MigL

Monkey steaks and cannibalism, then ...

Maybe not. There are various ways to get to a higher radius, where less energy is required to break free. The solid rocket booster with Hydrogen/Oxygen combustion has been more convenient for Earth, but other methods have been studied ( mainly to increase payload capacity ). The air breathing first stage, to get to a height of about 70000 ft, has been considered since the 70s, with the most advanced concept being the British HOTOL single stage to orbit system British Aerospace HOTOL - Wikipedia Recently Germany is examining a similar system for payload launching. Germany's POLARIS Spaceplanes Develops Hypersonic Test Vehicle for Defense and Space Research | Mahir Zeynalov posted on the topic | LinkedIn The point is, that if you can 'gather' propellant as you go, you only need one of the propellants ( Hydrogen in HOTOL's case ). Even in the case of gas giants like Jupiter, the amount of combustible methane available in its atmosphere is a resource that shouldn't be ignored ( necessitating only oxidizer, no teapots required ).

And sometimes we think we have good reason to believe principles are true because we might be missing information ...

A 'reaction' motor provides thrust by ejecting energized mass rearward, at velocity, to provide forward motion according to Newtonian mechanics ( essentially conservation of momentum ). Escape velocity is proportional to the square root of the mass you are attempting 'escape' from ( assuming a fixed radius of departure ). I don't see how your statement is valid.

I, for one, don't believe aliens are visiting Earth. If they are rational enough to have devised a means of doing so, they would realize that it isn't worth the effort ( unless they are really, really fond of anally probing southern American hicks ). However I take issue with the stated claims that 'consensus' dictates our knowledge and methods will never improve much beyond the current. I'll use one of my previously used examples ... It was previously ( 1950s ) thought CP symmetry could not be violated, but in 1964 it was observed in the weak interaction ( Nobel in 1980 ), and has recently been observed in Baryons ( 2025 @ LHC ). This may be extremely important to the problem of matter dominance in the present universe, and a better understanding of matter/antimatter asymmetry could eventually lead to methods of generating antimatter more efficiently, and the matter/antimatter reactor I previously mentioned ( 100% conversion to energy, as opposed to a couple of % for fusion ). The more we know/understand in current science, the more questions arise, and sometimes, whole new fields open up ( just ask Max Planck ).

Exactly. In other parts of the world, where you need electricity to run your A/C, this might not be the best solution, but it is certainly brilliant for small communities in Finland.

Is pretending to raise your IQ as fun as it sounds ?

I'm not a chemist, but have worked in the chemical industry for 39 years ( retired as of last month ), and so I understand Chemistry from a Physics PoV. A fractional distillation column translates temperature into height, such that products that boil at different temperatures come off at different heights of the column. Depending on the amount of heat and vacuum you are willing to supply, you can distill all of the raw material into constituent products for re-sale; it all has a value.

What we do know is that we can't do it. What we don't know is what a considerably more advanced civilization can do. To quote former SoD D Rumsfeld "There are things we do not know that we don't know"

When you look at it from that point of view, interstellar travel makes even less sense. The cost-to-benefit ratio is astronomical. It doesn't benefit a civilization at all; it benefits the travelers ( or their descendants ) and spreads their genes to neighboring stars ( vanity ? ). The only motivation that makes sense is curiosity and knowledge.

IOW, it has been done, and you admit the technology is available ? Maybe, in a few centuries we ( or a much more advanced civilization ) will be able to 'get' antimatter more efficiently and in larger quantities ( perhaps even aboard a spaceship ), and I'm sure it will be easier to 'keep' by then. We may not even need to 'keep' it, only producing it on-board as needed, once we figure out the mechanism that produces matter or antimatter in excess of the other, as in the early universe, that led to matter predominance. All speculative, of course, but it has a basis in accepted science.

Getting is fairly expensive ( at least at our technological level ), but 'keeping' seems fairly straightforward; apparently CERN ships it to other research facilities in trucks.

Nice to be able to log in again ... Simply solved by electromagnetically scooping up interstellar Hydrogen, feeding it to a ramjet that 'energizes' the expelled mass using a matter-antimatter reactor, and expelling it rearwards to accelerate, and forward to decelerate. Of course the hydrogen density in this part of the galaxy is not sufficient to provide adequate thrust, nor is the technology available for a matter-antimatter reactor, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be possible for a more advanced civilization in a Hydrogen dense spiral arm of the galaxy. Sure, and we also have threads on perpetual motion machines or 'free' energy, intelligent 'creation', gravity by electromagnetism, global warming 'hoaxes', and ToE explained by pictures. Nobody that proposes those is willing to tackle the Physics and Engineering either. Even when you present the Physics/Engineering issues to them , they refuse to see/acknowledge said issues.

Sometimes the patterns we notice are directly caused by a relationship; that is science. Sometimes the patterns we notice are indirectly caused by relationships; correlations can be science. Sometimes we notice patterns where there is no relationship whatsoever; that is nowhere near science, it is numerology, otherwise known as WAGs. Do I need to repeat this again ?

I see. I guess I won't be coming by for breakfast, or tea and biscuits. I like my bread very crusty ( 1/2 inch thick crust ) and very dry. It is mainly used for sopping up sauces after a good meal. It's a pain in the butt finding good bakeries that make that sort of bread.