We have had methods of providing thrust in space without using rockets since 1916, the year the first ion thruster was built. Both use electricity to produce thrust.

Note, for the record, that an ion thruster IS a rocket - it shoots mass out the back (ions, in this case, accelerated electricly) just like any other rocket.

Note that if this EM drive pushes photons out the back, it is also a rocket. However, what I've read on the subject says it doesn't push photons out the back (not even microwave photons), so it's either something unexpected, or a huge steaming pile.

I'll be interested in the first deep-space probe built to test this thing. Should be simple enough - solar panels for power, EM-Drive for push, a comm-channel or six, and something to announce its presence, so we can determine its velocity relative to Earth at all times. If it accelerates, we win. If not, we wasted the cost of a (small) satellite....

On that point, I thought we could go to Mars in 3 months or so now; it just takes a nuclear rocket rather than chemical, plasma or EM drives.

Nuclear rocket that can reach Mars in three months...

Assuming NERVA performance, we're talking a definite NO. Mass ratio (loaded mass/empty mass) needs to be north of 300.

Assuming a liquid-core nuclear rocket, well, we could get that mass ratio down to maybe 5, which is achievable. Maybe. Liquid-core nuke rockets are heavy on the theory and light on the "materials that can retain strength while in physical contact with molten uranium" required. Assuming a gaseous-core nuclear rocket, it would be a piece of cake. However, even more magic materials required for that one....

Your argument has one flaw - just because someone uses a password manager doesn't mean he will pick strong passwords...

PasswordSafe.

Generates random passwords for you, using specifications you provide (generally that means "generate a password consistent with the site requirements") as to length and content.

You never have to even look at your passwords if you don't want to - they're not displayed by default, so someone looking over your shoulder while you use it won't see a password by accident. Right-click, copy password to clipboard, paste to password field for website. Then PasswordSafe overwrites the piece of memory your password used in the clipboard several times with gibberish to make it harder for someone to find it that way.

So, pick one really good password (or passphrase - it doesn't have a limit on password size for itself) for your PasswordSafe, and let it generate all of your other passwords for you, and remember them and secret questions and whatever else you need to remember.

And it's not like the functionality I've described is unique to passwordsafe. Pretty much every password manager I've looked at has the same basic functionality....

Cities generally require permits or licenses for things like concerts. Which means they can legally prevent a concert from occurring, just by refusing to issue the permit/license.

Note that this sort of permit/license is justified under the theory that it requires extra city services to do this sort of thing - more cops, more street cleanup, etc.

You shouldn't have to illegally bribe him extra to have him do what's best for the general public that he's being legally paid to serve.

The Attorney General is not being paid to serve the general public. He's being paid to serve the government. Best to think of him as the governor's lawyer (or President's lawyer).

Sometimes the government's interests are aligned with the general public's interests. Sometimes, not so much so.

the rapid increase of murder in inner cities, or...?

What "rapid increase of murder"??

Murder has been on the decline for decades. Hell, it's half what it was when I was in high school...

How is it not sane to think that the people who could be potentially hit by your craft would have something to say about it flying over them?

Presumably, you also think that kites should be treated the same way?

And baseballs, footballs, soccer balls?

and possibly purgery

While many would no doubt like to purge her, I suspect they really would prefer she get nailed for perjury....

We cannot afford an accident like Chernobyl in Western Europe.

Pretty easy to avoid a Chernobyl in Western Europe:

1) Do NOT, under any circumstances, build a nuclear plant without a containment building.

2) Do NOT, under any circumstances, disable all of a nuclear plant's safety interlocks in order to run a test.

3) Do NOT, under any circumstances, push a nuclear plant to the ragged edge of a meltdown in order to run a test.

Follow those three rules, and a Chernobyl in Western Europe will be pretty much impossible without detonating a nuclear weapon atop a nuclear reactor. And if that happens, you've got bigger problems than a meltdown....

But your density is wrong (maybe a typo?), volume scales as size^3, so density is like 1.22 x Earth

Typo. That was supposed to be "1.25", not "a.25".

And I repeat: from TFA, mass of the planet is 5x Earth Mass. Diameter (and radius) is 1.6x Earth.

Insert 5x mass and 1.6x radius into Gm/r^2, and you very quickly realize that:

1) density isn't the same as Earth's. It is, in fact, a.25x Earth density.

2) surface gravity will be ~2x Earth (1.95+g).

You did, in fact, "forget how to science" - he's right.

From TFA, it's 1.6x the diameter of Earth, and 5x the mass of Earth.

Which puts it about 2x the surface G, when rounded to two significant digits (1.95+).

Note this world is rather denser than Earth - 5x the mass packed into 4x the volume. Should be a great place for heavy metal poisoning. Or toxic wastelands. Something like that....

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...

After the fire-fighting aircraft were grounded because of drone activity, the wildfire went from 750 acres to 3500 acres.

So, a link to an article about Tom Selleck, coupled with TFA, which talks about the firefighters being delayed TWENTY MINUTES by the drones.

So, the fire grew from ~1 square mile to ~5 square miles in 20 minutes? Really?

Or perhaps it took longer than 20 minutes, and you have some proof that it wouldn't have grown that much if those 20 minutes had been used properly?

Once you're in orbit, after all, it only takes something like an extra 800 ms-1 of delta-V to get to the moon (less if you want to get really tricky about it, but with humans speed is a factor too).

Umm, no.

DeltaV required to go from LEO to a lunar transition orbit is in the vicinity of 3000 m/s.

Now, if you want to enter lunar orbit when you get there, you'll need another 1000 m/s or so, depending on height of orbit and other gory details.

Plus there's the 1200 m/s or so to actually land.

Those numbers can be fudged a bit by the mission profile - an Earth Return trajectory will use a bit more deltaV than an absolute minimum deltaV trajectory. A landing direct from lunar transition orbit will save you a bit (while making your spacecraft larger and more complicated). But, big picture, LEO to Tranquility Base is going to take more than 5000 m/s, rather than "an extra 800 ms-1"....