“You can’t just shoot a hole into the Moon.”

MISSION OBJECTIVE: Shoot a hole into the Moon.

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/eare-earths-mine-usa-china

Most rare‑earth ore occurs as a geochemical stew, so producers must grind, acid‑leach, and solvent‑wash huge volumes of rock before they bottle a kilogram of oxide. The solvents themselves are toxic; the tailings ponds can leach heavy metals; and any thorium or uranium hitch‑hikers raise radioactivity concerns.

Open‑pit mines also chew through landscapes, consume prodigious energy, and disrupt local water tables. In short, the elements may not be geologically rare, but clean, socially acceptable production sites are. That scarcity, not crustal abundance, keeps supply tight and prices volatile.

That’s an excellent point.

I don’t really know what the launch detection sensors’ capabilities are. However, there’s probably a detectably different spectrographic signature from solid fuel rockets like ICBMs versus Neutron’s methalox.

What energy company is a natural monopoly?

edit: are you talking about utilities that produce and distribute energy, or the companies that provide fuel for them? Because a case can be made for mining operations like Exxon & etc to be subject to market competition, whereas natural monopolies like your local electric utility should be publicly owned, i.e. owned by the government, and not have ownership shares traded privately or in public markets.

Its inefficient for natural monopolies to not be owned by the government. Privatization increases cost and decreases quality of service.

Its inefficient for natural monopolies to not be owned by the government. Privatization increases cost and decreases quality of service.

that number needs 2 more zeros

deleted by creator

thoughts and prayers for their tooth

fReE sPeEcH

There are no minable deposits of rare earths anywhere. That’s why they’re called rare earth elements. Nowhere on Earth are there geologic processes that concentrate them into ores. The only way to get them is to process absolutely enormous volumes of dirt, at great expense in terms of energy used and pollution created.

Every country has them.

Who sells it is a question of which country is willing to render some portion of their territory uninhabitable for the foreseeable future, while also making a larger portion of their territory sick and dirty.

this sounds like what Google wanted to be since its inception: ask a question, get an answer

somewhere along the journey, the reality of needing to make money drove the enshitification of search results: ask a question, get offers to sell you an answer

this seems like a step in a better direction

the one thing that gas is good for is cooking

Only if your kitchen is adequately vented, but most that I’ve seen are not.

A modern gas furnace or water heater will have a flue, and if the system has been installed properly then exhaust gasses, including CO, will get sucked out of the house.

Most gas ovens/ranges are unvented - they just spew combustion products, including CO, directly into the home. Its so bad that the 1st generation of CO detectors had to be retired because they were constantly going off when people would cook dinner. Modern CO detectors will only go off if CO levels remain elevated for hours.

Cooking with gas in a home that lacks a large hood fan that’s ducted to the outdoors is a terrible idea.

Right wing ideologies are a symptom of brain damage.
Q.E.D.

nothing says “free speech” like muzzling journalists