Even if those numbers are correct, they could be great for powering other satellites. Or even for beamed power transmission to an ion-rocket headed WAY out.

For any particular set of numbers there is a range of uses. Could be large, could be small. Personally I think it could be the best way to power a refinery build on a captured asteroid, e.g. Of course, first you need to capture the asteroid, but there's another group(s?) of people working on that.

This depends entirely on the frequency chosen. One should presume that they chose a frequency that is minimally affected by those. There are many such, though they ARE a minority. Probably something long enough that the term "microwave" is a misnomer.

It's always seemed to me that for an SPSS the logical source of power would be a heat engine. Perhaps a Sterling cycle engine. Lubrication would, of course, be a problem.

Another alternative would be manufacturing the cells in orbit. (There is talk about capturing an asteroid.) Cells made in orbit could be designed with large traces, for durability, and wouldn't need to be rugged enough to survive liftoff. Perhaps some sort of 3D printer could be used. (We wouldn't need a high volume.) FWIW I've already heard of a 3D printer that could print integratted circuits, though I'm not sure how well it works, or what medium it uses.

Unh.,.. Just how soon do you think cancers could be expected to show up? That's not a fact, that's a hope. One that isn't in any way justifiable.

OTOH, I will agree that it will probably never be possible to look at any one particular case of cancer and say definitively that this particular cancer was caused by Fukishima. What WILL be possible is to look a a population of cancers and say "This proportion was probably caused by Fukishima.".

I believe that in your other two "facts" you may be committing the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, but I haven't studied the situation sufficiently to have any certainty. (And you haven't specified how one is to distinguish the membership of the "couple of subcultures" from the rest...outside, that is, of using guns illegally.)

You are foolish. The expenditure on ALL space projects by the US is a minisicule fraction of the total government expenses. You could quadruple NASAs budget, and it wouldn't even show up as a blip in the overall budget.

OTOH, this is the exact kind of thing NASA *should* be doing. Advanced research. Something that no company or corporation will do, because the payoff is decades away. I'm not a real fan of planetary exploration, robotic or human, but that's because I thing the asteroids are the important place. Sitll, they all require that similar problems be solved (though slightly differently, as asteroids don't have a requirement for a heavy lifter at the destination).

P.S.: Don't expect libertarian asteroid governments. Asteroid governments are going to be highly dependent on complex technology. That means strict limits on anything that might be seen as damaging. Think, if optimistic, about constitutional monarchies, which a bit of a heavy emphasis on the monarch. And where anyone who's second cousin or so the the current monarch has a shot at being selected by the "council of elders" or some such to be the successor. Based as largely on their competence as their desire.

The technology is already good enough that you don't need that large an antenna. The antenna is designed to allow the capture of a lot of power at a low intensity. IIRC microwave power transmission is over 90% efficient at low intensities, though in this case you also need to use a wavelength that the atmosphere is transparent to. That means that it treats water vapor as transparent. Probably also liquid water (rain, sleet, snow, hail, you), because if they absorb energy, then it can't be picked up by the receiver. This probably means that only electrical conductors will absorb it. The frequency determines the size of the antenna needed to be the most efficient absorber. Multiples and fractions of the wavelength of the radiation is generally most effective, but this can be altered by applied electric charge. (Think tuning a radio.)

The place where we can expect improvement is in the transmitter. That's got a lot of tricky parts that need to be quite durable. The antenna is already pretty good, and there probably isn't too much improvement possible...not if you want efficient reception.

In the designs I've previously seen, you don't need to "solve" that problem, because it just doesn't exist. The prior plans called for the area under the microwave antenna to be pasture land. They didn't want it to be residential because there was no evidence that low level exposure to microwaves over a long period of time was safe. Short periods of time? No problem. You have much less intensity per square cm than you have in a microwave over. That's why the receiving antennas need to be so large. (But large doesn't mean expensive. It's [almost] just wire netting.)

OTOH, I didn't look at this design. But from the size of the receiving antennas proposed nothing about that feature has changed.

Bingo!

I don't believe that there's been any real study to determine how many people have it. But of the number of people who have bad enough cases to be admitted to a hospital, and were then diagnosed with MERS, more than half of them died. Without knowing the associated percentages, however, we can't really say more about it than "it's occasionally fatal".

Excuse me, but what is he clearly guilty of? Please cite a New Zealand law, not a US law.

If the action was committed in New Zealand, and was not illegal there, what are the possible grounds for ANY action?

The main point is that the owners of the new media are not news organizations. Consider the implications.

To help you in your consideration...
1) Kentucky Fried Chicken used to be extremely tastey.
2) H. Salt Fish and chips used to be not only extremely tastey, but quite popular.
3) Hublein, basically a liquor company, bought KFC. Within a few months that chicken became not worth my eating.
4) About a year later, KFC bought H. Salt fish and chips. Within the same month that also became not worth eating.
5) It's been years since I've seen an H. Salt fish and chips store. (I may have seen on inside a KFC outlet a year or two ago. But it could be a decade ago.)

The Senate is a privileged group. But note that McCarthy didn't directly destroy people's lives. He did things that in other contexts would have been libel and slander, and he did it in the public media. But because he was a Senator, that wasn't technically illegal (IIUC).

OTOH, his smear campaign was used by many other people, some who just didn't want to be smeared themselves, to get people fired, etc. He didn't run into any real opposition until he tackled the Army. Then he lost, because he never had any substantial evidence against anyone.

So people that McCarthy attacked were fired, not because there was some legal requirement that they be fired, but because their employers or supervisors didn't want to find themselves smeared. (And, admittedly, sometimes because of internal politics, and this made an excellent excuse that their enemies took advantage of.) Also, if any company took any federal money, either directly or indirectly, and didn't fire someone McCarthy accused, they faced the strong likelihood of losing those grants. Etc.

Please note that the McCarthy inspired HUAC (House Unamerican Activities Committee) continued up into the 1960's. McCarthy's disgrace didn't mark the end of McCarthyism, merely its weakening. (I've always read HUAC as being a Committee of Representatives that gathered to engage in Unamerican Activities.)

Yes, it may bring us down too. Particularly since every president who has reduced that debt has been subjected to virulent attacks. But Reagan *did* end the Cold War. We may lose also, but it's essentially over.

Now whether he did it on purpose, that's a different question. I doubt that he was sane enough to have done it on purpose. He was clearly in the latter stages of Altzheimers while he was president. Perhaps we should really give credit either to Nancy Reagan, or to someone unknown.

You *hope* the current anti-muslim fearmongers are less capable. That has yet to be proven. Ask me again after the TSA has been abolished.

As I said to another poster, I think you believe too much government propaganda. Despite the government telling us we are frightened, and using that as an excuse for oppressive and illegal programs, most people I know aren't frightened. They just don't see any practical way to get rid of the bastards in charge.

FWIW, it does appear that we are headed in a direction that will leave us frightened and oppressed, but that's not the current state. There's just no obvious way to improve the direction things are moving.

I think you believe the government's self-serving propaganda. Very little of what the US has done beyond it's borders has been done with the intent, or effect, of benefiting anyone except the US (and, of course, political lobbyists). Much of it has been to the active detriment of those it was claiming to help. Much of the rest has been, at best, neutral.

In particular we use our arms to support foreign dictators, to overthrow popularly elected governments, and to extract wealth by extortion. To cause treaties to be signed that favor politically connected corporations. Etc.

The world would have been much safer if we had been willing to recognize Castro's cuba when he first overthrew our puppet dictator (Batista). The results of that refusal lead us to within around 30 seconds of WWIII. Vietnam would gladly have allied with the US rather than China, if we had followed our diplomatic commitments and yielded to the results of the popular election of Ho Chi Min rather than installing our own puppet dictator in the south. Etc.