DDR3 is the current standard...

OK, you can have the next couple of storms. We'll send them your way.

Best captain of all, started as Lieutenant Commander and gained the rank of Captain by the third movie. I salute you Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Captain of Engineering!

Well, in a simple minded way I can see an obvious answer. If, by pushing a little innovation, they can reduce the cost from $2k to $300, that's a 6x reduction in cost. When multiplied by, oh, the entire U.S. military population, that becomes a substantial dollar amount.

For receiving only, a long-wire antenna should work fine.

Until we went to the Moon via Apollo and found the subtle differences in composition of the rocks, when compared to Earth, the leading theory was that it formed simultaneously with Earth as a kind of dual planet.

Nuking the Moon won't get anyone's attention, it'll just create more mess.

The 3rd rock around this star draws attention because it has copious liquid water, free oxygen in its atmosphere, and has both artificially produced light and sub-atomic particles emitting from it's surface. That should be more than enough to get someone's attention, if they happen to fly by.

Well, there might be a thin atmosphere composed of stuff boiling off the star facing side.

If it's that close, it's likely tidally locked, or at least have a very slow rotation as does Mercury; so, the "dark side" should stay icy.

There have been a number of planets found orbiting binary star systems. Kepler has identified a planet around a star in a binary pair, orbited much further out by another binary pair.

We collected shiny things before writing was invented... But there just weren't enough people picking up shiny rocks to have a significant impact on the available quantities. You are correct though: used to be you could walk up to a stream bed and find "precious" metals and stones just sitting there.

Will turn out to be a chunk of platinum group metals. So begins the push to mine Mars.

What do you do when the rotation has to be shut down? Picture, things have gone to shit. Station is in danger. They had to shut down the rotation to effect repairs on the structure. And you have a triage ward full of victims... You'll need a zero-gee backup plan, even if that's not your primary and preferred methodology.

Fundamental laws of physics apply, even if you're a technologically advanced civilization.

Aliens from Independance Day. Essentially swarms of inter-stellar locust, consuming all natural resources on a planet, then moving on...