A few more things to know, for 'The Apocalypse'(tm) and lesser disasters, from Stephen Euin Cobb's 'The Future and You' podcasts:

As on a ship/plane in international waters/airspace, you'll still be subject to the laws of the country the company's based in...

"1) Military"

No, we would have quite a bit more...

Getting a laser reflection off of an object you know is billions of miles out there isn't going to work, much less objects you don't know about. Even to do that with the Moon, we had to personally go and place efficient retroreflectors (mirrors) of known location on its surface.

Go ahead. Try to terraform something that far from the Sun. This will be entertaining...

That's been a convenient assumption so that you can't have enemy fleets suddenly come 'out of warp' just outside your atmosphere...or even in it, without warning.* If FTL is possible in the real world, there's currently no knowing if it would work that way.

Why Pluto? You'll be looking for things farther out, but also in other directions from the Sun. Might as well keep it in the inner solar system...

And I suspect he meant:

Oh, wait...birth certificate.

"(I should point out that readers of io9 are not the average demographic for any country... yeah, logic appeals more to us, but that isn't the same for most of the world.)"

I wouldn't name your kids that, though...

If you simply want recycled materials, go to a junkyard.

Um, because perhaps the most common satellite structural material is...aluminum?

Morgan Creighton, most people just don't know about it.

"Jupiter does put out some intense radiation, but water makes an extremely good shield. If estimates of it thickness (~10mi) are correct the oceans should be safe for life. "

Don't let those comparisons bother you. 'Could haves' if we weren't fighting this, that or the other war are irrelevant. (We went to the Moon at the height of the Vietnam War and the Cold War.)

"...but Velcro could have invented through other means."

Huh?

Remember, whatever Europa has is also inside Jupiter's VanAllen belts, and under an uncertain thickness of ice...