Every nation on earth has weather and climate scientists. WTF do we need NASA to study the weather?
First of all, weather is not climate.
Second, those scientists in other nations depend on the data collected by NASA, since no one else can do it as well.
Third, the idiot currently heading the committee that plans to eviscerate the NASA earth sciences program to the tune of $300 million per year sees no problem blowing hundreds of times as much money on Cold War fighter jets. One might ask,why do we need to spend $1.5 trillion dollars on F35 strike fighters that can't turn, can't climb, run hackable software, and explode when struck by lightning or running on warm fuel?
This is not about the money at all. They just don't want anyone looking into this, period.
And what about that space stuff? Remember the space stuff?
Why yes, we just saw a story about space stuff:
NASA hopes to send the first round-trip, manned spaceflight to Mars by the 2030s. If the mission succeeds, astronauts could spend several years potentially being bombarded with cosmic rays- high-energy particles launched across space by supernovae and other galactic explosions. Now, a study in mice suggests these particles could alter the shape of neurons, impairing astronauts' memories and other cognitive abilities. In the prefrontal cortex, a brain region associated with executive function, a range of high-level cognitive tasks such as reasoning, short-term memory, and problem-solving, neurons had 30% to 40% fewer branches, called dendrites, which receive electrical input from other cells.
It's pretty clear that Republicans are seeking to get people into space so they can expand their voter base.
It's a radio transmitter in a can. It would take an even larger departure from known physics to make it go boom. We have a good deal of experience with radio transmitters in space.
OK, I will try to restate in my baby talk since I don't remember this correctly.
Given that you are accelerating, the appearance to you is that you are doing so linearly, and time dilation is happening to you. It could appear to you that you reach your destination in a very short time, much shorter than light would allow. To the outside observer, however, time passes at a different rate and you never achieve light speed.
I am having an equally hard time thinking of how Earth is more habitable than Mars while atomic bombs are going off or impactors are impacting. If you wait a while, sure it's more habitable than Mars. But for that moment, no.
For how many kilowatts though?
The price of solar panels is getting down to about $1/watt (peak) right now, and you get about 1-2 kWh per kW (peak) per day production depending on your latitude and climate.
To an outside observer. I don't think it's the same in the inertial frame.
Before we call this real, we need to put one on some object in orbit, leave it in continuous operation, and use it to raise the orbit by a measurable amount large enough that there would not be argument regarding where it came from. The Space Station would be just fine. It has power for experiments that is probably sufficient and it has a continuing problem of needing to raise its orbit.
And believe me, if this raises the orbit of the Space Station they aren't going to want to disconnect it after the experiment. We spend a tremendous amount of money to get additional Delta-V to that thing, and it comes down if we don't.
Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"