jaws 3" count? I know it is not supposed to be science-fiction - but for me roaring shark places this disaster of a movie firmly in "alternative reality" kind of setting.

"Human nature doesn't change." I wholeheartedly agree. And what is in our nature? Laziness. Humans are lazy, and avoid any unnecessary activities they can. And what could be so super important and secret to be written by hand (and "manuscript" indicates a substantial amount of work) in such convoluted way? It had to take months if not years of work. Whoever created this book, must have been extremely devoted to this task. He also wasn't an unlearned nobody commoner. I wonder if it would be possible to use graphological analysis of the manuscript and other handwritten texts from the period and look for possible matches?

Wow. 10+ years of floating in space seemingly dead, and yet this thing is still kicking? Now that's one tough cookie

I've been thinking about this for a bit, and something occured to me. Deserts can be harsh, that's for sure. Temperature differences between day and night, lack of water, scarcity of food, poisonous snakes, scorpions etc. everywhere. But... desert areas also lack in other things. Namely, diseases. No malaria, yellow fever, dengue and other nasties that probably took a heavy toll on our savanna-bred ancestors when they left their arid homeland in Eastern Africa. They already knew, and had tools to deal with similiar environment. But they didn't have any way to deal with illnesses breeding in mosquito-filled jungles of equatorial Asia. Maybe that was the reason initial waves of migration branched out so fast north and south - to drier and colder climates.

This shows very well how non-linear and random was human emigration from Africa. I mean - who in their right mind would cross richer and more welcoming lands in South Asia (and further north and east), and decided to settle in friggin' Australia of all places?

True. Still, boarding persisted in naval warfare well into XX century. Last actions happened during WW II. And even today sailors train boarding in preparation for anti-piracy patrols. Several ships taken over by pirates near Horn of Africa were freed by strike groups deployed by warships patrolling the area either by helicopter or small boats. But at the same time many freighters successfully repelled pirate attacks using such simple methods as barbed wire barricades, water cannons and crew members armed with handguns

Oh, come on - don't tell me you've never watched cartoon characters using "Eat at Joe's" signs, banners and sky-writing stunts for humorous effects? It's not an advertisement - it's a meme

Lack of imagination and style, man *shakes his head sadly*. Elon Musk does have it - hence, Tesla in spaaaaace! Jeff Bezos does have it too - thus, awesome decals on his rockets and inspiring names. But the rest of space industry? I find their lack of flair... disturbing How can they make new generation interested in space exploration, while feeding young minds only dry technicals and long strings of numbers?

Yes. I get that. But it's not even awesome I'm not expecting another car in space... but it could be at least a big, shiny "Eat at Joe's!!!" sign

Heck, your shp is inside the other ship. And everywhere around it in an increasing radius. No. The method @mikegarrison described is the only one feasible way to get the group of people inside more or less intact. Otherwise you are sending them into a meatgrinder of chokepoints and killzones, any half decent shipbuilders and crew would organise in advance. Just consider the fact, that warships are (should be, logically) divided in sections by hermetic bulkheads of considerable strenght. Even after your boarding party breaches inside and takes control of the sections they started in, they will have to repeat the process multiple times to get to vital compartments of the enemy ship. It would be a nightmare.

Hype cannon is locked, loaded and ready to fire Three-in-one Falcon launches.

Now we have the question: was it an early wave of colonists out of Africa? Or just an unlucky member of a small hunting group that eventually returned home or even died off in the new, foreign land?

I'd say a minimum number of crew is three. This way if something happens to one of them, the remaining two can still keep the ship somewhat functional. One crewmember would be very hard pressed to keep things going 24\7. Maximum number though... do you intend to involve more crewmembers in the plot, or will it be a "core" group of few individuals "Star Trek" style? In the first case, number should be fairly low - a dozen of people or so. This way everyone will have something to do, but you shouldn't lose track of them. In the second case the total number can be arbitrarily high - since 90% of the crew will be only in background anyway. I'd suggest reading a bit about RL submarines - which are closest thing we have that can be compared to spaceships on long cruises. Then you can decide how much automation will be involved and cut down the size of human component

So, its only purpose is to be a piece of shiny bling in space. No scientific or practical purpose whatsoever. It's going to be a piece of useless trash that someone will have to track, making sure it doesn't endanger other obiects in already cluttered low orbit. Meh.

I'm a simple man. If i see a towering animal with rows of big, pointy teeth i do not assume it is a harmless scavenger. I run away. After all, even if it is a scavenger, it needs only to kill me to be able to scavenge meat off my carcass

I'm sure squishy humans inside that thing will love "ramming" part. I doubt they will be combat-ready after experiencing impact hard enough to punch through the spaceship's hull - but the ride should be unforgettable

I'm sorry, but there is simply not enough of Earth-shattering awesomeness of three Falcons letting rip at the same time. The only music i heard in my life that is sufficiently epic is Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. Your theme needs more 'OOMPH'! This is FORCE! This is POWER! This is 5 million pounds of thrust punching the gravity in the face.

From the lack of negativity of course Like in this old science joke: Two atoms cross the bridge. One suddenly yells: "Oh! I lost an electron!" "Are you sure?" Asks the second atom. "Yes, i'm positive."

Pictures. On clay tablets Like, they should boil the fat tubers, instead of trying to eat poisonous stalks - like one British cook tried to do while preparing novelty dinner for Queen Elizabeth I

I'd prefer to load couple of sacks full of potatoes, maize and beans and drop them in some Neolithic village in Southern Europe (preferably in the middle of awesomely fertile Pannonian Plain) - with instructions on how to plant them and process the yield of course. Sadly, it probably would not solve the world's problems - but it would give our ancestors a nice headstart. And after doing that, i would jump to Middle Ages city of Frombork, visit Nicolaus Copernicus (y'know - heliocentric model guy), give him two thumbs up with "Dude, you're totally on the right track with heliocentrism. Keep it up!" thrown in I might also mention something about ellipses he should use instead of perfect circles - so he could make his model more streamlined and elegant by doing away with all the weird epicycles and deferentes.

I advice against putting all your eggs in one hangar If the crew will try to refuel\rearm\repair small crafts at the same time and place where they will launch or land... there will be mishaps. Also, during battle one good shot will be enough to completely cripple the operations, kill a good chunk of ground crew... and carry a big risk of setting off the ordnance strewn around the hangar. Japanese Navy experienced this during the Battle of Midway. Painfully.

Not bad for a company that was founded in 2002. In fifteen years they went from nothing to a very capable, reuseable launch system, reuseable cargo craft and a very strong position in the space launch market. Deep i my heart, i hope that at the end of the next fifteen years period we'll see a man leaving a footprint on Mars surface.

RIP a huge swath of forest (with resident animals). Dang it, China - it's not like you don't have a long shoreline. You can not drop tanks full of toxins on your own people.