It's ESA, not NASA, and the focus of the work was apparently the vision-based guidance system, not the quadcopter propulsion (which indeed would be absurd on Mars).

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activit...

They must be planning ahead for the time when terraforming is complete.

That.

If you squint hard enough, you can turn them into empirically testable predictions.

"Yet, less than 10 (that's ten out of hundreds of thousands, disagree with the simple finding that humans are altering the average global temperature of the planet"

I'm sorry, until reading this point, I thought you were being serious.

"what is the scientific doctrine that Democrats typically reject?"

I wouldn't go so far as "typically ..." etc., but here are some candidates:

- "more guns, less crime"
- "skepticism in global warming science is warranted"
- "collectivist economies fail"

"for instance, by making clear that you can believe in human-induced climate change and still be a conservative Republican."

Unsurprisingly, TFA/NYT chose that polarity as an exemplar instead of its opposite.

TFA is loonie. According to its own data, the "fossil fuel subsidies" it is hoping to redirect are those that third-world OPEC type countries currently give to their own populations in the form of supercheap oil. Withholding that money would be regime suicide (plus possibly population genocide).

"The day you pay back everything you've ever gotten from society"

I've more than repaid my share. Many times over. I wouldn't be surprised if so have most of us here.

"Should be fun."

Should be a "fun" instant civil war.

"So, is it surprising that the company ... is having problems connecting with the general population in 2014?"

Stupid loaded question. It is not having problems "connecting with the general population", unless by "connecting" you mean a completely different verb.

"influence" is an unmeasurably fuzzy concept that includes the effect of parents upon children, media personalities upon its adoring audience, and writers of leftist philosophy books upon those of us less burdened with intellect. :-) You surely don't mean to equalize all of those.

"Anyway, the rich guy would have a great advantage over a poor guy and that's quite contrary to the one man, one vote principle of democracy."

By my count, the rich guy gets the same number of votes as the poor guy. You were saying ... ?

I'm sorry, that doesn't answer the question. The difficulty of one task vs. another are not that relevant if those tasks aren't substitutes for one another.

Regulations also differ - as do local market conditions.