Airbrush

One nano-g sounds close enough to zero g for most purposes. So the 3 kW laser will need to be strapped securely to the asteroid. Even heavy volumes of material will be very light-weight and easy to transport to processing stations.

How about attaching high-powered cutting lasers to cut neat slices of rock, ice, and metals, to be processed. If the asteroid is, for example, 10 miles in diameter, how many g's will that result in? Living quarters can be a comfortable one g within a short commute.

Could you elaborate on what 2 carbon nano-tubes are? One nano-tube for each laser? Why do you need to heat cables? Let the lasers do the cutting.

Dynamite will cause the material to be lost into space, or push the asteroid around uncontrollably. You need drills and claws to gather up every precious bit of water-ice (which makes air, water, and fuel) and metals to fabricate structures. The other benefit of being on an asteroid is you can have centrifuges for creating one g for sleep and recreation. The workers go outside and work in zero g.

On the subject of Climate Change I was wondering how some others notice different weather in their hometowns? I have been living in Southern California, in the hot San Fernando Valley, for 25 years. This summer is strange, there has been only one real hot day of plus 100F degree heat. We are past the middle of June and the weather every day is cool, in the low 80s on the hottest day, usually overcast in the mornings, even into the afternoons, in the 60s or 70s, cool compared to the hot, hot summers that are usual for this area. Very nice weather.

So that means a light saber is a retractable mirror suspended at the end of a metal rod? For a double-edged sword you may have 2 lasers between the mirror and the hilt. Ok that makes sense. I would prefer Sgt. Saunders Tommy Gun.

Yes why bother with planets when you can find asteroids with water-ice and the metals necessary for industry? Just burrow into such asteroids. How can you excavate large volumes of rock, metal, and ice?

Could that dark spot be looking down a vortex, such as a tornado funnel vortex?

That dark spot must be a deep hole is my guess. The only other areas that dark are obviously dark from the shade of the clouds.

There could be great potential for life on Super Earths, but how comfortable would a human feel stepping out on the surface weighing twice as much, or more, as on Earth? Such a planet may be great for life forms that evolved for high gravity. Humans from Earth would not enjoy the heavy gravity. So for Earth 2.0, it should be nearly the same size as Earth, or I'm not going there.

Yes there could be "life" on frozen planets. You will probably not find life on hot Jupiters. We may find life under the surface of frozen planets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think of the thousands of exoplanets discovered, we still have not found a planet as nice as Earth, right?

During what period of time were these planets found? Are these the most recent discoveries? Of all the terrestrial planets found, how many of them are so much like Earth that we could survive on the surface without help from space suits? As far as I know, we have not discovered any Earth 2.0. Maybe that explains the Fermi Paradox?

It is my attempt at understanding the Trump supporters' view about Russian "interference," which was actually "helping Trump" (which Mueller could not directly say!) Trump fans say "thank you Russia," and have no incentive to read the Mueller report. That is why the Mueller report needs to be recited in Mueller hearings. Ask Mueller to recite, in his own words, each of the dozen documented instances of obstruction. That could take a week of 8-hour days, like the Watergate hearings.

In Mueller's 9-minute statement yesterday, he put major emphasis on Russia interfering in the US elections in a "systematic and sweeping" fashion. It was the first and last thing he mentioned as if to reinforce in our minds that ALL Americans need to think about it. Trump-supporter's philosophy is "the ends justify the means." What's wrong with Russia helping Trump get elected? They did a good thing for America! So why should they even read the Mueller report? Barr already told them "nothing to see here folks, let's move along." Why was Mueller unwilling to state that Russia was helping Trump and hurting Clinton? Why just say "interfere" in the US election and not say "helped Trump and hurt Clinton?" The most Mueller would say was the Russian's tried to "hurt a candidate." I suppose he meant Clinton.

I will go one step further on the subject of Nobel Prize in "Star Wars." Is Trump president because of the "type" of fans of Star Wars and "PRO" (fake) Wrestling (WWE) of which Trump has always been a big fan, about 1/3 of the US population? What is the correlation between fans of something as fake as WWE and Star Wars and Trump? Let's get back to reality and explore REAL strange new worlds and go where no one has gone before. This is the science discussion site.

Anyone who can explain the workings of a lightsaber deserves a Nobel prize in fabricating the absurd. Yes, how do you make light travel only 3 feet? I would rather use a ray gun. "The lightsaber is the signature weapon of the Jedi Order and their Sith counterparts, both of whom can use them for melee combat, or to deflect blaster bolts." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber The premise of Star Wars is extremely absurd, "let's have war in space forever!!" I prefer "exploring strange new worlds and going where no one has gone before!" like the original Star Trek series did with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.

Today Trump walked out of a meeting about infrastructure and said he won't work with Dems until they stop all investigations. There are a dozen or more investigations of Trump continuing besides Mueller's. The Mueller investigation was of very narrow scope. The other investigations however, cover a broader area, going into all manner of financial dealings, and of many Trump entities and allies. My question is how much in substance do the remaining investigations compare to the Mueller project that took nearly 2 years? Do they all add up to be comparable to the Mueller report, or could the other investigations be much more for Trump and company to worry about? What revelations may come out of the other investigations over the next 18 months?

Thanks for posting that about Hafthor. They made him up to look more evil than any character I have ever seen! Are you referring to the large number of "dark scenes" in the episode "Long Night" (the battle with the zombies) where you can barely see what is happening? I agree that was frustrating. The lighting was not good, big mistake. Other than that I am quite satisfied with the plot so far. Spectacular scene how Arya Stark leaps upon the Night King, just before he kills Bran (and absorbs his power of vision-flight). Then he grabbed her forearm holding the dagger and she used her assassin training to drop the dagger to her other hand, and stab the King, and everyone zombie, human or dragon, crumbled into shards! She should be hailed as the savior of the living. For Daenerys to use per dragon to wantonly burn a multitude of innocent people was unforgiveable, even by Jon Snow. She had said she didn't want to be evil like her father. Arya will want to kill her and Cercei, and that will be fine with Sansa.

Anyone been following this series? What can happen in the next and last episode? If you haven't been watching, spoiler alert.

Would there be any advantage to installing a telescope on the far side of the Moon to survey our neighborhood for dangerous NEOs? It could scan the sky once per month as the Moon orbits the Earth.

My question is will efforts to establish a base on the Moon delay doing the same thing on Mars? Why not just focus on a Mars base?

And even before we can see it, the gravity from that region would have reached us before the quasar even formed. Would all matter in the universe already be in "gravitational contact" with all other matter in the universe, ever since the beginning? Since the gravity waves began propagating shortly after the big bang.

Does the most distant quasar observed have gravity that reaches us, but the force is miniscule?

I'm listening to the Senate hearing as I type. Because of Barr's clever 4-page mischaracterization of Mueller's report, Trump had a WHOLE MONTH to boast "NO COLLUSION...NO OBSTRUCTION... I'VE BEEN TOTALLY EXONERATED...WITCH HUNT...COUP!!!" Critics of Trump could not say a thing for ONE MONTH. First impressions are very powerful in human understanding. What a brilliant scheme. Barr set a skewed first impression for Trump's base to gloat over for ONE MONTH. Then Mueller's report came out and Trump's base and republicans are not very interested in the damning details. Very clever scheme, it worked. Now the Dems are stumbling around trying to penetrate Barr's defense of obfuscation and diversion by splitting hairs on every charge. Pat Leahy should retire. He could hardly articulate questions at all, mumbling and stumbling and making little sense.

During Barr's confirmation I gave him the benefit of the doubt about his integrity. But I learned that he applied for the job of attorney general long before he was confirmed. In his 19-page job application he said that a president has almost unlimited powers to defy accusations of obstruction of justice. So Trump hired him. Now we are seeing Barr mischaracterizing the Mueller report. When questioned if he knew what Mueller thought about Barr's 4-page memo "exonerating" Trump, Barr said he didn't know what Mueller thought about his mischaracterization of the Mueller report, which was a lie. Mueller sent Barr a letter complaining about his mischaracterization of his report, weeks earlier. Now Barr needs to explain how he "forgot" about Mueller's letter of complaint. And now Barr is testifying before the senate.