Depends on the thickness of the sheet. If a sheet has thickness d, The maximum surface area of a sheet that fits in a box of volume V (assuming all side lengths are the same) is V^(1/3)/d *V^(2/3). If d is enough orders of magnitude smaller than the size of the box, the area can get to be quite large.

As soon as I saw the picture of it, I recognized it as being the same as one that I saw someone using at a campsite I was at in the 1990's. I don't recall the exact year, but I remember the guy saying that it chopped wood a lot easier when I asked about it (I didn't even recognize it as an axe until he used it, where every single blow split his target in only one swing).

That doesn't mean that it will actually happen though.

Oh... and to answer your question.... sending a processor there may allow future generations to explore it remotely, but it won't enable them to actually live there. The best case scenario is that this world will remain habitable only for another couple of billion years or so. Finding more worlds to call home means that humanity could endure indefinitely (or at least until the universe itself dies, which nobody will be around to see anyways).

That would be "human made"... not "human". I was, in fact, suggesting that human beings *will* get there someday... just not in any person's lifetime today, barring something happening within the next millennium or so that wipes us all out here first. Such an event is not impossible, but it's also quite far from certain, since it is such a short time span on a cosmological scale.

The reality is that a continent-wide power disruption, which could easily follow a solar-generated EMP if our infrastructure is not hardened against it, will do hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars of damage to the economy., The east coast blackout of 2003 alone did about $10b worth of economic damage.... scale that up to the entire continent.

Even ignoring the threat of so-called deaths, the damage caused by a massive EMP blackout will easily measure in the hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars for North America alone. The blackout on the east coast in 2003 alone created about $10b damage to the economy... scale that up to the entire continent.

A solar EMP could easily hit the entire US.

Of course, a solar EMP isn't likely to be big enough in localized intensity to do any damage to small things like aircraft.... but it could still damage the electric grid on the ground, which has wiring that is many miles in length and so exceptionally large voltages can be induced by such an event.

Except that those individual things wouldn't be tend to be affected by a solar generated EMP... A solar generated EMP isn't like an EMP weapon, which may do a lot of damage to only a very localized region. A solar EMP is ultimately only a threat to wiring that is on the order of multiple miles in length, such as the electric power grid. They are a threat to individual devices and appliances only to the same extent that they may be connected to a grid which is itself vulnerable.

Does anyone know what the so-called "politics" are that get in the way of just going and doing it, or is this doublespeak for the idea that it's going to be hard and not particularly rewarding work that nobody ultimately really wants to do?

My grandfather asked me to go golfing with him when I was about 7. There was some conversation among the adults concluding that, based on my age only, I was a hazard to the green and therefore would have to just watch. So I followed around old guys for an hour on grass that I was not worthy to putt on. I realize this is an antecdote. Fuck golf.

Your anecdote resonates with another experience I had as a youngster... I wasn't excluded from playing like you were, but my father's preoccupation with golf while I was growing up very nearly ruined my parent's marriage, and without me even realizing it at the time, created a psychological barrier that left a profound disliking for the game in general for many many years... he invited me to play with him a few times, but I never really enjoyed it. it would not be until I was in my early twenties when some peers invited me to go golfing with them that I finally realized what preconceptions about the game my subconscious had put there, based solely on my experiences I had while I was growing up.

Going back to your story, however, hopefully, you've matured enough since that time to realize that in your case, this was a problem with the alleged "adults" who decided you were a problem for their game than the sport itself.... if your grandfather had more character, he would have told those assholes that they were being arrogant pricks right then and there, and taken you somewhere else instead of just going along with their suggestion and making you sit on the sidelines.

Two words: Tiger Woods. Wanna try a different conspiracy theory?

There weren't any women in one of my physics classes at university either.... that doesn't mean that they were excluding them.

Against what? Other habitable planets?

Since we are talking about something that is easily hundreds of years into the future, I'd suspect that any generalizations one might try to make about what government values are likely to be amenable to is probably meaningless.

A few hundred years ago it was unimaginable that church and state could ever be separated.. Time changes all things... even attitudes.

Even in families, the general trend is still going to be not having more than one vehiicle per licensed driver in the family. If one is going to own a car in the first place, why spend a lot more money on a car that does what you need most of the time when you can spend a lot less money on a car that will do what you need *all* of the time?