Not really. It is the result of the will to have independent launch capability. France especially has wanted to have top-notch know-how for their ICBMs, I don't think that's changed.

Pre-SpaceX Ariane was also the main reliable and relatively affordable commercial launcher, at least for those not willing to go with the Russians. IIRC they covered more than half of the market. Arianeespace is also working on catching up to SpaceX, not necessarily by the same methods. e.g. they are pushing hard on 3D printed rocket engines etc.

RISKS is still here, you'll find the digests at http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/.

They've had a lot of stuff on voting too, and many other areas too.

The digest was recommended by one of my professors back in the mid-90ies on usenet comp.risks, I still read them via their RSS feed, long after my ISP has shut down its usenet news server.

Are you trying to argue they are wrong about this?

I'd rather say you could absolutely drop the "close to" there. Especially considering they knew early on how bad COVID is, and how the superspreader-in-chief downplayed it all rather than doing something sensible about it, and still continues in the same vein.

Right, the pipeline is more ecologically sensible too than bringing in US liquefied gas by ship - the Trump administration has been pushing so hard mainly because they want to sell that US gas. The alleged strategic reasons are a diversion. The US themselves are dealing with Russia for resources, not only for services towards elections.

Also, natural gas may not be entirely ecological, but it is much better than coal. That is also one of the reasons that the US has gotten less bad, as natural gas (from fracking, too) has displaced coal.

Remember the first flight of the Ariane 5? It blew. Reason: they recycled sensors and software from the Ariane 4, but didn't test for the increased dynamics of the Ariane 5. Result: the value from a sensor overflowed, and things went south from there.

End-to-end tests are there for a reason, else you'll get very expensive failures.

Sure, those countries are allies. Until a certain president needlessly antagonizes
them, as he already did with a number of other allies. The US can be happy those
allies still hope for the next president to be more sensible.

About those critical industries: What if you factor in a quite possible move on Taiwan
by mainland China? Still think you'll get a reliable stream of products?

I do happen to think it is strategically important to keep some capabilities readily
available close by. The COVID crises has shown that for things like chemistry,
pharmaceutica, and much more. A "big war" (not those skirmishes we've seen in
the middle east these past years) would make much more of an impact.

Note that I don't think this true only for the US, but also for Europe, or any
larger power.

Wishful thinking. Also, consider the work done by backyard "amateur" astronomers... it's far from negligible.

Nope, the concept of solar sails goes back as far as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei.

Examples in science fiction are, for instance, in works of Larry Niven, from back in the 70ies (a motie notably used a light sail to escape its world, IIRC a Pak Protector also used a light sail - look them up if you don't know the references, it's fun reading). There's earlier writings by Arthur C Clarke, Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, and more.

Well I saw it clearly with mine own eyes, from a quite light polluted city in the middle of Europe. Got the pictures to prove it, too.

You missed Venus, coming up in the east, in the middle of the Hyades.

If your spot is high and the air clear enough, you might see C/2020 F3 in the evening now, to the north, just above the horizon. Ah well, that's for me, 49 north.

The Antonov 124 (let's leave out the even larger 225 as a one-off) may be larger than the 747 freighters, but handling of freight leaves much to be desired, which kills it e.g. for turnaround times.

We have a local freight-only airline (actually, one of the bigger european all-cargo lines), with an all-747 fleet - they have even been launching customer for the last few 747 cargo versions. They did test the Antonov 124 for a while, but in the end only occasionally rented one for the rare freights when a 747 couldn't cut it.

If the 747 dies, I wonder which alternative they'll go to. Sure, the current planes could fly for a good while longer, but (fuel) economy does come into it.

Same here, my first SLR was an OM-40, to which I later added an OM-10 an OM-1. They were comparatively compact, not heavy, and the Zuiko lenses were good quality - if expensive for me at the time, as a kid / student.

I used this system for a long while, even in parallel to my first (compact) digital camera (Canon PowerShot G3).

The era came to an end with my first DSLR (APS-C, Canon), as from then on, I was done with film.
Looking back, that must have been around 20 years, and many thousands of pictures - I never any issue with that equipment. I wish I could say the same for my digital stuff.

Godwin's law doesn't apply when discussing actual nazis. Said Godwin himself.

More so: Sippenhaft

A medieval stance, or worse, nazi?

Can't say I'm entirely surprised, it's 2020 in the USA after all.

Why would you limit the issue to large scopes? A lot of astronomy is being done by amateurs, with small equipment.

Of those amateurs, many have families, kids and work, they can't stay up all night.

All that gets ruined for the whole world because some supposedly developed countries seem incapable of building up decent telecom infrastructure, with acceptable choice from customers? Where other countries in comparable conditions are perfectly able to do it?