Scotius

Beautiful Modern optics, man - awesome stuff.

Congrats Cherish it and be proud of your grandfather.

This will be interesting I hope Ground Control will make sure there are no small planes, boats and flying reindeer in the safety zone

So, roughly almost 5 million games per hour. I don't think you will find a human being able to achieve anything similiar during his or her lifetime total. IMO it's still bruteforcing, just a bit more sophisticated.

Widespread use of CGI is probably the answer. Building convincing models of alien starships probably took more time and money than to run a digital model through rendering program. And then those digital models could be further processed to add animations - and the effect would be crab-like, moving Shadow warships. Looking and behaving in a stranger and more "alien" way than any conventional scaled model ever could. And what is a better way to hammer down the point of meeting aliens than to have them use tech completely foreign to us and our machine-oriented civilisation?

Anyone remembers flying graboids from "Tremors"? I remember going "What the... They just didn't... OMG they did...!" Followed by an epic facepalm and helpless laughter.

Actually, that trope is quite old. In 1935 Murray Leinster wrote a short story "Proxima Centauri". It describes first (and hostile) contact between human expedition arriving at Proxima, with the sentient plantoid species inhabitating the system. Those aliens did use plant-like spaceships that were grown instead of being built. After reaching desired size and shape relevant tissues were "turned off" and behaved like dead matter (presumably to reduce need for the nutrients) until the process was reversed - for example to create a connection with incompatible airlock of human ship.

Yeah, other countries (especially those with their own space programs) will love it. It's like Switzerland trying to impose ban on commercial fishing in international waters - "Why should you be free to catch fish if we can't?". Dear Russia - there are other ways to legalise and regulate exploitation of extraterrestial resources than blanket ban.

Accesible place with highest available concentration of useable elements for ISRU. Science in further away regions can be done by surface expeditions or suborbital hops.

Well, at least he is hammering his would-be sword on an anvil. And not pouring it molten into the mould - like Hollywood loves to depict swordmaking *shudders*

"IDIDIT1" Also "I honk for SLS'es" bumper sticker

Yes. Weapon hot enough to cut easily through a plate of solid metal, in the first place would ignite its wielder. If you can create plasma that hot and intense AND you can keep it in such tight containment, well... you would be better off building a plasma blaster. Oh well - nobody watches Star Wars movies for their realism and faithful depiction of laws of physics

An "real" is just some hot (very hot) gas. Small steps, young padawan...

I totally get this man. The idea of some smart, logical aliens encountering a car drifting in space in the distant future and going "What... the... actual... flark?!? Who would do such thing? And WHY? WHYYYYY???" is making me laugh out loud. And if it happens to be our descendants... it's even better. I so can imagine how emebarassed they would be at their grand- grand- grandparents shenanigans.

Tesla car in space. It's insane. It's also ridiculously glorious Go for it, Elon! Stomp all your stuffy competition into the ground! Also, how many Guiness records will it break?

I think they wouldn't want to go anyway. First: space to them doesn't exist. Second: what if you'd want to kill them to cover the Big Conspiracy?

So, basically a kitbash, eh? I will be very surprised if it ever fies. If Russia can't get Angara to fly in a timely fashion, i doubt they will manage to put this Frankenstein's monster in space faster and with decent reliability.

Hey. If military is willing to pay a part of the price of getting to Moon and Mars, why would SpaceX refuse? "Pecunia non olet" and all that And it's better than sinking mounds of dollars in another program like "Zumwalt" or F-35.

Maybe it's just a LOT of lead....

Very educational. But also complicated. While promising, this technology still seems to have a long way to go before being ready to be deployed in space.

We are close to extinction? Did you mean threat of nuclear war? Because a species with billions of memebers and global range is a thriving one, not threatened. And yes - i think we will prevail, and we will be around in 40 000 years. Current "climate warming" phase is nothing compared to last ice age - which we survived just fine with much less to our name.

Planes, boats... Looks like small vehicles are a bigger obstacle to space exploration than launching into the sky on a pillar of roaring fire

Yes! I love Dream Chaser! Now for manned version

Cells in a human brain can make more conections between themselves than there is atoms in observable universe. Drunk ants will always fall on their left side. They also hear with their legs. A grasshopper sitting on the ground in Europe can feel an earthquake in Japan. Honey doesn't spoil. Ever. You can safely eat honey that was enclosed in tombs by ancient Egyptians. You can die of malnutrition while eating copious amounts of rabbit meat. Jumping flea accelerates at... 1500 m\s squared. But only over a very short distance because of atmospheric drag.

The very fact that we exist is enough to convince me there is life beyond Earth. Life-friendly conditions on Earth may be rare - but it's a bit ridiculous to think, that in a wastness of space similiar conditions didn't come together somewhere else. It might not be common, it might not be intelligent - but life exists out there. We just need to learn how to detect and identify it.