payoto

A few questions:

How optimistic should we be about Philae 'waking up'?

How much more science could be done if it did wake up?

And in a completely different vein of thoughts, how do you think science is viewed by the public and politicians at the moment?

Thanks so much for doing this AMA. Keep up the amazing work!

On the subject of power generation, what are the options being considered for high power spacecrafts on Mars (et al.)? Solar is limited and RTGs are running out of plutonium and are not very mass efficient, what's the next step?

Thanks for the AMA, you guys are awesome.

Makes sense! Are there any competing engineering solutions to overcome this size issue? Also (pushing my luck at getting an answer here), are you looking at interplanetary trajectories which are direct entry into mars atmo or is the system designed for 'slower' scenarios? (I realise the tech can work independently of the trajectory, but what's the main outline of the potential mission?)

Hi thanks for the AMA, what is the rationale behind the LDSD system? By that I mean how is it improvement on a larger heat shield? Are we talking reducing weight in space, launch dimensions, cost or is it simply impossible with current material technologies to land larger payloads?