"...build your own damn spacecraft and rockets and space stations to do things with ... don't mooch off the achievements of the taxpayers (of Russia, the United States, European Space Agency, and Japan) "

I do know that the more money you have, the more other people think they know what you should be doing with it, instead...

Branson and SpaceX (Elon Musk) are more interested in going out there, instead...

And that is...?

"Why travel the stars in rotting meat after the singularity where there is so much better? "

"Maybe they shut it down because it's about to become obsolete. Maybe we'll be shown something very interesting, very soon.. Between the Vatican's position on alien life last year and the FBI second hand account files on Roswell, i wouldn't be surprised to witness the most sensational disclosure of all time. "

China recently banned doing time-travel stories, so I guess there won't be any '4-D' movies from them...

3-D movies often go much too far out of the way to throw stuff 'at' the audience, so I'm afraid that what you suggest is inevitable in 3-D porn...

Basically it's pretty damn wide and deep for existing bridge technology...

Um, planning on any food, water and oxygen there, slick...?

"I hope no one was thinking that when we went to the moon that we just went and landed the first people to get all the way to the moon the first time. "

"...when the first man sets foot on Mars, would be one of the biggest thing in modern astronomy "

"Wouldn't it make sense to populate the Moon first, build a settlement and manufacturing facility there, and then make all future space launches happen from the Moon? "

See my reply to gorehound and Stompy1. If you're spending anywhere near even one 'trillion, you're going about it it very, very wrong.

They do circle a world named for the God of War, after all.

This is not a Nike world we live in.

I knew someone would say something like this.

I might quibble on a few details, but you're pretty much on the money...

Define 'escape.' It sounds as if I'm about as old as you, and I don't expect to see almost endless bucks poured into a single-goal, time-limited ('before the decade is out,' and before the Soviets, whichever is first) project which Constellation tried to re-create (and giving very little additional capability over…

William Tuning wrote of an air-deliverable (via state National Guard aircraft) tornado-dispersing weapon in 'Tornado Alley.' (Originally in Analog as 'Jill, the Giant Killer')