Been away from email for a while: Shuttle: Dangerous. I'd like to be in space, but... not 25-year-old tech, and not that way. If there was a Chinese spy satellite captured, might it not have had a nuclear power source, and wouldn't the debris be "hot"?
Railways: Euro railways are better than US - but in at least the UK there is "compulsory purchase", when they grab your land and pay you very little for it, in order to build them. And too much government is involved. Cars: Liquid fuel of some kind is needed. It should be liquid at room temperature. Methanol/ethanol is quite good functionally, as is biodiesel for those engines that support it, but - the problem is energy generally, and pollution from greenhouse CO2. And if you reject statism over a point that could kill all our descendants... It's an easy problem to solve tho', except the solution messes up US oil interests (but it's a big-scale project) - grow seaweed in the Pacific. There are millions of square _miles_, not acres, of near-empty ocean, and all you need is a mesh with a few (recyclable) nutrients suspended a few metres below the surface. Convert the biomass to a liquid fuel... Removes CO2 too. Not a new idea. -- Peter Fairbrother
