They have the vision and agility that NASA lost in the sixties.

I get smacked down here for suggesting that NASA is no longer the best agency for moving the space program forward. SpaceX soft-landed two boosters in the ocean and are ready for a land trial. They did that in their spare time. It would have taken NASA 10 years and $20 billion dollars to replicate that achievement. NASA also relies on contractors with obscene overhead rates.

SpaceX is living proof that NASA wastes billions.

When you look at the problems they have yet to solve, compared to the problems they've already solved, they don't look that menacing. To me it looks like a prototype that has been fantastically successful.

that the car wouldn't be able to spot a police officer at the side of the road frantically waving for traffic to stop

Well, can't solve that problem so lets hang up the entire concept of self-driving cars because of a handful of hypothetical obstacles. Never mind the lives and money saved, never mind the productivity salvaged by all that extra time. Can't see a cop waving so hang it up. No progress for you!

How can SpaceX come up with innovative rocket designs for a fraction of what it costs NASA? And they can produce those designs faster. SpaceX soft landed two boosters into the ocean, it would have taken NASA 10 years and $20 billion dollars to replicate that development.

I spent years in Titusville to cover the end of the shuttle program and walking away my opinion was that NASA is a flock of risk-adverse mid-managers flying in formation with a rusting theme park endless replaying clips of their glory days. There are some really good people there, some of them doing amazing things, but they're handicapped by a management structure that's too fat and doesn't have an aggressive vision for the future. NASA depends too much on contractors that can't produce anything on budget and there's no penalty for not performing. Some of that is political, not all their fault.

If we're going to explore space then we have to face the fact that it's unlikely we're going to get there with NASA as it exists today. And we have to find a way to fund that exploration so it's more insulated from politics. Otherwise we're stuck on this rock until a giant comet, asteroid or neutron star wanders by or we get fried by our own sun or a gamma ray burst.

Etymologically, to prove means to test. Hence phrases like "proving grounds" and, more tellingly, "the exception that proves the rule" -- an apparent exception, an anomaly, which puts the rule to the test.

So a well-tested theory is "proven" in an etymologically sound way, just a way that doesn't mean "demonstrated to be true with absolute certainty".

To be completely accurate, the sun doesn't produce any energy, it converts energy from one form (rest mass) to another form (electromagnetic radiation), increasing entropy in the process in keeping with the second law. That conversion process itself requires an input of energy (though one less than the energy output by said process) to initialize and sustain, and that energy is in turn supplied, in the form of kinetic energy, by conversion from yet another form (gravitational potential energy) spontaneously, precisely because of the second law of thermodynamics.

At one time in the history of science, it was thought that all of the energy of the sun was converted more or less directly from gravitational potential energy: a cloud of hydrogen collapses under gravity, converting its potential energy into kinetic energy, rendered macroscopically as temperature, causing the ball of collapsing gas to glow incandescently. The problem was that that process can't last for very long, so the sun (and consequently the whole solar system) would have to be pretty young, relatively (still massively old on a human scale) if that's what's making the sun glow. When we discovered that the Earth itself, and space rocks, are much older than the sun would have to be according to that theory, it required that something else be powering the sun on a longer scale. The introduction of nuclear fusion to the model solved that problem, and nowadays almost nobody even remembers that we once thought the sun was just, in effect, gravity-powered.

Operating with cutting-edge technology out of a trailer in rural Illinois...

They'll more likely come to the conclusion that the universe is 16 years old and pregnant.

This means the developing thymus would not be a tissue match for the patient.

It would seem like organs grown in animals would contain animal proteins and cell receptors. I wonder how they get around that in the patient ready organs? Freaking amazing. Not quite as amazing if the recipient has to live on anti-rejection drugs the rest of their lives, but still impressive.

Researchers also need to be sure that the transplant cells do not pose a cancer risk by growing uncontrollably.

Slight problem there.

you should give it another try

Why? What compelling features does Windows offer that I don't already have? I want to know about Window's value proposition. With software as a service becoming the predominant model, the software you need to get work done is available on any platform. At home I work on Linux, when I travel I take my Android tablet and work just fine on that. I can write and post stories, with pictures and video, from anywhere.

A few years ago the Microsoft faithful used to make such a big deal about if you wanted to do "real work" you needed Windows. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore. It's great the blue screens are mainly in the past but I'm still missing a reason to get a Windows device.

Correlation does not imply causation, but causation does imply correlation.

If A causes B, then A will also correlate with B. It's only the reverse that's false. (A correlating with B doesn't mean A causes B).

You mean like a gigantic array of mirrors in concentric circles around a couple of 40 story towers?

If I were parachuting or hang gliding I'd avoid something that looked like that without even knowing anything about it.

Or just dig into the regolith.

Finally. I could never figure out why the idea of either partial earth-shelter or underground shelters weren't considered for Mars. A shallow tunnel with an inflatable habitat inside would seem to be the ideal shelter. It would be easier to keep warm and shielded from radiation. It's not like you have to worry about flooding. Digging equipment would be a heck of a lot easier to get to Mars than depleted uranium. I remember holding a 30mm DU round and couldn't believe how heavy it was. You could blast holes or caves, although blasting doesn't always yield a stable void. Or just pile up dirt around the structures and cement it in place.

Any of those should be feasible if DU shielding is on the table.

Except that another place, even another comparable place, would now cost a lot more than $249,999 more than what he paid for his current place.

So if he wants to move to a different but comparable house in a different but comparably priced location, he has to lose a whole lot of money in the process. Meanwhile, people moving frequently to slightly more valuable places continuously over the time he's lived in this one place don't lose anything.

In space no one can hear you snore.

If I don't get the games on terms I want, then I'll go do something else, watch movies on Netflix or play video games and your advertisers can go pound sand. What a bunch of arrogant, self-entitled bastards. Fuck you and the corporate jet you rode into town on.