Uh, what, exactly is a 'suborbital' space station?

"I guess it could be worse, we could be copying off the Chinese. "

The NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) was ended in 1972. Not becase of technical issues, it was going well, with a flight worthy (after conventional launch to LEO) unit just a few years away...butit was one if the many victims of the post-Apollo cutbacks. All plans for regular shuttling to the…

"...most of the ensuing flight is taken up with discussing the various challenges related to refilling air tanks between his companions' spacesuits, trying to fit mismatched valves, and so on. Weirdly compelling!"

Not Top 10, maybe not even Top 100, but I loved Scotty's remark...

And yet, with enough people playing, someone wins the lottery. Only in this case, there's no 'winning' outcome, just an outcome as improbable as any other.

For what it cost, it pretty much better turn the highest digit on its odometer...

If it doesn't use some of this technology, it probably should...

So was I. Couldn't believe they let that pass...

Well, that's kind of what Miguel Alcubierre proposes to do..

Really? It tends to explain a cover I recently saw with Storm kissing Cyclops.

"Now lets say ET is looking for mining rights to say, Jupiter or Saturn. That would be an interesting haggle, even if it only involved the major powers on the Earth."

And it's especially interesting in that one of their justifications is the alleged effect that this knowledge would have on religions...

The Empress has no clothes?

Any Amateur Radio operators here, if you use Packet Radio (a means of sending digital data over Ham Radio), you may know that the hardware used for this has long had a parameter called 'FRACK' to be set in seconds...

One might think...but 'fracking' is derived from the full term; 'hydraulic fracturing,' also shortened to 'hydrofracking.'

From that episode:

Slightly FTL would just as hard to explain/account for as 10.000c would be.

Really? One word: 'Blacula'

Agreed. The length of time a planet can hold on to an atmosphere is not just a function of its gravity, but also the temperature at the 'top' of its atmosphere and the molecular weight of the gases in question.