I don't think American politicians are allowed to talk about ten year plans, as it sounds dangerously communist.

Space is actually very, very hot - the very few atoms you find floating around have a great deal of kinetic energy. If you could create a perfectly non-radiating/reflective material and leave it in space, it would eventually get hot. This doesn't happen because the density is so low: The heat transfered to an object by conduction is a negligable fraction of that lost to radiation. Also, anything with water in will freeze in seconds due to evaporative cooling: At near-vacuum, just about everything is above the boiling point.

Colonisation is unrealistic today. The technology is decades away from practicality at least, and the expense of establishing a long-term colony is such that it may well be the single most expensive project in all of human history. Yet the prospects are so exciting - how long as it been since there was a true age of exploration? We can't plan colonisation today, but we can lay the first stones of the foundation that a future generation can build upon.

Just send in the riot squad to beat up the angry unemployed, then charge anyone who tries to organise with inciting a terrorist act.

I'm thinking of a silly-high-power laser with a rotating mirror that slowly pans across the lawn, cutting every blade to a precisely equal height.

The free market is ultimately self-destroying - a monopoly is a very stable situation. Once one company achieves dominant status there are all sorts of underhanded tricks they can use to beat back any smaller competitors. Exclusive deals at retail or on raw materials, selling at a loss to undercut a competitor on price until they go out of business. If you don't limited that freedom a little with regulation, it ends up being not free at all.

Rovers are cool, but they can't compete with the excitement of a crewed mission. Apollo captivated a generation, and there's not even very much to see on the moon.

We were supposed to have that back in 1999.

One of the jobs I applied for years ago even got me to the interview - but I learned later that the whole thing was a sham. They promoted someone internally, and had always intended to, but there was some legal requirement that they consider external applicants equally. So they interviewed a bunch of outsiders to put on a show and appear to comply with the law.

If youtube were launched a few years later, it would likely have been forced to shut down by the cost of legal action.

A little more work and we might not even need the torrent sites. Magnet links can be copied and pasted with ease, including into facebook posts.

Usually by bringing in some files obtained elsewhere.

I did a bit of research.
http://www.otherpower.com/imag...
A lead-acid being used only near top-up charge level can reach 50% efficiency - but that's only if you maintain it near full charge, and only dip into it a little bit, as they are least-efficient at charging when almost full. If you're using it in a deeper cycle the efficiency is much better, easily reaching 90%. You have to really abuse it to hit 50% efficiency, but it is concievably possible for a poorly-designed system, perhaps one that performs only light load-redistribution as a secondry function while intended for long-term backup power with corresponding capacity.

Not just fashion. Solar cells improved a lot - those you can get now are a lot more efficient than they were back then, which means home solar power... still isn't economical. But it's within sight of economical. It's just expensive, not ridiculous like it used to be.

Small wind generators produce very little power. They have to get too big for home use before they become viable. Remember that power output increases with the square of the radius.