Well, if we want to extend the analogy of SpaceShipTwo vs. Falcon 9 + Dragon (with delta-V as range), compared to a baseline Model S, then Virgin's car would go about 30 miles with a top speed of 20mph and would cost $750.

In short, Virgin's electric "car" would actually be an electric bike.

Same reason that he hid every last radioactive isotopes that has a half life of less than 80 million years which is not not continually produced by natural processes but left around every last isotope with a half life of greater than 700 million years.

I reject Satan and all of his works!

I would think, constructing such a station would be orders of (decimal) magnitude more expensive and complicated, than building a habitat on the Moon.

You would be wrong.

Um, yes we do know that they're there. There are plenty of pictures of skylight caveins and entirely collapsed tubes from satellites orbiting the moon. On Mars, too.

And would mean that earth-quality emergency medical care would be almost impossible to get.

Seriously, the last people you want to put onto a rocket and launch at several Gs up, into a high radiation environment, and then land on a desolate rock far from the rest of human society, is people who can die from hitting something too hard.

Very few volcanic pipes are diamond laden on Earth - primarily just kimberlites, which require a special type of volcano feed by very deep magma that's high in volatiles. They're almost all very old. The moon tends to be poor in volatiles and the depth requirements would be far greater to achieve the necessary pressures, at least 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way to the core.

Still, who bloody knows?

There's all sorts of gem possibilities on the moon, way too many to list here. They're probably the most valuable export-to-earth lunar resource we could mine at this point in time, as you can imagine what sort of premium the market would put on them even if they're pretty much the same as earth gems (let alone if they're mineral species not found on earth)

There's unlikely to be much in terms of heavy metal deposits, apart from asteroid finds, which doesn't sound like a market big enough to justify the expensive of the trip. Helium 3 is a total red herring. And of course your labor and hardware costs will be through the roof due to the incredible expense of shipping consumables. Isotopic Enrichment of light elements in-situ seems quite unlikely as a consequence.

Still, I can envision a market. Just any old moon rock will always have an interest from collectors who have an interest in space, and mineral collectors in general. You could probably turn a good profit on an ongoing basis for regular shipments of small volumes of samples to be sold at very high prices.

Any gemstone finds on the moon would have an additional, and much broader market, they could probably command incredible market prices. Most precious gems are made of light elements like one finds on the moon, and in processes that could readily have occurred on the moon. There probably are new gem species that never naturally occur on earth in sizeable quantities as well. A funny one would be if moonstone was found on the moon. (Na,K)AlSi3O8 and formed in plutonic felsic rock, all of the ingredients appear to be there. :)

Don't we already know that these exist?

Yeah, I can think of a ton. You're hosting a party and you discover you're out of something. You're a company who just had a critical item break and you lose money until you can get another. Your flight leaves soon and you discover that you forgot to pick up something. You're cooking a big dinner and discover that you don't have a key ingredient. And on and on, there's no end to the list.

This "it's not my typical usage needs" attitude that many here are displaying is also the problem I see with many attitudes about electric cars. "Well, I drive 300 miles every day and only have enough money to buy a used jalopy and live in an urban apartment with no electricity". Fine - then don't get a freaking EV yourself.. It doesn't mean that everyone in the world's needs are the same as yours.

Worse, what I see as a lot more likely is people who see their friend's computer left logged into FB and want to prank them... these days they usually write some sort of embarassing post or message their friends. But if they would instead write a post talking about suicide, and then use their own accounts to alert Facebook...

Believe it or not, there are other musicians in Iceland (really, not kidding!)

It's actually kind of weird the percentage of the population that are incredible musicians.

Shouldn't be surprising that they wouldn't form a coalition with the Independence or Progress parties.

The Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn) is basically Icelandic Republicans. It's too good of an analogy not to make. If Republicans in the US like it, they like it. They're maybe not as hard on the social conservatism, but economic, yeah, they can party with the best of them in the US Republican Party. Anti-EU.

The Progress Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn)... this is a beast that you really aren't familiar with in the US. Sometimes they're referred to as right-populism, but really I think the best way to describe them is the "Idiot Party". Generally they do terrible in the polls right up until a couple weeks before the election, when they come out with some Big, Super Plan, which basically amounts to "We're going to give you tons of money, and you're never going to have to pay for it, like ,not EVERS!" There's so little time before the election that idiots get enough time to hear about it but not enough time to hear about how utterly terrible it is, and Framsóknarflokkurinn surges in the polls... then their support quickly collapses after the election, but who cares about it then? They're in government and can enrich themselves and their friends to their heart's content. Anti-EU.

The Pirates on the other hand could easily form a coalition with a number of other parties:

Samfylkingin (not sure what the English translation for them usually is)... as much as Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn is Iceland's Republicans, these people are really Iceland's democrats: left-center pragmatists. But then again, the left in Iceland is further left than the US. Pro-EU.

Left Greens (Vinstri Grænir): Yeah, there's also a Right Greens, but they're a small party, no need to talk about them. The Left Greens are a traditional Green Party... Left-Idealists. Anti-EU.

Bright Future (Björt Framtíð): Relatively new party. They're another leftist party, with some stances matching with Samfylkingin but others matching the Left Greens. Pro-EU.

The Pirates have no pro or anti EU stance, except that people should get to vote on it. They're very much not happy with our current government's promise breaking and lawbreaking on this front. But the membership is mixed on how they'd actually vote - they just want to get a vote.

I think the Pirates would form a great part of any potential leftist coalition. They have a lot of policy blind spots where they try to avoid taking stances, but they're very hardcore on certain issues that really need an advocate.

... ar sem strax er teygjanlegt hugtak ;)

It depends on what you mean by "bay". We certainly don't name things with the word" bay", as that's an English word. But we have lots of firðir, víkur, sund.... ;)

You won't know until at least an hour or two after the official start time ;)