>> Slashdot reader schwit1 adds: "For the time being, the New Space Race is pretty much Elon vs the World."
Keep in mind, the people who can best comment on this, can't.

Yep from 1995 to ~2006 I ordered a lot of expensive things from Newegg for several companies when I needed things fast and hassle-free. Newegg was my favorite provider for anything they carried. I followed the Newegg patent stuff they led as closely as I followed the SCO debacle which also dominated slashdot at the time. I haven't ordered anything from Newegg since around 2008. I also haven't touched anything made by SCO. I sort of lost touch with thinking about Newegg. Didn't they take on an investor in China around 2008?

This is spot on. It is not hard to play around but there is a lot of background needed to actually make developments. Mixing up chemicals and having a go at materials science and EE becomes a lot more useful once some background is in place. It isn't really news for nerds at all. Photolithography can surely be fun but things are so well developed and complicated that the first step is to see what current state-of-the-art is and work becomes imoressive when somebody can match or beat it. But this story is more like model rocketry, not rocket science.