Really it doesn't matter much since proposed numbers for the various factors vary so wildly, but it could change the Drake equation if you wanted (there are other factors listed on the Wikipedia page that could change it as well). In this case, the first three multipliers, R* x fp x ne, estimate the rate at which habitable planets form, but since those terms focus entirely on planets around stars, it ignores habitable homeless planets. So you might replace that with (R* x fp x ne + Rh x fhh), where Rh = rate at which homeless planets form, and fhh = fraction of homeless planets that are habitable. Granted, fhh is probably extremely small (civilization would have to develop deep underground near a molten core), but if we can imagine it, we can't rule it out. There's a bit of a weird crossover when it comes to planets that are flung from other systems (e.g. if it was too close to its star to be habitable, but now its in near-absolute zero interstellar space...), but I'm ignoring that for now. It's all just interesting conjecture anyway.

I know this is a personal anecdote, but since I work for large aerospace corporations, this is a personal anecdote for a significant number of people. Before the provisions of Obamacare went into effect, my healthcare premiums rose 20% to 33% per year since 2008. From 2013 to 2014, when all the major provisions went into effect, my deductible went up 20%, but my premium stayed the same (and I never hit the old deductible limit anyway). I changed jobs this year, and in 2015, my premiums and coverage are both staying the same.

I have no idea if Obamacare is responsible for this state of affairs or if it's just coincidence, but it's a damn sight better than what was happening before it came along.

It's almost certainly the veggies that are the problem. In Colorado, the thinnest state in the nation (though even 1 in 5 adults there are obese), I could get all manner of cheap but high-quality fruits and vegetables all year round from Sprouts (a chain grocery store that calls itself a farmer's market). Bell peppers were almost always on sale for $0.25 - $0.50 apiece, and that's including orange ones, which are generally more expensive. Where I live now, 1 in 3 adults are obese, and I'm lucky to find green bell peppers, which are usually the cheapest, for $1.00 apiece. The parking lot farmer's markets (they also had those in CO, by the way, but prices were rarely better there than at Sprouts) are all over now, and their prices weren't much better anyway, so crappy grocery store produce is once again my only option.

As a result, we often end up buying frozen veggies, which don't taste nearly as good, so we don't do it as often. We ate a lot more rice and veggie dishes and salads in CO, but we eat more pasta and meat dishes here.

Over the course of making this post, I found out that Sprouts is coming to my city in 2015. I am very excited about this.

True, even with those kinds of numbers, I very much doubt it will be profitable to bring it back to Earth. It does, however, enable a leap forward for human spaceflight. It's tremendously expensive to lift stuff from Earth's surface, and water is far and away the most useful resource for astronauts, well beyond simply drinking or bathing with it. Surround a spacecraft with it and you've got a radiation barrier. Electrolyze it for rocket fuel (and potentially other types of fuel for backup power) and components of breathable air. Grow crops for food and natural carbon dioxide scrubbing. If you're on an asteroid, moon, or planet, mix it with regolith to help create surface structures.

A bit of Google-fu reveals that osage, the name of the submitter, is also the name a layout/rendering tool associated with GraphViz. It's likely old enough to fit the "over 20 years" comment and was the de facto standard until a bunch of javascript graph visualization libraries popped up and made it easier to create prettier, interactive graphs. The latter explains why younger developers might shy away from it: it's written in C instead of javascript. And it was started by AT&T Labs Research to fulfill the corporate aegis bit. And there is a banner on the Graphviz homepage trying to attract developers.

So unless this is all coincidence, we may have a winner, which would be sad since I use it on occasion.

You're right, everyone would absolutely hate money. Just imagine all those hapless, unintentionally rich folk, begging people to take their money and their property.

Game shows would become horror reality shows:

Announcer: "And behind door number 3...a new car!"
Contestant: "Noooooooooooo!"

There would be a whole new way to punish unruly employees:

Employer: "I heard you set another sales record this month."
Employee: "I'm sorry, sir, I tried not to. I really tried..."
Employer: "That was your third mistake this year, Bob. You know what this means."
Employee: "Please, sir, no, you can't do this...I've already been promoted once. I have a family!"
Employer: "I'm sorry, I really am, but the rules are clear on this matter."
Employee: "Wait, please, I'll only come in for one hour a day, I swear!"
Employer: "It's too late for that...sir."
New Employer: "Nooooo!"

I know you're trolling, but it's really a pretty impressive list. The technology for the communications system, for example, already exists and is in use around Earth and Mars, though they plan to bolster that. We have spacesuits that would work on Mars as-is, though they'll probably want to create Mars-specific ones that reduce the bulkiness and make it more flexible (we're already doing this, by the way, look up NASA's Z-2 suit and Dava Newman's Bio-Suit). We have done lots In-Situ Resource Utilization tests in simulated environments on Earth, and one that extracts oxygen from the atmosphere is likely heading to Mars on the next lander or rover. They'll need to make sure that technology scales up and they have enough easily accessible source material, but that's what the unmanned launch is meant to do. It calls for the as-yet un-launched Falcon Heavy and modified, human-rated Dragon crafts, but SpaceX is on their way to developing their own versions of it. Bigelow Aerospace has created expandable space habitats including one attached to the ISS, I don't see why they couldn't do so for the Mars One food production habitats. I don't think Mars One had a lot of info on how they might grow food, but if you check out the report, it has a pretty fascinating proposal for that aspect, i.e. what crops to grow, how it might fit in the proposed space, and how it affects resource usage. And we're growing lettuce on the ISS using hydroponics right now. And so on.

Sure, the reality TV funding plan is something of a joke and there are plenty of technological hurdles to overcome, but what's important is that Mars One has a starting point and is apparently paying people to execute it and independent researchers are looking at them seriously, pointing out issues, refining the plan, and suggesting improvements. This report might have found lots of problems, but it is nevertheless a very strong step toward fixing them or creating something better.

Thank you, geez these comments are preposterous. It's a pretty simple situation: they took a huge pre-payment and it became a short term loan. I just read that they were starting to build up production capacity, probably using that pre-payment, that they will no longer need. But even if they didn't, that big of a liability plus a big hit in stock price (35% drop even before they declared bankrupcy) when everyone found out Apple dropped them...that's a pretty massive hit to the balance sheet. They'd hit almost $20/share earlier this year, now they're trading at just around $1. If I wasn't poor...

I agree that it's not as obviously gamed as everyone says. Sierra Nevada might not have much experience as a prime on big contracts like this, but their Dream Chaser proposal had Lockheed Martin and Aerojet and other heavy hitters as subs, and I guarantee you they put their own political connections to as much use as Boeing did. I'm as cynical as the next guy when it comes to politics, but there is certainly more to it here.

I didn't imply that we needed to eliminate the threat at all, only that it gives them more time to think about it after a completely benign situation. Consider this alternative scenario: a psychopath murders a bunch of children with a rifle modified with a huge, 3D-printed ammo clip before lawmakers realized that could even happen. Situations like that are how far more restrictive laws get put into place, regardless of how poorly they work, how invasive they are to our privacy, etc.

You and the previous response (and many other responses) say the same thing, but it is not really a given that a law won't work, and that is not the only way to address it. I am personally not smart enough to think of a great way for the law to work, but that's not to say there isn't one. In fact, the "answer" may be far milder than you and many other people fear, like just making it illegal to manufacture parts for assault rifles, just like it's illegal to make drugs or bombs. Of course it doesn't and it won't stop a sufficiently motivated person from doing it, but that is true of any unlawful activity. Just because most drivers drive too fast doesn't mean we shouldn't have speed limits.

Agreed, and neither is, "Anything Goes." We may not agree where it is, but there is a reasonable meeting point in the center. Admittedly, lawmakers will probably go too draconian at first. I'm cynical enough to imagine a situation where they demand 3D printers have an NSA backdoor or something. Still, I'm also optimistic enough to claim we'll eventually end up with something better.

Orbital mechanics is fun. Pretend you're in a spacecraft in the exact same orbit as the ISS, except offset such that it is always 100 meters in front of you. What happens when you apply an instantaneous delta-v directly toward it? Answer: you will now be orbiting slower than the ISS, and after you get a little closer, the ISS will pull away from you.

What we're probably looking at here (I don't know, I haven't checked) is more like a slow gravity assist maneuver. The Earth's gravity is changing the angular momentum of the asteroid's orbit relative to the Sun ever so slightly that it will eventually pull away from Earth.