Democracy is more than just holding elections. An effective democracy needs a free press, freedom of speech and an independent judiciary, amongst others. The most important part about creating a democracy is having those effective institutions in place. Holding elections is only the last step on the road towards democracy.

This is why technological solutions won't work - any voting system won't work if they're being implemented by a corrupt and unaccountable executive who can manipulate public opinion by cracking down on dissent. Most dictators attempt to legitimize their rule at some point by holding elections - and when you can control public opinion by limiting dissent and controlling the media, rigging the election isn't even necessary to guarantee an election victory. Elections are meaningless without democratic institutions in place

Mr Aigon has since schooled himself in all the procedures for take off and landing and says he is able to fly his 'plane' just like a real-life pilot.

No. he's proven he's able to fly his simulator, not the real aircraft. An actual training flight simulator goes through an exhaustive validation to ensure it is accurately reproducing the aircraft within the envelope of interest. While he may have been able to get real cockpit parts to get the look of the real cockpit, there's no guarantee that his simulator reproduces the real flight envelope of the aircraft accurately, or that the system components were assembled in a way as to properly reproduce the aircraft system response. And training in an inaccurate simulator can be worse than training in no simulator at all.

Still, kudos for the DYI simulator. It's a cool grown-up toy, but it's not a training device.

I know people will try to make this an issue about gun regulation, but ultimately this just boils downs to market economics.

People who are in favour of gun regulation, and who would be for this type of device, by and large simply don't buy guns.

People who do buy guns - sportsmen, hunters, and other gun enthusiasts - tend to be against greater regulation, especially if it will additional costs in the purchase of their firearm.

The type of person who would buy these "smart guns" - a gun enthusiast who's willing to pay more to have more control on their firearms - is going to be very small at best. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that these guns weren't going to sell...

Aren't all artifacts left by the Apollo missions still considered US property and therefore still protected by federal law? As far as I know, the US government never relinquished ownership, and therefore no additional protection is needed.

All this does is add unnecessary bureaucracy and administrative costs. Once this "park" is set up, the artifacts will have to be catalogued, regulations drafted, lawyers proficient in space law consulted -all this will be non-trivial expenses for little benefit.