Dust cloud ? The nothing to see here article from Forbes? Is there water there, will Elon like the taste? I like that scene in Independence Day that talks about the $20,000 hammer and the $30,000 toilet seat.

The notion of geographic location is not required for the internet to work, it's merely used as one method among many to make the most money by charging more or less in different markets (Like market skimming). It has nothing to do with maturation of any technology or industry and has only to do with commercial imperatives.

This is a good line of thinking, without a marketplace of competing ideas in science, it becomes hard to do any innovating in science. I logged in for the first time in a while just because I think this post deserved a reply. All theories, Caloric, Newtonian Mechanics, Biological Evolution from inanimate matter, all of them should be allowed to be criticized in a way that cites supporting evidence, after all the sacred cows make the best burgers.

Amen. Star Trek is dead. Hey there's still the novels, I think some of them might even be classed as cerebral and don't simply re-hash existing stories with role reversal, you wont be blinded by lens flare either. They are a fitting tribute to the original continuity. Long live Star Trek.

If he wants to put a live human on Mars, or at least make martian orbit, he has to solve the radiation shielding problem. In order to do that he will have to basically carry a large bulk shield into space. Water is ideal for this purpose because it contains a lot of hydrogen that can absorb the secondary neutron radiation that is formed when protons that make up the solar wind cause spallation in the material of the vehicle. To deflect charged particles in the first place you need a strong magnetic field which requires a power source. Here is a link. http://www.nasa.gov/directorat... . This is the only unsolved problem, besides who will pay the bill.

They ALL have the common flaw of producing large amounts of Hydrogen when overheating. They ALL need to have proper hardened hydrogen venting/burnoff equipment, and reviews if they already have them and perhaps a overpressure release valve to the atmosphere. Besides the incorrect command to not flood the reactor core with seawater, a command the plant operator thankfully ignored, the single biggest issue was the hydrogen build up/explosion which was the cause of the radiation release on land.

I forgot one thing, the amortised cost of battery pack replacement, which would make that 3 or 4 dollar figure significantly higher, (Especially if you presumed no reduction in price of a new pack in 5-6 years time, which I think is an erroneous assumption), anyway, as they say nothing's free.

Operative word 'was', Indeed economics, convenience, and the advent of Horizontal Drilling (in America and maybe someday Antarctica) may delay the onset of Electric cars, but the thing that is holding it back isn't the 'tech'. it's the reality of the $$$ and to a lesser extent the vested interests of the industrial incumbents. What other motor gives you max torque from zero RPM, is whisper quiet and makes your fuel gauge go up whilst rolling downhill or braking? What other motor can drive hundreds of miles for 3 or 4 dollars? What other motor can you leave running inside, and not have it kill you with carbon monoxide. What other engine/drivetrain has 5 moving parts (driveshaft and rear differential). What other motor is limited by bearing lifetime? (A. Induction and Other Brushless Electric Motor types) What other car could get rid of Transport Related pollution tomorrow, and put the (overall) lowered amount of required emissions in a centrally located power station where electrostatic scrubbers can get rid of particulate pollution? Or you could use nuclear, if your into that, or 'Renewables' if you live in a world that would pay for that. What other car cuts out the whole "dinosaur being buried under a rock for thousands of years part of fuel production" to turn into Crude Oil -> Petrol -> and ultimately Solar energy that gets all our cars moving everyday, by using Solar Panels to capture the energy directly rather than having your own private Jurassic Park set up and then periodically burying it to collect the Fuels sometime later?? I know Brazil produces a lot of ethanol, how much land are they using to do that? Provided that the population keeps increasing, do you think there is enough arable land in the world not being used to feed people that could support all the worlds cars using ethanol? Do you think we should all catch the train and ditch energy intensive personal transportation? Anyway, back to the topic. electric cars are just starting to take off, at first for people who can afford them, and after that, for people who want to pay less than what it would cost to operate an ICE. Like how computers were first built by the militaries and universities, and then used for companies that wanted to save money and do more with less. EV's certainly has a hard time ahead of them trying to usurp a huge, successful and established industry that has given us alot. Remember, the ICE is a Highly Complex, high maintenance machine with (hundreds of moving parts, that needs various fluids, and a Transmission Drivebelts, Air Filters, Cam Shafts (timing related tasks can be shuffled off to a $2 microcontroller) and a muffler and a catalytic converter, and any number of items you no longer need in an EV). I think the only thing stopping the EV from obviating the ICE car as we know it today is the battery, in every other technical respect it is superior today, except perhaps in sex appeal, but that's not technical :-) . I judge superiority in terms of 'what is the simplest, least labor intensive (and potentially cheapest, sustainable) way to do something" . The compromise always tends to the cheapest option in the markets. So maybe in economics, cost relates to how laborious it is to do something, It must have been very laborious of the US Government to bail out those Banks. Off topic, again! In conclusion, I.C.E. is winning today. When fuel becomes too scarce then we will move on to something different, I consider that something superior, maybe that something and how it is perceived is in the eye of the beholder.

"Artificially generating antiprotons in magnetospheres (natural or otherwise) would be very valuable and efficient. By effectively locating the particle accelerator within the magnetic ‘bubble’, the system can produce and trap antiparticles within high efficiency which can then be used for propulsion. Leveraging the development of a space qualified nuclear reactor (Project Prometheus) or 100 kWe solar array would enable ~10+ gm to be collected in orbit per year." J Bickford. From the article. Now the ISS has a power output of 83.6kW, if it could be put into an orbit to microwave transmit energy to the Antimatter generator in polar orbit this would be very adventageous. Assuming 100kW is available, The Deep Space 1 probe ion thruster had a power consumption of 2.3kW, this Antimatter Fuel Depot would be enough to power the thruster for 12 years for 1 year's worth of production (assuming 100% efficiency), if you had 80% efficiency, you could power the spacecraft for ~10 years. We could field 10 probes a year, or collect 5 years worth for a manned mission to Titan, or Mars. Never mind putting a reactor into orbit, we have the basic tool already.

Not over-population, It's under-infrastructure, no-education. There are enough resources in the world to support everyone, they just aren't supporting themselves properly. This is due to their history, culture, etc. Also the fact that they would rather take loans from rich countries than try and spend the little they had on infrastructure and education. Its surely corrupt at some places in some governments as well.

Loan shark threatens debtor, news at 11, after the movie.

~but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die ~After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. ~And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. I don't fully understand this. Take it or leave it, that's all.

Juniors also pass their genes on to the next generation, while seniors do not.

He speaks of the natural radiation present in the coal and the trace elements in the coal itself. But what he doesn't mention is the fact that the radiation that is emitted from a non properly working nuclear plant can be in a much more concentrated form than the emissions of a cola plant will ever be.

Good point, and I knew someone would mention Chernobyl built in a communist system. Whatever the motive, the end result is bad engineering, which is due to a single undivided group I shall call bad human beings. And it isn't a hard and fast rule that profit motive is always bad (But if Commercial Airliners were unsafe, no-one would buy and fly in them, there is fierce competition in that market). Perhaps it isn't the economic model itself that is at fault, its the people themselves. My idea was that the plant was obviously built close to the sea for cooling purposes, but that it was built too close, with no regard for tsunami danger, than was wise. Thanks for your counterpoint.