And they had a ton more loopholes. Hence they paid less than they do today:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z1.xls

In 1950, the US spent $42,562 million off of a $293 Billion GDP or 14.5% of GDP
In 1955, the US spent $68,444 million off of a $415 Billion GDP or 16.5% of GDP
In 2010, the US spent $3,456,213 million off of a $14.5T GDP or 23.7% of GDP

You flame but you don't respond to what the poster actually said. Let's look at white house data: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z1.xls

In 1950, the US spent $42,562 million off of a $293 Billion GDP or 14.5% of GDP
In 1955, the US spent $68,444 million off of a $415 Billion GDP or 16.5% of GDP
In 2010, the US spent $3,456,213 million off of a $14.5T GDP or 23.7% of GDP

So, sorry. federal spending is MUCH higher as a percentage of GDP than in the 50's.

The trip is expected to last 300 days. Doing the math, this is 200 km/day, or roughly 8 km/hr (5 mi/hr for my American friends). If we divided by four, we'd have a 2 km/hr speed.

So, I think the article summary is correct.

And considering the trip is about 300 days, this distance is very realistic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45394819/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

You use the newer pi*d method of measuring circumference. I prefer the more tried and true 2 * pi * r. Sure it is an extra multiplicand, but there are no shortcuts to accuracy.

Or, perhaps, as they are taking measurements, they are not going in a straight line? Also, not being powered by anthing more than the waves themselves, I am sure they are subject to the ocean currents.

I am sure the school carefully checked over the scrap paper being donated. Some teacher probably got a box full of paper, took a quick look and was just thankful her funding-starved school got some paper. Otherwise, she'd have had to buy some out of her own paycheck like many teachers do...

A paralegal donated the paper? Wow. That is like a sys admin posting a server password on a post-it note on the server rack...

Because we did the experiment here, and these are the results we got. Feel free to doubt, but unless you are willing to create an experiment to falsify their findings, your claim has as much validity as young earth creationist.

How in the world do you take even ONE grad class and never hear of sigma or standard deviation? This is like the intro to the intro to statistics class and everything builds on it. You would have seen sigma dozens of times in each class...

At least you were smart enough to stay AC. Weight and mass are irrelevant to this conversation. Thanks for playing though.

Thanks. I am now more confused as aerogel is lighter than than sans air. But I appreciate the link.

Got a link? The lightest materials I can find are about 50% more dense than air. I am really curious about stuff like this, so wold like to read more...

If that is the case, then aerogel wins
aerogel is 1.9mg/cm^3 in a normal atmosphere, only 0.7mg above the weight of the air.

Can someone settle the discrepency beside speculating like we are?

The AC beat me to it. I was going to post that this stuff should float in a normal Earth atmosphere. If true, this would be an amazing breakthrough, but my skeptic's glasses are on right now.