The whole point of drones is that you're not putting your own soldiers at risk, so you don't care if it gets shot down. That only costs money, and the military has as much of that as it wants.

As in a "gun" (weapon) used in space, which is to me a MUCH more fascinating engineering and design problem. In space, inertia and recoil are a bitch.

Missles probably impractical because they rely on aerodynamic forces to steer (nozzle alone isnt enough to change course/ uses too much fuel), whch leaves us energy and projectile weapons. Turrets can't whip around. Anything kinetic needs to dissipate the recoil which will favor recoilless designs, but those have their own complexities (current designs still have -some- recoil, which while negligible on the surface would have a magnified effect in space). the classic problem of what to do with the heat buildup.

I honestly think space combat will favor a design that is the fusion of two "obsolete" technologies, that of battleship and bomber, though i'm thinking more medium/dive attac bomber. the battleship classic standard is that of dishing and taking damage; this translates to a large mass, and more mass has advantages for absorbing both recoil and heat. the bomber side from the concept of lobbing essentially dumb munitions (bombs or "depth" charges) on a calculated physics trajectory. Though the trouble there, is there no fluid medium to tranfer the energy, so the munition either absolutely must impact the target directly, or cast out a large amount of shrapnel (which would complicate the battlefield for the attacker too).

The list goes on. Fascinating.

Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha.

From TFA:

"In the movies, a spacecraft launch is often accompanied by bombastic music and the seat-juddering bass of rockets thundering, with shots of flight controllers frantically mashing buttons intercut with shaky-cam special effects of the launch vehicle clawing its way skyward. I asked Sy about what a person actually experienced while sitting at a console during launch, and it turns out that reality, again, is a very different place from fiction."

The author should learn what he's talking about - the room usually shown during launch (particularly during Apollo 13) is the LCC, not MOCR. The LCC is located adjacent to the VAB at Cape Kennedy and controls the testing, checkout, launch, and flight of the vehicle until it clears the tower, at which point the MOCR takes over.

He's also seems unaware that there's any media other than mini-series and fiction... If you're really interested in the MOCR, and wish for a less slack-jawed account, try and find a copy of Murray & Cox's Apollo (sometimes subtitled "Race to the Moon"). (Hard copies are expensive and collectible sadly.) In 1994 was Apollo along with Lovell's Apollo 13 that first actually discussed the MOCR in detail and kicked off the modern wave of more serious and less starry-eyed books about the Apollo Program.