By the way, if you're more interested in the social effects of e.g. telegraphy technology rather than the science behind it, I heartily recommend Tom Standage's The Victorian Internet.

Come on, man, that's just replicating the problem you're trying to solve.

The basics of telegraphy are dead simple: Build an electromagnet by wrapping some wire around a nail, add some kind of spring or rubber-band mechanism to a piece of steel so that it clicks when the magnet is turned on or off, add a couple of batteries and a push button (momentary) switch. Et voila, a telegraph. If you don't want to build the electromagnet yourself, buy an old-fashioned doorbell or buzzer from your local hardware store, and take the cover off to show the innards.

You can do interesting things with wire and iron filings to demonstrate how a current generates a magnetic field, too, which is the basis of all that tech.

Hands-on experiments are the way to go. Videos don't "prove" anything about the real world any more than they prove cartoon physics is real. Gets the kids more actively engaged too, rather than just passively watching. (Even "interactive" web sites are still mostly passive, you can't try something the programmer didn't think of.)

they are all names for the same orbital construct

Not quite. Yes, they're all names for the basic idea, but there are several applications of a beanstalk that don't require an elevator. The term "space elevator" applies to a subset of the various suggested technologies. Also, a skyhook doesn't have to be anchored at the base, there have been several suggestions for rotating tethers which dip down into the atmosphere and grab payloads at their nadir.

A couple of decades back I published a paper or two on the "Aresian Well", a beanstalk and pipeline on Mars for exporting volatiles (H2O, CO2) mined at the north polar cap to elsewhere in the inner solar system. Since then we've discovered that water on e.g. the Moon isn't quite so scarce as we thought. That beanstalk was not an elevator, although you could add one.

I want to be a sci-fi writer; I can world-build fantasy and sci-fi, but I can't come up with plot. They've all been done; I'd feel like I'm copying someone else--anyone else--everyone else!

As Robert Heinlein said, "just file off the serial numbers". He also said there were only three basic plots. Others have different numbers, but there really are only a few. Just put your own unique twist on one (or a combination) of them.

Even if you start out blatantly ripping off someone else's plot (ideas can't be copyright, just be sure you change the names), as soon as you transplant it to your own sci-fi world, it will start mutating into something unique to you. Go for it.

(And yes, I am a sci-fi writer...although that entry is a bit out of date).

The soviets had some designs that went into space

FTFY.

Even more fun, the reactor on Kosmos 954 came back ... in pieces, all over Canada's Northwest Territories.

I don't even know that I should be looking in any safe deposit boxes, because I have amnesia.

Embed the information in a tiny projection device then implant that under your skin. (Maybe implant several in case the amnesia-inducing trauma is accompanied by loss of body parts.)

Hey, it worked for Jason Bourne.

'm sorry but the energy density of gasoline (36 MJ/L) is nowhere close to that of Uranium-235 (1,546,000,000 MJ/L).

Now, if only somebody would develop an engine that could run on a cubic millimeter (a microliter) of U-235 (roughly equivalent to a tank of gas). Or even a completely sealed unit with a milliliter of U235 buried somewhere in its innards (a few hundred thousand miles' worth).

Kickstarter and its ilk are not anything the SEC should concern itself with.

Kickstarter projects are usually selling products on advanced order, not selling shares in the company. If someone's pulling a fast one, there are already fraud laws in place for that sort of thing. Sure there's an element of risk (as with anything), but Kickstarter projects aren't selling securities as such.

Yes, there are some bad crowdfunding eggs out there, but caveat emptor.

I'm guessing you are not a native English speaker. If you were, it would have been obvious.

About as native as it gets.

Alas, I've seen too much actual stupidity posted here for a good simulation of it to be obvious.

Why would you install Windows? Oh, sure, I get there might be some Windows-only apps you want, but put a reasonable VM on the box, install on that once, and just move the VM to successive new machines. You can allows throw more virtual hardware at it.

But there is no other party to vote for? It's only a meaningful vote if it is for the party who wins!

Please, do us all a favor and never go near a voting booth again. That has to be one of the most stupid things I have ever read. By your logic, we should only have one party if votes are to be meaningful, and clearly that is the opposite of the truth.

You've been utterly brainwashed by the two big parties, who fear votes for third parties more than they fear votes for the other major party. We could use a little more fear of the electorate in the big parties. If you must enter a polling booth, please vote third party. Any third party. Sometimes it actually does some good. (Even if third party doesn't win, it can shake up the Republicrats and Demicans enough that they change their policies.)

(And if you were kidding, please include a tag next time.)

For the benefit of the reading-ability-impaired AC's posting above, let me extract the relevant phrases:

Mass-media influences cultural evolution [...] They cannot understand life, except as something that generates politics and "human interest" stories. [...] They [...] work to maintain our limits to growth since it places their skills at a premium.

Which is an interesting, and quite possibly valid, point.

I just don't see what it has to do with SpaceX or anyone else using Pad 39A.

The crawler - transporter is so incredibly cool. Something that big actually moving.

I see your point, but back in the day it was transporting something larger that would be moving orders of magnitude faster, straight up, seconds after lighting the engines.

(As an aside, there were originally plans for a Pad 39C, and the VAB was scaled to allow simultaneous stacking of up to four Saturn Vs. Sigh, the space program we almost had...)

There are so many things to explore right here, you disgusting navel-gazing autistic psychopath. [bold added]

LOL! Who is navel gazing, now?

While the Outer Space Treaty has some things to say about it (the Moon Treaty was never ratified, or even signed by many of the players), historically the rules of precedence for establishing claim over new lands has been:
1. First to spot it.
2. First to plant a flag on it (which historically implied setting foot)
3. First to set up a base or fort on it
4. First to establish a settlement (ie, permanent habitation) on it.

With "right of ownership" proceeding in the above order. Robotic flag planting as we've had since the mid 1960's might be step 1.5, which is where China is at. USA was at 3 for a brief time in 1969-72 (since the later Apollo missions had surface stays of several days) although disclaimed it with the "we came in peace for all mankind" verbiage on the landing plaques.

If/when China establishes a manned base on the Moon, is there going to be anyone in a position to argue about it (beyond stern words at the UN and threats to remove "Most Favored Nation" trading status) if they claim ownership?