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If they start charging passengers based on body weight then there will soon be screams of discrimination against heavy people (and against tall people, and against men, and against anybody who as a demographic group weighs more than the median person).

My first question is what sort of fuel fraction would this plane need for a typical near-antipodal flight profile (e.g. Great Britain to New Zealand). Second is whether it can be done cheaply enough to operate profitably--can it sustain itself on ticket prices not greater than were charged for...

A LM on a Saturn IB? It would never reach orbit with that extra weight! :D

Given the low ISP of homemade solid propellants, you are probably better off going with something like kerosene or alcohol for fuel and hydrogen peroxide or nitrous oxide for oxidizer--these are relatively cheap, non-explosive, non-cryogenic propellants that can get you an ISP of 200-300 seconds...

A thought: after the Sun formed, the lighter N-14 and O-16 evaporated from the inner part of the protoplanetary disk faster than the heavier isotopes as radiation pressure drove them outwards. Further out where the gas giants formed, this effect was weaker due to the lesser heat and radiation...

Nukes are far more useful when you can THREATEN their use than if you just use them secretly--you can get your enemies to back down from a lot of things if you can convince them that you will nuke them if they don't. However, if they are not aware of the full extent of your ability to nuke them...

I actually LIKE the idea that it is made to have liquid strap-on boosters because of the flexibility it adds. You could remove the boosters and use a lighter second stage if you only needed to launch 30-40 tons for an ISS resupply mission, or you could use six or eight boosters for a superheavy...

That would be something of a political minefield if ever discovered by the public or by other nations, since the Outer Space Treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty specifically prohibits placing nuclear weapons in orbit.

The other question is one of whether the funds will be provided by Congress to pay for continued Shuttle operations, or will NASA have to fund it out of the money that was to be spent on Ares/Orion development?

We could build a VASIMR propelled spacecraft by 2020 if it weren't for the political blocks against launching nuclear reactors into space.

What I want to see in chargers is for most portable devices to abandon the proprietary plug shape (like they would REALLY do that lol) and instead use USB ports or some other common standard, so that you could use a standard charger to charge all your devices (you'd have a dial to select the...

That is a fascinating concept, but it overlooks the fact that teeth, legs, and claws (or something fulfilling similar purposes) are generally required to keep the brain alive long enough for it to evolve to be very smart. First of all, brains need food, If food is so easy to get that the brain...

Hmmm, probably the reduced sunlight in the lower latitudes would lead to a weaker gradient of temperatures between the equator and the polar regions, which would mean that ocean currents like the Gulf Stream would be slower. Earth as a whole would be slightly cooler (though hopefully not cool...

Yes, contact local Air Traffic Control, or failing that, your town's City Hall (or even the Federal Aviation Administration, if necessary, or your nation's equivalent if you live outside the USA). They will direct you to the people who can supply the necessary paperwork.

What I wonder about is whether this device might induce eddy currents inside of electronic components and thus damage them. Not all devices keep their microchips inside a Faraday cage after all . . .

Higher altitude would work--rings tend to thin out once you are outside of the Roche limit, and in LEO (few hundred km or less), particles' orbital lifespans will be short enough to keep that population thin as well. Notice how Saturn's thinnest rings are the innermost and outermost ones, while...

As long as it contains the right mix of parts (such as having the majority of its neurons devoted to processing and reacting to external stimuli rather than devoted to keeping the body running), the more important number is the ratio of brain size to body size--humans have about 2% of their lean...

But seriously, any rocket that carries more than one pound (450 g) of fuel requires that you get clearance from whoever controls the airspace where you plan to launch it. Such clearance generally includes scheduling the exact time and place where you will launch.

A 5.8m diameter stage containing the same fuel load as the S-IVB stage would be longer than the Buran-T's payload bay. The only way that I can see to get equivalent impulse in a stage that fits into the bay would be if the engines were more efficient than the J-2 (460-ish ISP instead of the...

Right. The Moon's surface area is four times that of the 48 States. Could you say that you have "been there, done that" in exploring North America if you only went there six times with two men at a time, none of whom stayed for more than three days?