iLand

Except for the fact that the NRA gets very little money from gun manufacturers. Where they get their money from is millions of Americans writing checks so that the NRA will represent them in Washington.

More facts, less emotion.

No, actually, they don't give a shit. I could make myself a firearm, RIGHT NOW, and they're OK with that (so long as it doesn't infringe on certain things, like bore diameter, barrel length if it's a shotgun or pistol.. stuff you can own, but need some licenses (tax stamps) from the ATF to own).

For the price of a single 3D printer you could slam out dozens of zip guns. Don't even need any serious machining tools for that.

The whole 3D printed gun scare is just that. A scare. It's headlines. That is all.

I doubt they have the storage capacity.

"The app chirps at you when it notices rough braking, aggressive acceleration, or speeding over 70 mph."

I do that all the time. I like to do that. That's why I bought a sports car. Why would I want an app to chirp at me when I do that?

a militia armed with three-shot rifles which might explode at any moment wouldn't get very far.

Precisely. If there is any chance at all that my gun will simply refuse to fire when I pull the trigger, I don't want anything to do with it.

The engines used for the Antares are refurbished Russian NK-33's, originally built for use on the N-1 booster. These engines are pretty much 40+ years old.

So really, the conservatives are doing us a favor. Once the planet is unlivable, we'll have to leave. So doing your best to destroy the environment is actually progressive.

Congrats for Antares.

Yes, sending a rocket into orbit is a major breakthrough, just like it was half a century ago.

I know it thrills the hearts of the Galtians among us that some billionaires have finally succeeded in solving a puzzle that the rest of us solved collectively in the early 1960s, so I'm going to refrain from saying "big whoop".

Especially since I predict the greatest impact of North Korea's nuclear program is if they manage to time their detonation to be in LEO above Nebraska, taking out the maximum number of LEO satellites and spraying debris through orbit, possibly causing the Kessler effect. And that being in addition to an EMP causing massive disruption over the US. We are at the point where a single nuke can cause trillions of dollars of damage. Just getting it there is the problem. No more space program, public or private, until it's cleaned up, if we are to the point where a nuke in LEO can seed the cloud.

You make the assumption that a long list of authors indicates a truly collaborative research effort. In practice, this is very rarely the case. From my experience, nine times out of ten the work is done completely by the primary author or the first two authors. The rest of the authors are supervisors, technical managers, those who secured the funding, possibly a technician who assisted with the experiments, etc., who never even lay eyes on the paper until it's basically finished.

Perhaps you feel you are being treated unfairly. It would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison of Mouseketeers here.