I"m not suggesting that we stay Earthbound. I'm suggesting that we don't land on another planet. The asteroids will have most, if not all of the available resources on planets with the added benefit of not sitting at the bottom of a gravity well. Getting out of and returning to the gravity well is the most costly and most dangerous part of any space mission. If we can get out to the asteroid belt then travel to and from nearby asteroids will be cheap if we use ion drives or VASMIR engines. Additionally sending raw materials to anywhere in the solar system would be cheap with the great giant Jupiter sitting nearby to give us gravity assists. The only problems left are health related. We'll need radiation shielding which would be available either by digging into an asteroid or layering materials on the exterior of stations. Then comes the issue of needing a downward force to prevent atrophy. We can spin up an asteroid or a space station to solve that problem.

There's no reason to go to the bottom of another gravity well. We should be travelling to, learn from, and eventually exploit the asteroids. It makes more sense for the long term viability of the human race.

If I'm remembering correctly netflix will stream actual HD (720 or 1080 I can't recall) to the app, but not to the browser.

They also have an app for Windows 8, albeit it's a metro app.

If your vehicle has electronic fuel injection, like most modern gasoline powered cars do, then your car wouldn't work anyway if an EMP goes off.

You don't even need the original key in order to get a copy made. Just show up with the VIN number, which can be read through the windshield,and they can do if for you.

What if the battery is completely dead and you want to roll start it? I'm for keyless cars; I'm just playing devils advocate.

Mechanical linkages fail as well. I once started a car in the cold (disclaimer: I was 16 and going to be late for school and the temperature outside was -20 F) and when I was backing out of the driveway the throttle stuck open. I had ice buildup on the spring used to provide resistance to the gas pedal, so my throttle never released from the bit of gas it took to break the ice under the tires. Thankfully I was going slow enough I had time to react and so I shut the car off so I could stop without damaging the transmission.

If you have an automatic transmission you don't need a clutch. It operates by stopping sets of gears in a planetary gear type system. I say planetary gear type because most transmissions are more complicated than that.

Source: Engineering Student

Agreed. I remember an article on slashdot before outlining the process of parallel construction and how it was used against U.S. residents/civilians. They may be mining the data for an investigation and then not using it in court which is illegal, and if it isn't it should be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

The power will be transmitted as microwaves, which aren't scattered by the atmosphere as easily as visible light.

Exactly. The only problem is we only have access to one habitable planet to toy with. I think it makes more sense to just adapt to the changes that will happen rather than try to manipulate a system we don't understand and can't afford to completely destroy.

I agree that nuclear is part of the solution to our current problems, but we have to get over the social issue first. Nuclear is safe the public just associates everything to do with radiation and nukes with death.

I personally think that nuclear fission plants should be used until we can get fusion working for energy production or we can make space based solar reasonably effective.

The climate and global weather systems aren't some homogenous entity. Local climate and weather is not only coupled to transient effects from the sun and random fluctuations, but also geography. Some places will get hotter, some colder. Others will have more precipitation and others less.

Also, FYI warm air can carry more moisture. So a warmer upper atmosphere == more possible snowfall.

I'd be leary of either overcorrecting for climate change or having massive unpredicted effects. I'm all for trying to fix the problem. I just don't think our climate modelling is yet good enough.