This reminds me of Project Pluto, a 1955 attempt to design a nuclear-powered autonomous ramjet capable of loitering for months and then nuking sixteen separate cities. It's just about the coolest example of '50s-era engineering hubris ever. They got as far as building and testing a couple of nuclear engines before pulling the plug.

There was a great article about the project in Air and Space Magazine. From the article:

"Even before it began dropping bombs on our enemies Pluto would have deafened, flattened, and irradiated our friends. (The noise level on the ground as Pluto went by overhead was expected to be about 150 decibels; by comparison, the Saturn V rocket, which sent astronauts to the moon, produced 200 decibels at full thrust.) Ruptured eardrums, of course, would have been the least of your problems if you were unlucky enough to be underneath the unshielded reactor when it went by, literally roasting chickens in the barnyard."

There were serious concerns that if the thing got off its leash, it would just wander the planet for months, raining radioactive waste on everything.

There are two variants of the DRD4 gene. If one variant correlates with liberalism and the other correlates with conservatism, why does TFA describe it as a "liberal" gene? The phrasing makes liberalism sound like the aberrant state. I suppose if they called it "a gene that influences political alignment," fewer of us would have clicked on the link. I wonder if what we're really witnessing is the superior fitness of the "liberal gene" meme relative to the "conservative gene" variant.

If we attempt to create children from the DNA of several parents, is there not a danger that the resulting twins may bear a strong resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito?

You're right -- it is a question of getting something for your money, which is precisely why Constellation was canceled. That program was so over budget and behind schedule that the LEO vehicle wouldn't have been ready to fly until after the space station had been deorbited. To use your make-work analogy, wouldn't it be better to build a bridge to somewhere instead of to nowhere? I'd rather have my NASA dollars spent on credible heavy-lift and real manned deep-space exploration programs (both part of the new plan), rather than on an already-failing attempt to recapitulate the Apollo program.