My guess would be that the increased fatigue would not be hugely significant as the plane would be specifically designed with that in mind. It's different to the situation with say a 747 that has to land with a full fuel tank. If I recall correctly they generally require an inspection of some sort after a hard landing like that because they're not supposed to be landing with all that extra weight. Though I'm basing this on comments I heard from an instructor more than 15 years ago...

The plane travels at up to 150 mph, using very rough back of the envelope that's about $60 an hour for the gas figure or $15 for electricity. Assuming three 2 hour flights per month for no other reason than it seems a small amount, that’s 72 hours a year. This gives $4320 for gas versus $1080. for electricity

It seems to me that fuel cost is a significant percent of the overall cost per year. However as others have mentioned if you can afford the half million for the plane, saving money on fuel isn’t likely your motivation. Plus I imagine this $20 for 200 miles figure doesn’t factor in battery replacement costs etc.

Interesting but not really necessary for me. The point of my joke/ completely truthful comment is that I've never owned an SSD and I've never sold a HDD. I have owned several 10 gig etc worthless (to me) harddrives which I've, without exception, torn to bits to get at the magical rare earth toys they contained. Oh and word to the wise, wear eye protection when unwrapping your magnets, those platters can shatter.

No idea if it's that easy, but when testing your windshield design, please take the time to consider if pedestrians and cyclists will just bounce right off as well.

And won't until this worrying trend of not including magnets in hard drives catches up to me.

I think it's reasonable to assume that worldwide a number of window washers die on the job each year. I would hazard a guess that it would be a statistically significant amount considering the dangers inherent in swinging about on a rope several stories up with a bucket of sudsy water. But I really rather doubt it was much of a motivation for the scientists in MIT.

They might think they've made a breakthrough with this crystal clear non reflecting glass, but I just don't see it.

Probably nothing at all to do with what NASA wants but my list is as follows

1. Smash a large asteroid into Mars (mostly just for the hell of it). I've read lots of articles on how to deflect them away from earth, it should be doable to find one to push into Mars. They could have something in orbit to look at the dust cloud and then drop a rover as close as possible to ground zero.

2. Expensive to be sure, but if they put about 2 or so small satalites in geo orbit around mars (simples) and a third or more in an eliptical orbit, some sort of crude intermitant localised positioning system could be realised . Maybe the low orbit one is redundant and 2 in GEO would be enough to aproimate a position, I dunno.

3. A single satalite in geo orbit could be used to light up a path using overlapping radio signals. Signals would be divided into bands, signal 1hits everthing in line of sight of the satalite, signal 2 has a tighter focus etc etc. detecting signals over time could be used to approximate position. (probably with a practical accuracy of somewhere on MARS)

4. Harry potter can just transport stuff from Mars back to a vacuum chamber here on Earth.

I'm surprised no one thought to invent "modular automated sytems" that can build stuff. Might be a bit tricky to build the first one but you'd be set after that. I'd say they'd even have uses outside of the space industry. Slightly off topic but does anyone know how to type a rolling eyes emoticon?

It's a good one but I've seen it before http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Custard-Filled_20Speed_20Bumps#985712400

I have a theory that with enough research we’ll eventually be able cure any disease that mice are afflicted with.

Different != funky. Without any particular detailed knowledge of all this, the warm light from an incandescent is still warm after it scatters of whatever I'm looking at. The LED light that I've seen seems fake and reflects much colder colors which IMO look "funky", presumably the light is made up of fewer frequencies. I'm not aware if there are any new LEDs that solove this problem, It's most cheap ass ones I see in use.

A friend of mine sent a large swiss army knift though the x-ray scanner, I myself have more than once sent a 2 inch leather man squirt through an x-ray scanner. I think we lucked out maybe because both objects were folded up and not 100% an obvious knife shape. I could be wrong but I would imagine a short thin knife blade on its edge, like a hacksaw blade with no handle would probably pass through an x-ray scanner just fine. My theory is that it would just be a thin line on the scanner. If I rememebr correctly Jamie from Mythbusters apparently got through a metal detector and maybe a pat down with hacksaw blades in a side pocket.

Can't imagine how you got away with all that other stuff though, or why you would have them in your carry on...but that's your own business I guess.

I guess you could get people to stand at a 45 degree offset to the normal. with the legs spread in a bit of a lunge pose...and actually build a metal detector into the thing as well...and randomly select weather they're to face 45 degrees to the right or left...or just scrap the damned thing.

Well most people would only see the estimted 50 metre wave, I think the people close enough to see the 1000 metre wave wouldn't have time to go insane. (f**k me though, just thinking about what it would be like to be in a boat a "safe" distance from impact...) Oh and the 1000 metre bit is just an esitimate (on wiki of course) and is based only on the island collapsing into the water, not the island collapsing because of a huge meteorite impact. I would expect the estimate to be revised upwards in this unlikely senario.