Those aren't units of measurement, they're points of comparison. That's why they're preceded by phrasing like "as big as".

Come to think of it, if the tendency for PR firms to arrange for an "equation for the best sandwich" etc. suggests that an equation is actually quite an easy way of getting the public's attention.

You can write about the results - which is important - but you can't write about the mechanics without at least describing the mathematical concepts and their relations with physical reality. This is why it's such a problem, because everyone deduces from the results written up in the newspapers how they think the mechanics work, and of course they get it wrong because it's profoundly unintuitive.

How?

You'll make people smarter and able to understand the subject if you explain what's going on in the example you want to discuss. That's a pretty basic idea in writing popular science.

This must be a real dilemma for you, because she's a white woman replacing a non-white person. Which means more to you, your racism or your misogyny?

I decided to Google his name and the closest I could find to him being a nut was a WUWT post, where the title criticises him, the article doesn't actually get around to explaining what Watts' problem with him is, and the update takes a NASA administrator to task for not knowing about Seinfeld. If this is the state of "climate sceptic" discourse I'd better get caught up on my '90s US TV shows. I'd hate for Anthony Watts to accuse me of not knowing about the third season of Friends or something.

The same way that an expert ship navigator doesn't have to have gone out and personally charted every coastline?

Bullshit.

If all you care about is firing people on ballistic trajectories around other solar system bodies, then yes, NASA has failed. If what you want is great science, something like having a network of sophisticated planetary science missions operating on all of the major solar system bodies right now, then they're kicking ass, and Stofan is the right person for the job of continuing that mission.

Yes, NASA has a habit of hiring *competent* scientists.

*snap*

government power overreach to me, otherwise known as fascism

You're not a big fan of finding shades of grey in issues, are you?

Or better still, have better GPS antennae that can sense the location of transmissions and figure out that they are local.

Yeah, I thought of about fifty things wrong with that about two minutes after I posted it and I've been avoiding this thread all day. The pleasant, enlightening tone of your post makes me feel better.

Ah, I managed to fudge the conversion of the launch speed. Still, quite a bit short of what a chemical propellant can manage on a load that size, so I'm not sure why this particular prototype is more likely to help the project than any of the preceding ones.

Depending on where the Apple store is relative to your home/other jobs/schooling, employees might not relish the thought of going all the way to work and back every day with nothing but the contents of their pockets and wearing their work outfit.