What are you prattling about? I was clearly talking of the Viking engine . The similarly-named rocket has nothing to do with that.

No, they're not. There's nothing in German rockets that was copied in either American or Russian designs, post-1950. Whereas the Indian engine in question is pretty much identical to Ariane's engine. Furthermore, the reason I've mentioned it is because it explains how hypergolics got into the core stage (not for military reasons). I'm sorry that your reading comprehension sucks so badly. I hope you'll get better.

Well, in this case, it's because of Ariane (1-4). The engine is a rip-off of Viking.

They still haven't build the presumably rather expensive (deeply cryogenic) third stage, so don't count on the final version being so cheap. Plus the improving standards of living in India will inevitably push the price upwards, whereas Falcon development is definitely going to either push the price down or at least stabilize it at a rather low level, if at least one of 1) reusability or 2) increased launch frequency pans out. (The latter is almost certain.) And finally, the advertised Falcon 9 price tag is a market price (with profit margins included), whereas this is presumably just the total sum of expenses for this test (and without the third stage, it will be only a fraction of the launch expenses for the real thing).

Burger. Nuggets.

The population of Americas just before the contact with Europeans is estimated at up to 100M+ people.

That's actually not correct, several such crimes happen every. But as you say, that's why few people notice them: It's been like that for a very long time, and people become desensitized.

I think you wanted to say: "HTML, motherfucker, do you speak it?"

You can have a laser. I wonder how that fabric would react to intense illumination...

The most hilarious thing about this is that many people arguing that "Latin is a dead language" actually don't know what "dead language" means. Judging from what you seem to be suggesting, you don't know that either.

Isn't that in part because Obama doesn't thrown in jail, for not prosecuting torturers, for example? There appears to be little else that ordinary people can do about it than being pissed off.

Look how that worked out for the Indians (or whatever they're called this week). ;-)

Well, in the case of Soyuz, one of the consequences was that the launch guidance basically lacked azimuth control. Because of the system they used, the whole launch pad had to rotate into the required position. Only the new digital control system on the new Soyuz-2 can get away with that. Try to imagine a rotating Saturn V pad or a rotating Space Shuttle pad. One would think that a better control computer is ultimately easier to do - and smaller, and cheaper - , but that's what they've been using for fifty years (presumably because it wasn't cheaper for them).

No, but he sold the idea of moving east to some people, then switched the deal, AND he did so using IBM machines. OK, not an exact analogy but comes somewhat close.