While the engine may ideally just vaporize the water with hot oil, the reactions involved would eventually degrade the oil. Additionally, the separations processes are often 50% of the whole system's energy requirements, I just wouldn't see the viability of such a system. Now a heat exchanger for hot oil/water vaporization would wake a lot more sense, but it seems they want to generate a funding buzz with an internal engine spin.

As AC pointed out below, this cost likely includes the design, build, launch and maintenance for the satellite. Before Space-x The launch alone could have been a tenth or more of that total $13B, as most weather satellites are around 3000 kg (http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/genlsatl.html), but with Space-X's projected costs per payload ($850/lb from Delta Heavy's $8600/lb) (http://www.nss.org/articles/falconheavy.html) this cost likely can now be in the single $M range.

While economies of scale would likely get those drones into the range of cost you suggested, it certainly wouldn't take into account the cost to maintain and monitor such a system. The congressional research service (CRS) (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS21698.pdf) identified that for operation (facilities, maintenance) it can be at least 100% or more of the cost of the drone, So that would have to drop the number of drones available to 140,000. Secondly, all drones, by FAA mandate, are required to be a operated by a licensed pilot. I would imagine the training and licensing involved for this would not be cheap, as last estimated the number of pilots was ~598K in 2009, with only ~320K certified with instrument ratings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_certification_in_the_United_States), and It's likely commercial air pilots would have to have a pretty big incentive to go (http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Commercial_Pilot/Salary) but keeping it on the low scale, that would have to be $50K per pilot per drone, making even a yearly cost of operation at $7B (140,000 drones * $50K/pilot). That doesn't go into operation times either, as drones are listed to operate from 10-48 hrs (CRS reference). So turn-around times for getting those drones back up would end up having even less drones available at any time for weather surveillance.

However, looking at a combination of mini-satellites might be the best option, as redundancy and low cost could take this project down by a large amount (~300K per satellite) (http://www.hawaii.edu/offices/op/innovation/taylor.pdf) . While it might end up with similar issues as stated above, there would be significantly less satellites needed based on the larger surface area covered from their height (50 km for possible best drone (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/02/24/high-altitude-surveillance-drones-coming-to-a-sky-near-you/)) and 870 km for satellite (http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/genlsatl.html). But this might not be available just yet for our weather measurement needs.

In Summary, it may seem like a huge amount of money, but you need to consider all aspects of the project, not just the non-recurring costs.

Looks like their thoughts on consumption didn't have much... gumption? IGMC

I'm actually surprised to see this coming out from Rice, wasn't this stuff being done 20 years ago by another Rice group? Maybe additional substrates this time? Looks like a review of their references may be necessary.

Never mind, misread that part about the Core component of the ISS.

Does anyone know if Lockheed's Orion Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle will actually replace or be a backup for Soyuz? It's wikipedia page states

"Features the development of a new crew exploration vehicle (CEV), the completion of the International Space Station (ISS), and an early retirement of the shuttle orbiter. Orbiter retirement would be made as soon as the ISS U.S. Core is completed (perhaps only 6 or 7 flights) and the smallest number of additional flights necessary to satisfy our international partners’ ISS requirements. Money saved by early orbiter retirement would be used to accelerate the CEV development schedule to minimize or eliminate any hiatus in U.S. capability to reach and return from LEO."

Does anyone know if this "U.S. Core" is something different all-together?

While it's a little off-topic, I think these insights could be useful instead of geo-engineering other planets. For that matter James Blish has precedence with his Seedling Stars Thanks for the info, now off to find that novella!

I made it my goal two years ago to read all the Hugo and Retro-Hugos, but soon I started looking at the BASF list and Seiun Awards (Japanese Nebula Award), it just keeps on going! At the moment I've only 10 books to go for the Hugos, but then you start to look at the runner ups and think... hmmmm.... But I agree those lists are great places to start. I always have a simple database in my phone to check up on what i have/haven't read when i'm at a used book store ( the used bookstore near Monroeville mall outside of Pittsburgh and Strange Maine, Portland were some serious treasure troves!)

Relating physics to some other delicious item might make this discussion more satisfactory.

Fetal Bovine Serum. This is still the medium that's used for the growth of such vat burgers. I haven't found any articles that explicitly state the growth medium for these tissues, but I have often seen this as the medium for various cell growth. I'd like to see improvements on the actual growth medium not being tied to the meat industry, otherwise it seems like another addition to the inefficiency chain before that steak gets eaten.

wvmarle, are you in the e-scrap waste business? I'm inquiring because I'm currently doing research on the capability of a fully automated dissassembly plant and was wondering if you had any robotics implemented in your processes or if manual labor may be involved instead for breakdown of parts.

You're right to point out the serious issues of trying to recycle mixed polymer plastics. While we're all familiar with downcycling, your post reminded me about the costs of separation processes, and I thought i might drag up my old book. From Humphrey and Keller's Separation Process Technology "Plants commonly have from 40% to 70% of both capital and operating costs in separations."

Polymer blends provide desired properties from their individual components, but the amount of energy that would be required to break those down and at a desired purity (not considering the minute amount of catalyst often consumed in the polymerization process as well as flame retardants and other additives fuzzyfuzzyfungus pointed out ) just makes it too costly to break down the polymer blend into the purity levels that companies want in their raw materials.