The shuttle had several very near accidents in its run.
NASAs current criteria for man-rating would - for astronauts that fly six times a year be safer at work than:
A) Deep sea fishermen
B) Lumberjacks
C) Librarians.

Hint: It's not the first two.
(actual figures from US statistics).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Eben Christopher Upton is a Technical Director and ASIC architect for Broadcom. He is also a founder and former trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and now CEO of the Raspberry PI trading company.[4] He is also responsible for the overall software and hardware architecture of the Raspberry Pi device.[5][6]

'One spectacular explosion' - One explosion would be 92% reliability. (one failure in 12 launches)

By a not too unreasonable extension of the theory that allows the judge to compel microsoft to deliver things they control on a computer in another country - I see no reason exactly the same would not apply to compelling them to deliver a personalised update to one particular computer and deliver access to that computer - wherever in the world it was, and whoever owned it.

SLS is not expensive because it's so damn big.
SLS is expensive because it's so damn expensive.

It has been a goal for many in the space community to hit $1000/lb for space launchers.
SLS will beat that.
Unfortunately - in the wrong way - by exceeding it for the cost of the actual fuelled rocket on the ground.
(At the flight rates that NASA is projecting - on the high end of likely for the first several flights).

For the cost of the SLS program up to first launch, you can lift around 5500 tons to LED - using the published per-flight cost of Falcon Heavy.

"If you have a linux machine on the net, file transfer/sharing is not a problem"

Well - yes.
And no.
Having a linux machine (or any OS of course) on the net has issues.
You need to admin it, even if you're in the hospital for 6 months, make sure it's not broken into and used to do malicious stuff, ...
And either you are running this machine at home, or you are paying for a server somewhere, which is considerably more than dropbox.
(admittedly with a lot more features).

You distribute compiled code with GPL integrated, without complying with the GPL.

If this is discovered, then your customer has no right at all under the GPL to your whole code, and the GPL can never give them any rights.

The only way you can come into compliance with the GPL is to distribute sources for the whole blob - but in practice what has to happen to compel you to do this is for you to either decide that it is easier doing this than going to court - or for an author of the GPL code (or for the FSF where authorship has been assigned) to take court action for violating the licence - and then for the court to as the penalty require the release of source code.
The court is much more likely to go for financial damages - as that's what they know.

"* they did pretty much all of the things you would like to see (such as reversing the direction and making sure the thrust reverses).

* they seem to have done a thoughtful and careful job, including testing in vacuum."

Read the article carefully.

They did not actually test in vaccum. They tested at atmospheric pressure, because they did not have suitable vacuum rated amplifiers.
Spending half a page explaining how the vacuum system worked, only to have a throwaway line later in the paper (search on electrolytic) that they diddn't
actually use it is at best shoddy writing.

To quote from an earlier post I made on this.
The net torque is zero - yes.
The problem is that because the 'vacuum' chamber wasn't part of the measured system, you can exert torques against it without issue. Convection can do this and distort the measurement.

A major reason why this can't be true - or if it is it's bigger than any Nobel Prize-winners discovery in history, and maybe all of them:
The reported thrust in the NASA paper is 0.4N/kW.
Power = force * velocity.
If you put this on a railway car going at 10m/s, then you get 0.4W*10m/s = 4W out for 1000W in.
If the car is going at 100m/s, it's 40W.
At 3000m/s, 1200W.
You take 1000W of this to run the engine, and you now have 200W of free energy.
This can be arbitrarily scaled up.

If it works, it is not only a space drive, it's a perpetual motion machine that needs no fuel and emits energy.

It is not yet in orbit. (or rather - at the moment, propulsive manouvers are dominant - you can technically say you're in orbit if you jump off the ground, and not be wrong)
Protip - orbits aren't triangular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - is a two minute animation from ESA explaining the manoevers.

10th sep - it begins its first orbit at 30km - and about 14 day period. After about half an orbit, on the 17th of Sep or so it is tilted 80 degrees and still remains in a 30km orbit.
After a complete orbit, it then moves into 20km orbit, and around Oct 10, 10km.

Doh - in addition - the full article is available - http://www.libertariannews.org...

The reason given for not testing under vacuum is the unavailability of vacuum qualified amplifiers.
This is a very poor excuse - literally an hour is enough to make a vacuum sealed can into which you can put an amplifier.
You add a water-bottle and a fan, and you're good for some time.
Flushing the chamber with helium would have been a good and very fast step.
Turning the vacuum pump on, to pump out 1/3 of the air similarly.

The net torque is zero - yes.
The problem is that because the 'vacuum' chamber wasn't part of the measured system, you can exert torques against it without issue. Convection can do this and distort the measurement.

A major reason why this can't be true - or if it is it's bigger than any Nobel Prize-winners discovery in history, and maybe all of them:
The reported thrust in the NASA paper is 0.4N/kW.
Power = force * velocity.
If you put this on a railway car going at 10m/s, then you get 0.4W*10m/s = 4W out for 1000W in.
If the car is going at 100m/s, it's 40W.
At 3000m/s, 1200W.
You take 1000W of this to run the engine, and you now have 200W of free energy.
This can be arbitrarily scaled up.

Is it mechanically awkward - sure.

I read the actual abstract of the paper the article was based on. (the full text is not available)
'The tests were performed in a vacuum chamber, with the door closed, but at atmospheric pressure.'
Internal convection can move gas just fine and create anomalous torques.

"Whether you think Microsoft's position is meritless or not, Samsung entered into a contract with them. They didn't ask a court for a legal opinion, they just stopped paying. You can't make unilateral decisions like that. "

Err - no.
In very rare circumstances do you ask a court to rule on a contract before anything has happened.
Their general response will be 'dismissed, you bear court costs, that's why you pay lawyers'.
The courts are in general not interested in offering legal advice - that's what you get expensive lawyers for.

This is exactly how contract law normally works.
X does something.
Y thinks they breached their contract, and consults their lawyers who agree that X breached the contract and has no right to future payment.
X says they diddn't, and their lawyers disagree.
Y stops paying.
X takes Y to court for non-payment.

Y cannot - at the first step - in most cases ask the court for an opinion.

You can't really comment without seeing in full, the original agreement, and preferably scrutinising it in detail, along with any precedent in the relevant courts.

There could have, for example, been agreements as to Microsoft not doing some things in the phone space - such as for example selling android phones - that it's reasonable to argue (from Samsungs perspective) Microsoft has breached, voiding the original deal.

Nor were convection effects considered.
You don't need much airflow to generate 50 micronewtons.