Any human in this thread?

Where resource are plenty cooperations is advantageous. If resource are scarce, sharper, bigger tees win.

"warp drive or a traversable wormhole is so far, far, far beyond the technology needed for a laser sail or a nuclear-pulse rocket that I would not be in favor of putting any significant resources into trying to develop it." Hmmm. But a wormhole might get us interstellar, while laser sail or nuclear-pulsed rocket , certainly not. Reaction engines, whatever the source of energy are inherently limited.. Damn Tsyolkowsky!

First: Why are these people doing it? Second: If they really want to jump that high, why do it with a winged vehicle? (It's an acceleration/deceleration trip, it's not a cruise trip). Use a rocket stage to sling up, and a parachute, retro-rocket for descent and landing!

The equilibrium distribution of disposable income should follow a Boltzmann curve,

Without ground contact how is this vehicle is going go to be steered? Roads do have curves! Lot's a curves!

In the short term of two decades there is no meaningful purpose in sending humans to Mars. The way robotic and human exploration of the solar system is: 1. Start an OPEN Foundation Model of exploration: open to all (government institutions, enterprises, institutes, individuals). 2. Start with the Moon surface. 3. Define a road-map for explorations: locate suitable sites on the Moon surface. Land (Selenize) a robotic colony on site. 4. Have the robotic colony establish energy grid and communications infra-structure on site. (Practice on a remote Earth environment with a reality show environment for entertainment, collect funds, and generate visibility to the project. 5. Have robots assemble a shirt sleeve human environment on the Moon surface. May in underground caves or inflatable tents. 6. Send people to live on the Moon. 7. Then ... on to Mars?!

Spell it out: Teleportation. It is not impossible. Must first find an appropriate ecosystem. Need wormholes for both missions.

Remove one of the two "not's". My mistake, not God's!

I would not assume human consciousness and human memory are not binary and deterministic the way machines are. Human memory and human consciousness are the results of multi-state (almost continuous) arrangements of the brain cells and the diffuse connections between these cells (dont's ask me to explain these! Yes I talk to God!!!)

Will somebody with the mod points, mod this up?

Putting things into perspective: Solar radiation power hitting the Earth: ~1.4 e17 W. That is equivalent to the kinetic energy of half a million tons of material hitting the Earth with a velocity of 20 km/s (every second).

If there is not enough energy to destroy the Earth, than what counts is not the total amount of energy but the intensity of energy release. Think of one kilogram of gasoline burning slowly and and one kilogram of TNT, EXPLODING! About the same amount of energy, Very different results.