Many flycatchers eat plenty of mosquitoes. Your certainty is highly uncertain.

Owls are likely nest-site limited, so it is unlikely that they will consume anywhere near enough mice to replace snakes. That means mice-borne illnesses are likely to rise dramatically. There are simply so many interactions within food-webs that it is foolish to think that one can predict what exactly will happen as species become locally extinct.

You could make a similar argument for any American company. How far along do you think our own "space travel corporations" would be without the massive taxpayers subsidies that they have been receiving?

From a biological perspective, its even worse if you actually get there. Recent findings reveal that after just 90 days in space, humans loose about 3% of their brain weight. At that rate humans would loose about 18% of their brains just going there and back, without even staying for any length of time. For eyesight, its even worse. Most travelers to and from Mars would likely be nearly blind upon their return.

You are right. When the US first tried to catch up with the Russians after Sputnik, this kind of thing happened with regularity. Given their massive industrial capacity and educational system that is rapidly overtaking our own, we will likely see many successful Chinese rocket launches in the next few years.

The sad reality is that if humanity is to survive, we must strive to work with the Chinese and the Russians, rather than try to perceive them as perpetual enemies. Despite many political, cultural, and philosophical differences, we have more in common with them than we have differences. The reality is that we are not in a race with the China or Russia for "world supremacy", but rather we all are in a fight against climate change that will, if present trends continue, cause humans to go extinct within a few hundred years.

Yeah, the last thing we would want to do is cut the public in on all the profits.

Republicans better put a stop to this. It wouldn't take too many Californians to turn places like Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, and Idaho blue.

This folks, is what happens to minds, who are only able to bear false witness. Sad.

Perhaps they can dispense mental health advice to MP's, who have been busy using Brexit to destroy the UK.

Blockchain will be essential in tracking down terrorists and drug/human trafficers who use these things. For these folks, they are an advantage as they won't have to fly them, themselves and they won't have to worry about a pilot being able to identify them.

No they will just have to worry about some terrorist renting one, packing it with explosives and then crashing it into those skyscrapers filled with the idle rich. With self-flying cars, they won't even have to fly it themselves.

We are more likely to see first see terrorists everywhere using them more frequently than the wealthy, who will be busy building concrete shelters equipped with anti-aircraft defenses.

3) which happens to occur twice with every flight. If they can be made electric and designed for short trips.

There will likely be few "point to point" flights as people are simply not going to allow highways to form over their homes unless they are at high altitude, which will increase energy costs dramatically.

Seems very unlikely the rich will want to car pool.

Don't forget miss the birds and the millions of recreational drones.

At least, the good news is that in a few years there won't be any more birds and likely. Then again, there won't be any more birds anyway as climate change continues, no people either. The entire technology should accelerate global warming given the extra energy requirements of getting from point A to point B. No doubt that justifies its necessity.

A big problem will be maintenance costs, which are not "self-fixing" and repair costs from self-flying "cars" crashing into homes, schools, businesses, etc.

If you think car insurance is expensive now just wait until flying cars become available.