I am way too late with this, but it seems no one bothered to double check the links. Even the Russian MoD has stated this is totally incorrect:

The media reports suggesting that Russia is developing a strategic bomber that is capable of performing tasks in space, do not correspond to reality, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement received by TASS on Thursday.

The ministry said that the media had misinterpreted the words of a military academy representative about an alleged development of "a space bomber".

http://www.ruaviation.com/news...

Well, at least don't try to get a job in a warehouse.

Or as a taxi driver.

Or in a restaurant.

crap. Looks like the Robopocalypse is nigh.

That's interesting, because Russia itself announced they were postponing their lunar ambitions for a long time due to the economic crisis they are facing due to low oil prices, costs of fighting in Syria and Ukraine and the fact they abolished/reformed ROSCOSMOS into a state corporation with an emphasis on profit making. Besides, in aerospace circles, going back to the 1990s, being profiled in PM was considered the 'kiss of death.'

Great! We could sue people as fast as software can file claims. I smell the Baby Cooper Dollar Bill in the making.

What's your phone number? Well, its a lichen, not a plant, so you can keep your number.

I hate to say it, but we're too late for 2 C. Even if we call a halt to CO2 emissions, the gas already in the atmosphere is likely to carry us up and over. To make matters worse, the carbon capture technologies coal plants were supposed to get don't work as well as advertised. Even if we do hold to 2 C, btw, we are going to have long term sea level rise.

Global warming at this point is inevitable. Even probably 5 C warming. Some are arguing 8 C by the end of the century. However, its not the end of the world. Just a radically different one.

(yeah I've been following this very closely for over a decade)

Amusingly, coccolithophores, the calcium shelled plankton, everyone has been really worried would be seriously impacted by the rise in carbon dioxide causing oceanic acidification actually grow MORE in raised CO2 environments.

DF-21D: that's a BALLISTIC missile and ABM is something we do rather well. The navy spent a lot of money developing the standard missile 3 for just that purpose even before the Chinese developed their toy. The SM3 also makes for a passable ASAT as was demonstrated and the Block IIA variant does Mach 15 with a range in excess of 933 nm. Hypersonic missiles as I am meaning are sea skimmers or relatively low altitude ones. These would give a total of 30 miles or so to down them. At Mach 10, that's holy shbt bad, at 15 seconds. A ballistic missile arcs up quite high above the horizon and allows for very long engagement times due to its detectability.

First off, there are no hypersonic missiles and will not be for a good 5 or 6 years at least. Secondly, swarming with missiles is, indeed, one way to kill warships. Its exactly what the Soviets planned to do in order to prevent the US from reinforcing Europe in the event of a NATO/Warsaw Pact war before the end of the Cold War. However, the US is very, very, very good at fighting this sort of war. A Zumwalt has 80 VLS cells that can be packed with missiles (though these are meant for attacking, not defending on the Zumies, except when using the ESSM self defense missile (4 to a VLS cell)). However, the Burke class, which would accompany a Zum, each have 90+ VLS cells themselves and an excellent radar system. You'll probably need a minimum of 50 to 75 missiles to get a ship for each Burke defending the Zum. It starts getting really expensive. The US is really good at the hot missile on missile action: even against ballistic missiles. The best way to attack a Zum is with a sub. Defenses against subs are not nearly as good as against incoming missiles. There are NUMEROUS examples of even 'bitty' SSK subs sneaking up on even the big carriers.

Its a freakin awful book. Any hacker of any stripe out to have howled in the hilarity of the whole thing. Good grief. The whole Chinese hacker screamed, "This is Unix! I know this!" The whole book was awful on the same level. It didn't have to be. That the authors claimed to have researched the book was...unbelievable.

haha. Wow. Tom Scott seems to have called it. Now all we need is Apple to come up with mini cameras in the earbuds.

never post when crazy tired. thank you for the correction.

perchlorates. Mars seems to be chalk full of them. There are some microbial lifeforms which are able to metabolize them, but we can't. In fact, their pretty bad for us. For large values of bad.

LaWS is rather unique. Its just a proof of concept test to see if what they will encounter when they put a laser weapon on a ship operationally. This is a step past what they are doing with the X-47b. However, there are no 'X Planes' for lasers, really. LaWS ought to be viewed from that POV. OTOH, HELLADS is a step or two (or more) further along the technology curve than LaWS. Under current Pentagon procurement law, we'll have a laser weapon for ships and/or aircraft by 2020. If we didn't have to go through the insanity of that system, we could have one in a couple years. 2nd, I used to work at HELSTF. I regularly watched pundits claim things we did /that/ day were impossible with the current technology or that there was an easy counter to what we'd done (as if we hadn't tested that first). Talking heads, even ones which have some background in a subject, ought to be taken with a grain of salt. In fact, the BoAS has an axe to grind. Opposition to SDI-like weapons is historical at this point and ought to be taken in that light. Likewise, anything put out there by a defense contractor ought to be taken with an equally large grain of salt, especially one of the beltway bandits.

yup. I'm afraid the blackhole made by LHC ate your QP doll though. Sorry.

nah. Alpha Centauri A tried to shoot the eye out of Alpha Centauri.