Steve Jobs on the Apple Newton MessagePad 2000, "If it doesn't have a trackball it's not a computer. Kill it."

Funny how the truth barely gets modded. Space manufacturing "will" be huge even much bigger than Earth's industrial base someday. Digital Fabrication is going to push this forward very quickly in general. Luna has specific issues in severe lack of volatiles. For now any precision machinery will still be built on Terra.

The idea of it being "cheaper" to launch deep space flights from the moon seems to come from a purely gravitational notion. Ignoring economics, politics and thermodynamics (not to mention that any clients are going to be in LEO) this idea is and always has been a has been.

"now that the US is largely out of the space business"

Curiosity, ISS ops and SpaceX would like a word with you.

This is an argument for skinnable UIs, modifiable UIs and GUI/CLI cross use.

Every user has their preferences and we should be able to customize our computers to those preferences. If you want the faux-wood paneling, it's there. If you want some Strong Typing, you should be able to interact with it in bash. It'd be great to be able to type batch commands for Photoshop, even if it was just simple stuff like crop and re-save.

Amazing fact: in a world of vapor projects Excalibur-Almaz is one of the few new-space companies with flight proven hardware. The VA capsules and TKS modules are heritage Soviet equipment with upgrades. This is some of the finest spacecraft designed by one of the greats of the early space age.

Hopefully they actually get to (lunar) orbit with paying customers. Also, 15X reusability plus integration on Falcon has strong cost implications after first flight.

How are you going to deal with potentially hazardous forward- and backward-contamination and the pressure to conform to bioethics principles in the face of "go fever"? Two planets are at stake.

We have barely scratched the surface of Mars and do not know if there is bacteria or larger life there. I ask everyone else that is working on humans-to-Mars this question. Almost everyone that is pro-space has a cowboy attitude about it but the facts are that the first footstep on Mars begins the terraforming process and if Mars has any life that anyone going there is never coming home. "We'll deal with it later" does not work in planetary protection and spoils a lot of the bio-science that can be done virtually on a living Mars.

The MarsOne project will have a lot of "go fever" or pressure to execute because of the funding model. Any human mission to Mars needs to take the time to do the biological research before committing a crew to the surface. Four people dying from something hostile on the surface of Mars makes for a great movie but terrible reality TV.

Also every Mars one-way mission proposed has faced immense negative public pressure because they always are labelled as a suicide mission.

FYI my argument boils down to needing extensive realtime ops from Mars orbit in support of surface development and a need for an orbital forward base. Producing this resource is my long-term plan.

"The television station also reported the company isn't incorporated in Rhode Island, but rather Delaware as a limited liability company, which would deem 38 Studios ineligible for tax credits in the state."

This is fraud if anyone but a famous, rich athlete does it.

Water is by far the driving material resource. Metals are insignificant compared to water for human utilization. That Planetary Resources wants to track NEOs is also important. They have definitely done their homework.

When this news started to break last week it was unclear if they were just going after PGMs or had a more comprehensive strategy.

Electricity is the next step. Power beamed to provide propulsion and operating energy to other spacecraft. After that, beamed power to new space facilities, then gigawatts of green power to Earth.

Then water. Jim Head says "Follow the water." Find water sources that are at or near the top of the gravity well - Phobos, Deimos, Amor-Atens or Earth-crossing NEOs with high water content.

Those two resources enable reliable access to the Lunar and Martian surfaces. Minerals, lunar polar ice and many other elements are further down the list of needed (re: profitable) materials.

That said, such a well-heeled team has surely looked deeper into the specifics.

Vieques would be likely - Navy controlled territory in PR.

This could be an application for a Bussard Ramjet - collect the forward wave's particles for power or thrust. TFA said the problem is mostly blue-shifted components in the front wave, just remove the problem.

Also if Alcqubiere Drives are possible, they will make terrifying weapons. It's a neutron bomb for an entire solar system. *shudders*

Most of the younger generation knows "Santorum" as the slippery substance first and are surprised then LOL when discovering such a deserving ... person shares that name. Google has nothing to do with the search results beyond providing the framework. Search result modification by popular participation is a valid form of social critique.

This could become the SUSTAIN platform the USMC has asked for. Spacedrop a squad of Marines anywhere in the world within 40 minutes. The main question though is whether the crewed X37 will include commercial access or is this military only?

100X cheaper is roughly $100 per pound to LEO. That is absolutely doable with robust RLV architectures. It's just that no one has really tried yet. Musk has shown an entirely new way of building and operating otherwise conservative rockets. He chose the most known path (single core, 2nd stage, capsule) for a default cargo/crew system but used his knowledge of innovation to make that into the most affordable rocket on the planet, in 8 years.