At my daughters' school, the rules are that hair longer than shoulder length shall be tied back, and hair must be of a natural color. I'm fine with that.

Mostly yes. However the hydrazine incident was not realistic. All Sharlto Copley would have needed to do was connect his suit to ship air in the airlock, stay in vacuum and let the hydrazine boil off.

Aurgh. You just brought back the angst. ;)

Cool. Thanks for info.

Back in late February, 2004, Austin Meyer excitedly announced that he rigged up a full Mars flight simulator with decreased gravity, a smaller radius, and a thin atmosphere. That seems like it'd make flying easier, but inertia stays the same as it was on Earth. Consequently, planes need to go at Mach 1 during takeoff,…

Because it gives cities health and defense bonuses...

More like "we had a bureaucrat with no knowledge of modern English slang translate". ;)

Depends on the book for me. John Ringo books tend to fly by in 3-4 days. A solid Alastair Reynolds or GRRM will take weeks.

Because he's been so studiously avoiding incest up 'til now? ;)

I have a friend who reads fast enough he can get through a book every day or two and still have a normal life. I envy him...

Here in HK our new(ish) recycling bins always bring a smile to my face.

Indeed. Very Ralph McQuarrie.

"Building a [circular] henge I see..."

But he still volunteers to run some kind of junior cadet program at the school.

MINOR BOOK SPOILER.

Absolutely. And while the SSMEs are proven reliable, aren't there still doubts about the SRBs?

An unexpected gem. Baxter is a great writer but his solo writing is often rather angst-inducing. Clarke was an epic visionary but as a prose writer sometimes less than stellar. Great combo. If you liked The Light of Other Days you should check out Richter 10. Completely different story but some of the same vibe.

Fair point on cabin pressurization. The Shuttle was a good option for the satellite maintenance use case. However most missions were not satellite repair. The problem was the attempt to make the Shuttle into a vehicle for all missions. It became too large and too heavy, creating all sorts of launcher issues, including…

Aldrin had a scholarly background in orbital mechanics. He studied rendezvous techniques, earning him the nickname "Dr. Rendezvous".

But does that make sense or would it be better to develop new engines and SRBs (or not)? The SSMEs and SRBs are a sunk cost.