I thought this was no longer an issue? I think continuous communication had been in use for over a decade with the space shuttle before the end of the program. The solution was to use satellites, being on the other side of the plasma sheath, as relays to communicate between a reentering craft and the ground..

"I'm pretty sure the resulting metal is seriously inferior to standard steel..."

I don't know if it applies to this specific technique or perhaps even to the materials they are using but I've heard it said that at least in standard welding that the weld is actually stronger than the surrounding metal.

Geostationary satellites have their advantages, but when you're dealing with internet communications they also have some pretty significant disadvantages. First off is latency, the proposed LEO satellites would only have to bounce the signal about 1,500 miles as compared to 52,400 miles for GEO satellites. While the speed of light is pretty fast that distance along with the hardware required usually introduce 500-700 MS of latency in GEO systems. Secondly I think there are some significant bandwidth issues with having tens of thousands or even millions of users trying to transmit signals to a few dozen GEO satellites instead of using multiple lower orbits, dish positioning and far more satellites to distribute the load along with some possibly near term communications technologies that may allow this kind of system to use the spectrum far more efficiently.

Earlier this year Google and Fidelity national invested $1 Billion in SpaceX, presumably to help support their efforts to bring a satellite based ISP to fruition. Sounds like a rather odd way to express a lack of interest in a business venture. OneWeb seems to be the focus of the article, and that is only one of two major efforts. I wonder if Google is choosing sides? OneWeb I believe is a Qualcomm/Virgin effort whereas SpaceX is the other.

"Its not a bug...... Its a feature!"

This is like a car manufacturer claiming that their car will have 1,000 horsepower, and after several months/years the people who have preordered it finally get theirs and find out it has 20 horsepower and the manufacturer says its a good thing because it makes the car safer.

"4. Not placing the satellite high enough"

While I agree with your other points this one is likely out of their control. Cubesats due to their lack of backups, limited quality control and no attitude/orbit control systems are almost always put into low orbits that will degrade on their own within a year or so. And given this satellites obvious faults its probably not such a bad policy. There is enough junk in orbit as is without us throwing droves of dead cubesats into the mix.

"you could fly at least 2 or 3 Falcon Heavies"

And that assumes you believe NASAs "$500 Million per launch" statement (Buwahahahahhhahhhahaaa). SLS has more than earned its "Senate Launch System" title, with billions already spent and at least $22 Billion required just to get the first two of them off the ground with no real indications on how much it will cost to develop any actual mission hardware or finish the heavier versions of it.

So its basically the Vulcan concept, a detachable avionics/engine package at the back and an expendable everything else. I suppose its an improvement from what we currently have but not by much. The only real difference from Vulcan is that instead of being snagged out of the air by a helicopter it glides back to some location under some power. I suppose I can see why Airbus and ULA are going for such concepts, they should be pretty cheap to develop (though I am sure they'll try to squeeze every dollar they can out of their respective benefactors), are relatively low risk and will still let them justify big launch bills with tank/upper stage replacement. But if SpaceX can pull off a Falcon first stage recovery even a majority of the time they'll blow this and Vulcan out of the water. Fuel is cheap, replacing tanks and stages is expensive.

Its a sad fact that most businesses receive "subsidies" (IE less taxes) for behavior desired by the government, the larger the business the more "subsidies" they can usually take advantage of. Take this how you will, but its less an issue of those who are actually utilizing their rights under the law and more about a government that employs such a convoluted tax law to begin with.

"However, analysis conducted by MIT researchers last year"

I'm a bit foggy on the specifics, but wasn't one of the major "faults" noted in that study the loss of nitrogen via out gassing to prevent CO2 buildup. And some quick internet searches found various commercially available systems that don't have consumables to extract nitrogen/CO2 from an atmosphere (either removing CO2 directly from the habitat or removing the nitrogen from the waste CO2 stream before expulsion). Don't get me wrong there are plenty of challenges that could end a Mars colony, but I don't think that analysis was all that reliable in identifying them.

There are at least two hoverbike projects in progress, they seem quite a bit more mature and practical than this thing but to each their own I suppose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.hover-bike.com/MA/
http://aerofex.com/

Radiation levels as recorded by Curiosity on the trip were only double that of either LEO or Mars, while definitely not good even without additional shielding you're probably not looking at too much additional cancer risk. Putting significant amounts of radiation shielding around one small area of the craft where the crew is likely to spend most of their time (the cockpit, sleeping quarters?) would easily bring the trip exposure levels down to something a little more reasonable. With ZERO additional shielding (assuming of course they weren't hit by a solar storm) on a round trip to Mars of over 2 and a quarter years Astronauts would only be exposed to 1.01 seiverts (1 sievert lifetime spaceflight exposure is considered acceptable). By far most of that exposure as you noted is from the trip but with even the simplest radiation mitigation measures on Mars (piling dirt on living/sleeping quarters) and a solar storm shelter you could keep your exposure below 1 sievert and stay on Mars for many years. Though without heavy shielding on the transport multiple trips back and fourth for an individual would of course be very risky.

Current detection systems already have enough false positives, eating some poppie seed muffins/bread, taking some ibuprofen, etc will trip some tests. This test sounds like it uses much smaller samples so I would imagine it would be far more susceptible. And as others have noted most money has trace amounts of various drugs (cocaine, heroin, morphine, etc) adding a completely innocent vector for false positives. The entire concept of trace drug testing is flawed, testing for significant recent usage MIGHT have some reasoning but these tests looking for usage days, weeks or even months out are foolish, destructive and pointless.

I wonder how hard it would be to print or mold glass using in situ materials and maybe some materials from Earth to form glass arches/domes for greenhouses. Silicon is abundant on Mars like any rocky body though I am not sure of the difficulties of extracting any impurities (namely iron oxide) from it. There appear to be entire dunes made of glass on Mars which could be harvested and presumably melted down into glass of some form. Throw in a little lead (preferably molded into the interior of the glass) or just make the glass extra thick and you have pretty good radiation shielding as well as leaded glass about 3" thick is the equivalent of 18 MM thick lead sheet (not sure of straight glasses radiation qualities).

From what I understand the radiation dangers have been overstated at least in some cases. Radiation on Mars for example has been shown to be not all that dissimilar from Low Earth Orbit where we have had astronauts for decades with no major ill effects (besides bone loss which isn't radiation related). Now radiation shelters will be necessary since without our thick humid atmosphere most locations would be more susceptible to solar storms and most habitats/living/working quarters should probably be built underground or shielded to limit increased cancer rates but even without that I doubt that I doubt the cancer rates would be too different from here on Earth with exposure to tobacco, lead, asbestos, etc.