>line the pockets of the founders.

All new technologies are too-good-to-be-true when they start out, and all startups need to paint an optimistic outlook to get funding. You seem to be suggesting corruption, which need not be the case.

Remember also, electric aircraft don't need a super long range to carve out an important niche. They are prop-driven and can actually be faster than jets on these short routes, doing so without expensive fuel.

I can see a future where electric planes take over some short air routes for sure.

This is a very dark road to go down. Banning foreign apps in the name of "national security" is exactly the same justification used in authoritarian countries.

If Congress is genuinely concerned about user privacy and algorithms....then pass a bill that applies to ALL companies, including American ones.

Notice that this discussion is not even on the table.

>"It’s a battle of what’s the best thing to watch, read, or listen to"

Youtube thumbnails where every influencer had to spend 25 minutes taking selfies of themselves with furled brows or making gasps would make me think these algorithms aren't really curating the best content.

This is the correct answer.

The fact that it's being referred to as a "sixth generation" aircraft, literally no details have been published about it, and they were careful to only allow the cameras view from the front of the craft, suggests that there are some super high-tech features that the DOD doesn't want leaking out.

The nature of these offensive and defensive weapons is that they are an endless cat-and-mouse game.

So no, the moment nuke defense tech comes online, someone will figure out a means around it.

The problem with hydrogen is the energy density. It is simply far too low. Some planes are already flying with leftover restaurant grease, which seems promising.

The article doesn't have much "meat" to it, seems like merely continuing to fund Ariane 6, which is apparently behind schedule.

Per my understanding, Ariane 6 is not reusable in any way shape, or form. Absent some reuse, I think the EU is going to have some extreme difficulty competing in that market, absent significant subsidies and protection from the governments that funded it.

Last I heard, Ariane 7 may feature some reuse capability, but there was political resistance as a reusable rocket reduces the number of employees you need to build rockets, so some people would lose their jobs. This is backward thinking, in my opinion, as reusable rockets reduce launch costs and increase launch frequency. A bit like complaining that the alarm clock put knocker-uppers out of work.

>The successful launch of Artemis I is "opening the door for expanding the lunar economy," says Takeshi Hakamada, CEO of ispace, which is planning to launch its first private mission to the Moon on Nov. 28.

At roughly $4 Billion a pop marginal cost, Artemis I's launch doesn't mean jack from a "lunar economy" perspective. I question anyone's credentials who would make such a claim. If we wanted to send things to the Moon, there already were far cheaper options available.

That said, there is hope for SpaceX Starship, Blue Origin's New Glenn, and China's ChangZheng-9.

These are superheavy-lift launch vehicles that have sufficient payload capacity to the Moon, but also are cheap enough (and at least partially reusable) to make a "Lunar economy" possible.

Time will tell.

Of the above, this is one of the most likely. Starship literally fired its engines yesterday.

From the article: "While the impact of digital media on democracy cannot be judged as simply ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ the results clearly show that digital media can have several negative effects on political behaviour,” he added."

The fundamental problem is that, per Brandolinis Law, it's an order of magnitude more difficult to make a false claim than it is to prove it wrong.

The internet enabled an asymmetry between truth and untruths, with it heavily weighted toward untruths.

Not sure how this problem is solved.

>You can't just add "space" to stuff and pretend that that's going to be the next big thing because "Space" and Daddy Elon whispering sweets nothings into your ear. If you actually do the math and look at the feasibility you'll notice that not only do none of these space mining and tourism visions to defraud investors add up.

I'm not going to engage with this. This right here establishes that you have made up your mind. You have decided that SpaceX/Elon Musk is lying and that the whole industry is out to grift us. There is no point to spinning my wheels and sifting through my sources when your just going to disregard them anyway. I don't have time for it.

Agree to disagree. Have a great day

>A Falcon 9 launch costs ~$67 million and can carry ~17 tons to orbit when the rocket is not expended.

This figure is wrong. It's closed to 22 tons expended. 15 tons or more reusable.

Further, you're basing your figures on the list price in an industry with little competition. SpaceX doesn't need to cut prices as much as they can because no one can compete on price anyway.

We know roughly how much the stages of the rocket cost, and the cost of refurbishment. If anything, my numbers are conservative.

>No, there isn't, for the simple reason that doing any of this in space is going to be more costly and complicated than doing it on earth. But all of these are ways to defraud investors.

That's the spirit! If we followed that logic, The United States wouldn't exist.

Thanks for correcting me. Long night. Got my units wrong.

Moore's Law is slowing, I like to think that the "next big thing" is space.

There is so much potential, from tourism to advertising, to research and development/manufacturing of products that can only be done in micro-gravity, to eventually resource mining... the potential is huge. Like computing in the 60s, we probably don't fully grasp this potential yet.

This all hinges of course, on the cost of spaceflight continuing to fall, just as the falling cost of transistors drove IT.

The cost per kilogram to orbit has fallen from about $10,000 in 2000, to roughly $2000 today, with fully and rapidly reusable rockets emerging that could drive the price down to <$500 in the near future.

Of course, as the article points out, when governments lose control of space access to private companies, things change. Government/international regulation is going to be needed to ensure safe and egalitarian access.

Edit: units.

Glad I am not the only one wondering this. Do you have any good resources on photonics? Would like to write about it.

Given that chip production and new innovations, in general, are becoming more and more capital intensive, it probably make sense to make massive investments into emerging technology now, to head off tech stagnation in the coming decades.

I know, but nonetheless, we are approaching a physical limit to the size of transistors.

That is crazy, at 1nm, the size of transistors is approaching atomic scales.

Make one wonder, what is next? There is a physical limit to the size of transistors. How will the economy respond to a slowing pace of innovation? Or will investments into quantum computing supplant silicon?