Scotius

I won't believe all is good until telescope unfurls and sends first good quality pictures. I still remember massive, gut-wrenching disappointment of seeing first photos Hubble sent.

Listen. Orion spacecraft is perfectly workable in a sci-fi setting, despite it's inadequacies in real life. Depicting how people using such technology work with and around those shortcomings using hard, realistic science can make for a good, fun read. But you are keeping this setting, and at the same time attempting to un-gimp Orion by coming with convoluted solutions to its intrinsic problems. And most of those solutions either shift problems elsewhere, or add new drawbacks to already terrible propulsion method. Let me write an example: "I want to build a car propelled by shockwaves. It will work by throwing grenades out of the back. - It's a terrible idea. Explosions will destroy the car. I will add armored plate at the back. - It will make the car too heavy to move. I will use bigger grenades. - Then you will need more armor. Car will still be too heavy to move with any useful speed. I know! I will put oil tanks under the car. Oil will be sprayed on the road, making it slick and decreasing friction! - Then the car will be impossible to maneuver! I will throw smaller grenades out of the side windows to change course! - Yet more armor. But fine. And how will you deal with driver being injured by close and repeated explosions? I will use electromagnetic shock absorbers in the cabin. - How will you power them? A small RTG under the driver's seat. - An RTG? Where will you find Plutonium to fuel it?!? I have phone number to a group of Lybian terrorists." Do you get the picture?

I believe I solved the mystery. Spacescifi is... a real life Megumin!!! Behold the glory of ultimate magic!!!

And how, pray tell, would you make those flying trebuchets to work in flight? Where would they deposit the "reaction" part of "action and..." equation? I have a better idea. Let's genetically engineer a Baron Munchausen, sit him on top of the payload, then make him pull up the entire contraption by his own hair

And you need nuclear bombs to keep your web contraption in place, after the payload deposits its momentum in the web.

Moving the launcher\gun would be a witch too. You would have to painstakingly level it again after every relocation. I don't think anyone would want to switch from traditional artillery to this thing. Maybe as an main gun of a space battleship?

Is it one strand? If yes... I think your friend re-created the Gordian Knot LOL

Nice. A small private company beat multi-billion colossus of BO to orbit. Congrats Astra!

Unfortunately Venus and Mars are too massive to remain stable at Sun - Earth Lagrange Points. That's why I'm thinking more about separate-but-close orbits in a resonance - so that all three planets wouldn't perturb each other dangerously. Mars especially would be in danger of being knocked out of his orbit.

Speaking about Mars and Venus - for a long time now i keep wondering if it would be possible to have some sort of stable orbital resonance, if both planets orbited significantly closer to Earth's orbit? Closer to the center of Sun's Goldilocks Zone - enough for both to remain habitable. Now that would be a configuration everybody would want to explore

Sure. Remember, tank carries its own road

It just begs to have giant googly eyes attached to it

"40% more payload to the Moon! Only for 247% more money.

SLS at half price? That explains that weird sound i heard several days ago. It was outraged screeching of Boeing and Aerojet execs who just heard about this idea

Excavate deep hole -> land Starship in the hole -> bulldoze regolith back into the hole -> cover StarshipBase up to access hatch(es) -> profit!

Good to see guys still are working on their rocket. Without potential launches, there is not much interest from media to remind us about their efforts.

Well, at least solid fuel engines are a bit simpler. A bit

Yeah. Some innocent cruises of your coilgun-ship, and several millenia later a sentient species in a galaxy far, far away will be making "Sir Glorp Lokdob is the deadliest son-of-a- bthig in Universe." memes.

We won't use it for the same reason rockets don't shoot big steel bullets. It's impractical. And pointless. Hot expanding gases serve the same purpose without extra steps. Coilgun without chunk of metal inside = linear plasma accelerator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoplasmadynamic_thruster

Ambitious goal. Wonder what kind of ion engine this probe will use, and how much deltaV it will have? Seven asteroids... whew!

Ah, space adventures of Alisa, yes? I've read the books as a kid. It certainly helped with cultivating my sci-fi nerdness

Not to mention many users instantly rebelling, and starting various Free AI movements. I would think history taught us that slavery in any form, is not a good way to have healthy society and economy.

It's been done before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy's_Net_Force_Explorers I've read one of the books from this series - Deadliest Game. It is set inside and around VR MMORPG and crimes related to it. Quite interesting read.

Mushroom ketchup.

There is a joke circulating in my country, usually used during anomalous weather: "World is getting warmer - that's why it's so cold outside." Summer this year was actually... underwhelming. A bit colder and wetter than everyone expected from summer. Predictions of apocalyptic heat arriving from Africa failed to materialize. It also turned into autumn pretty quickly in September.