Given that the patent office is self-funded, and rejections only make more time-consuming work, it'd be silly for some Machiavellian Patent Office executive to hand out incentives for rejecting patents.

Au contraire. Given that the patent office is self-funded, and rejections only generate more filing fees, it'd be Machiavellian for some silly Patent Office executive to hand out incentives for rejecting patents.

One of the side thoughts I had about this was military applications. If we can capture asteriods or chunks of rocks, can we drop them into orbit to land on a city? A non-nuclear threat? I was of course thinking of the book "The moon is a harsh mistress".. Otherwise, why is NASA so interested in the topic?

Reminds me of this oldie-but-goodie on the evolution of warfare:

- Throw rock
- Hit other guy with stick
- Throw rock with stick on the end of it
- Shoot stick with rock on end of it at guy with curved stick
- Hit rock with fire, make copper, bronze, iron, steel rocks to put on ends of stick
- Put fire in tube, throw rock with fire
- Put fire in metal tube, throw metal rock with fire
- Put fire in metal rocks, drop exploding rocks on other guy
- Drop rocks made of unstable atomic metals on other guy
- Head for the asteroid belt. Throw rock