Solid metal will pass through virtually unchanged. Shaped for minimum-drag in hypersonic entry (unlike capsules, which are shaped for braking), it will, by coincidence, be virtually undetectable by radar or optical until it hits the atmosphere. (Unless they are watching activity at the launch site, of course. Which they would be, if they aren't stupid.)

No-one saw the 10,000 tonne, 20m diameter Chelyabinsk meteor, which produced a half-megaton detonation. It was a stony-type meteor, hence it didn't penetrate below 25km. A solid metal manufactured impactor could easily reach the ground; but the optimum shape for a city killer would detonate in the air above the target, but below 5km.

To reach the moon with even a small nuclear warhead, you would need a full multi-stage rocket launch, not a little ICBM squirted out of a sub or silo. You couldn't hide such a launch. And it would be trackable for the entire 3 day transit to the moon. The lunar loony would just need to launch a load of gravel back along the same trajectory. No more warhead. He then throws some impactors at the launching nation's small number of suitable launch sites. No more counter-attacks. He can also hit a few LEO satellites to start a Kessler cascade, preventing any launches from Earth for several decades. His own impactors (being purely bulk-kinetic) aren't affected as they pass through.

The moon has "air superiority" over Earth due to orbital mechanics. It takes a lot more energy to bomb the moon than it does to bomb Earth. Therefore attacks from Earth must be much larger, and require substantially more infrastructure to launch, which is vulnerable to attack from moon-thrown spears-of-death. (The moon's disadvantage is that it takes a lot of infrastructure to get to that point.)

International Traffic In Arms Regulations

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

Also what does "Mars mission" mean in the context of this question?

Permanent base on the surface? Flags and footprints? A mere fly-by? Landing on Phobos and restarting the reactor?

Or... he's using slight-of-hand tricks to make me think he's a) only putting one dollar in, b) that there really were 10 coming out, and c) that the 10 came out of the wallet.

[Watch Teller (of Penn and Teller) create an unlimited number of coins from nothing and put them in a small metal bucket.]

And, by an amazing coincidence, these are the things that people are questioning about Rossi's device and this "analysis". A) Was the input power properly measured (no), B) was the output properly measured (no), and C) were other (conventional but hidden) sources of input energy properly excluded (no).

Given a choice between making $400k a year

Read it again, that $400k is just the first year. Then $800k, then $1.6m, then $3.2m... Until he's made his billions of dollars.

If you are capable of making the first plant (as Rossi did), you are capable of earning enough income from it to make the second, and so on, until you've made enough money to sate your appetite and decide to just give the design away. But it's better than that, because if you are actually selling electricity, not magic beans, it makes your magic beans a hell of a lot more credible. [For example, Rossi claimed (early on) that he was using his device to heat his "factory", precisely to give himself that kind of credibility.]

Can't get on the grid due to {conspiracy}. No problem. You sell on-site off-grid power to individual large customers, if you can cut their power costs they'd jump at the chance. Aluminium smelters spend a fortune on electricity, mining companies spend a fortune on fuel for remote power generation... (That said, you might pick one or two clients as demonstrators and offer them free power. That also lets you work out the bugs in the system before you have contractual obligations.) A decade later, you're powering everything from Google server farms to the International Space Station. And at that point, if you are not wealthy enough to get a licence to build grid-connected plants in any market that has commercial power, you're doing it wrong.

But there's even more money to be made. In the paper, the isotopic composition of the post-experiment "ash" from his ecats included several isotopes that are extremely valuable in their own right ($20k/oz.) There's one that is a beta-emitter that (if it could be produced cheaply) would power compact "nuclear batteries" for anything from laptops to space probes, for applications too small for the ecat-based system. [At least one lithium isotope is "dual use", so selling that requires some extra paper-work. But others are no harder than selling smoke-detectors.]

Right now he could not only be selling power, but also be selling rare isotopes, and developing other product lines not directly connected with the ecats made from the "ash" of his power plants. (And the good thing about the beta-voltaic battery is that not only are the fairly simple, the technology is off-patent. Doesn't matter if someone reverse-engineers your design, unless they have a source of cheap beta-emitter. So you can sell the "batteries" wherever you can get appropriate licensing, without worrying about IP theft.)

And every one of these things does more to demonstrate the reality of his device than getting a few gullible patsies to write stare at a glowing rod for 30 hours.

IIRC Bill&Ted's excellent time machine didn't actually fly and didn't do anything special with space, such as being bigger on the inside. (I suppose it is in itself compact, therefore saved space, compared to, say, a flying Delorean. But that's not the meaning I took from the original comment.)

They been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.

Shockingly there are also places you can't drive to.

However, most SF "flying car" scenarios assume we'll adapt new infrastructure around VTOL capability. For example, downtown in large cities.

Until we develop anti-gravity, no "flying car" will truly qualify for the SF image. Drivable-planes like Terrafugia and clones still need runways. Moller's Skycar, even if it wasn't a scam, wouldn't be allowed in real world cities. (BTW, it also isn't drivable, yet few would say it's not a "flying car" (again if it wasn't a scam.))

My point is that you're being pedantic and stupid. (My own pedantry is much more sophisticated.)

A police box isn't a phone booth. The direct-line handset is on the outside (behind that little door), the inside is more of a lock-up shed for local bobbies to store their equipment. (Such as wet-weather ponchos, first-aid kits, logbooks, etc.)

The point of a flying car is that you don't have to. A "Velocopter", if it was practical, is something that could land in your driveway.

Moller Skycar is a long time investment scam. The "working" version has never flown high enough to clear its ground-effect after 20 years of "demonstrations", because of, ummm, "insurance", which somehow doesn't affect any other experimental and novelty aircraft designer.

Skyrider is a straight rip-off of Moller's design, and purely a paper-plane.

Xplorair PX200 is more about its completely new propulsion system. If the propulsion worked as advertised, it would be a useful product for conventional aircraft. That the inventor is using it to get investors for a flying-car is a pretty big indicator that there's nothing there.

Terrafugia and Aeromobil are actually flying. Which is kind of impressive. Both are just folding-wing planes awkwardly squeezed into a vaguely roadable shape. But, honestly, you really don't want to drive your fragile aircraft on a road.

More realistically, if you want to fly without getting a full licence, buy an ultralight, paraglider, or gyrocopter.

Ten!

Eight!

Seven!

Vista!

XP!

2000!

ME!

98!

95!

3.11

3

2

1

DOS!

We have DOS of the Microsoft operating system. The processor is at 16 bit, and 86-DOS has cloned the CP/M.

Trying to dispel it, or trying to conform to it? "Fair warning guys..."

Unlike the shit I flush into the same system?