sorry, could have sworn i saw a comment in the thread about using the sail itself to capture reaction mass. That made me think to the ram. The ultimate use of these, of course, would be to add drag to a couple of comets (say one nickle-iron and the other H2O), and drop them into near-lunar orbit for processing (I would have said near-earth, but the idea of that would freak some people out), you could even use a sail as the mirror for the solar kiln to melt the ore. For those about to ask - the reason you want to use this meathod to get water to your workers is the insane amout of money it costs to boost the stuff from our gravity well. One litre = one kilo, cost vary from USA, Athena 2 (2065kg to LEO): $11622 per kg to Russia, Shtil (430kg to LEO): $465 per kg, but I wouldn't trust to low-ball offer.

I believe the term you are struggling for is Bussard Ram - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet

Umm... and that country to the north of the U.S.A., you know, the really, really big one? Coloured pink on the old maps? Sorry, I'm Canadian, we don't like to complain, but it hurts our feelings being fogotten all the time.

Not defending Pol Pot. He was trying to return Cambodia to an agrarian based economy, and was a brutal (maybe psychotic) dictator. This really doesn't have anything to do with the basic tenent of "From each according to their ability, to each occording to their need." If you study scripture at all, JC was pretty close to a Commie. Definitely a Socialist.

Romans used lead acetate as a sweetener, they also used lead based chems as food preservatives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_of_lead

Finally, someone who realises that "Communism" has the same root as "community". Like Socialism is related to Society. And just to repeat myself from an earlier thread "Communism has not been tried and failed: Communism has not been tried." Stalin, Lenin, Mao, even Trotsky were at best egomaniacal political hacks, but that should not discredit Marx and Engles.

Names don't mean anything by themselves. I work for a certain high tech company, in support, and we have people from 5 continents on my floor. There are more accents than skin tones. We are in Ontario.

No, he wieghs less than a duck, therefor he is a witch!

So, the moon has more than HALF the water in the Great Lakes? The US only owns half of those bodies of water, the other half belonging to another sovereign nation (which is technically bigger).