...will be staying inside, under my tinfoil hat on November 2nd.

Thank you.

(Also, need food, water, and ammo.)

This would have made a great "metagame" for the Matrix online or some similar cyberpunk style MMO.
Ping flood the n00bs!

Regardless of the reason for construction, a vehicle capable of interstellar travel is an impressive feat of engineering.

They will at least find out what happened. The more efficient space agencies we have exploring, the better overall for the planet.

Makes the game more fun.

This may be useful in a post apocalyptic world. Chances are, Internet style connectivity will be wiped out. Decentralized regional networks may still exist. Transporting high-density data using antique methods such as the pigeons can allow for FidoNet (remember that?) other BBS-style data exchange. Anything that can get the information moving again is a good thing.

Most likely, it will be firewire. Also, hooking an electromechanical computer to a biochemical computer might turn into something fairly awesome.
With some type of ray gun or beam weapon and hardened carapaces.

Then I saw it was robocalls and not Robocops that were being banned. Chalk one up for the government for a change!

are pretty impressive. It is amazing how much smaller and faster the equipment has become. What is alarming is the rate at which the raw materials are being pulled from the Earth then discarded, usually right after the two year contract expires.

It's the disturbing owl porn fetish of basically reverse-bukkake at the end of the hunt.