over think it. We have removed the rights of groups of people before.

Not at all. There are plenty of examples in history. U.S. was formed, among other things, over an argument about unequal representation and the rights of citizens. Slavery in the U.S. was justified by categorizing a group of people as not being equal. Japanese internment camps were created during WWII as part of a knee jerk reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. What I'm saying is that once modified humans become common, all it might take is a seemingly simple series of events for the populous to push for a distinction to be made, which might, end up limiting or removing the rights of the group through legislation.

It's conceivable that something could cause a knee jerk reaction and suddenly a bill appears suggesting people with brain enhancing modifications are no longer "people". Then all your inalienable rights go out the window. Perhaps a law is passed saying modified humans are no longer human and therefor no longer citizens. Again, your rights go away. It's something that should (eventually) be addressed before stupidity happens.

While a person is smart and can make rational decisions, sometimes people become dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.

Perhaps the committee members are all part of a hive mind; so, a plan is more likely

I'm wondering how they'll define hypersonic missile. All space launch vehicles are, in some versions of the definition, a hypersonic missile. All re-entry vehicles are, again, hypersonic missiles (some are hypersonic ballistic missiles).

I've come to the conclusion that this may be the unspoken official plan. Congress is driving NASA to do what they're doing; but, the Administration is sort of sitting back quietly saying very little. Note how you don't hear much from the Obama administration about SLS; but, they keep pushing Commercial Crew. I think it is possible they're just waiting for SpaceX (or one of the other commercial contractors) to fill the void and provide commercial launch capability. NASA has leased launch facilities to SpaceX and Boeing already, including pads 39A and 40 at Canaveral. Heavy lift is the next logical step. Musk has made a lot of noise publicly and given the presentation to Congress and the Administration. They're taking him seriously enough that members of Congress are trying to derail his efforts to protect their constituency. I believe the Administration is giving them the same serious consideration, standing back and waiting to see if they can pull it off.

Congress had already de-funded it once they realized how much it was really going to cost. He just killed a program that had been declared dead in the water before he took the oath of office.

It would be damned inconvenient to not have A/C; but, I grew up without it. I know I could get by with no A/C or forced air heating.

Hmmm. Electricity. That's pretty high up on the "tech I can't give up" list. Fire trumps that though. Clean water... That's important. I've gotten by with just water purifier tablets but it would suck to have to live that way all the time. That'll do for the start of a list.

Building an Orion could very well bankrupt the nation that attempts it. It would be obscenely expensive; and, while it is the best our current technology could produce, it would be a hideously inefficient way to go about travelling between stars.

first of all, any high energy protons that come into the region around Earth are deflected by our magnetosphere. At worse, nothing happens. At best, you get pretty lights in the northern sky. Second, the particles aren't necessarily travelling at relativistic speeds, you are (when travelling at velocities approaching c). From your perspective, you're in a sea of relativistic protons even if they're standing still.

So close... and yet still a freeking impossible distance away.

Oh.. it's just 11 light years away. That's a small number, right? As much as I'd like to be able to say we have a "warp drive" or "jump drive" or something like that... at the moment 11 light years might as well be 11 million light years. it makes no difference to our ability to get there.

1. we don't have the technology to achieve that. 2. without some as yet to be thought of technology, the relativistic relative motion of the incident protons, even at 1 per cubic meter or so, would interact with the vehicle structure and create showers of particles, killing the crew.

What we need is a brand of coffee which contains an additive to help flush adenosine. Then we can get more productivity from our slav... *cough* excuse me, umm, happy employees.

The sun is made of burning coal.