You probably do need that much lift to get the parts up for a real rotating space station.

But, all things being equal, if you have a dozen geosync satellites to put up, loading them all onto one craft, with some extra propellant for final placement is going to be cheaper than doing a dozen separate launches.

With Musk's target about $500,000 round-trips to Mars, he's going to have to learn how to launch every day. For about 5 years straight.

What would change about ESA to make it at all cost-competitive with SpaceX?

That's right, folks, it's Morning in America!

Well, they do have a Marshall Islands test site to avoid harassement by the EPA.

No, but if you succeed in getting rid of the government and creating a "utopia" where the rich and powerful rule like kings--we're certainly all going to find out.

Rich and powerful don't rule like kings without governments creating and defending the corporations that allow that to happen. Intended cause and effect.

But perhaps you have a counterexample.

see subject.

Back in the day... a bully problem could be solved simply by beating the crap out of the bully. Today... the kid who fights back gets expelled and his/her parents get sued.

H.L. Mencken proposed that the correct solution is to try such individuals to see if their behavior was appropriate. The jury would be able to
'acquit with honor' the individual if it was justified. Our current system says that every such action is prohibited because only the State has the right to act in such ways. That kind of thinking has brought us to the present state. It's chronological ethnocentrism to conclude that or present state is the best possible state.

The most significant difference between Fedora and Ubuntu here is that in Fedora, the only time you're likely to see a release name is on a Slashdot article, and then if you look at /etc/issue*. Everybody else calls it Fedora 17. In Ubuntuland everybody calls the release by at least the noun part of the release name. For Fedora, its terribly inconsequential, and I say that as the guy who named Fedora 12.

Explain to me again how barter is a superior system...

If you use money, your transaction cost increases by about 60% due to taxation. Money ought to be superior.

The IRS taxes barter income too.

Yes, but they can't track it. It's gotten to the point where it's most cost effective to earn a lower income and DYI it in many aspects than to have reportable income and pay third parties for their labor. This isn't how a flourishing economy operates.