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The telecommunications satellite that blowed up was the Astrium (Airbus) Express AM4R, which was to have replaced the Express AM4, which was lost (injected into the wrong orbit) in August 2011.

So they've done nearly the same thing before? Wow.

So are we *sure* the Russians are really launching these things and not just hiding them away for their use later?

The telecommunications satellite that blowed up was the Astrium (Airbus) Express AM4R, which was to have replaced the Express AM4, which was lost (injected into the wrong orbit) in August 2011.

They've already had one called Skynet since 2003 -- see: SKYNET

I can't speak to the AMRV, but the DC-Y was intended to enter nose first.

The only ESA ARD with which I am familiar was not inflatable.

Of course, the shuttle can take a much, much larger payload than anything else currently available (I think).

More importantly, the Shuttle can return payloads and experiments to the ground. The Soyuz module has very little space to return payloads. Progress is destroyed during re-entry, as ESA's ATV will be.

In addition the Shuttle connects to ISS using the US docking port allowing the of transfer large rack-sized payloads into ISS. For example this mission will deliver the MELFI rack payload to ISS (a freezer capable of -80C) developed by EADS through ESA for NASA. For more information on MELFI see the ESA fact sheet (pdf).

Not quite. EADS was the 2001 link-up of German DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG, the French Aerospatiale Matra S.A. and Construcciones Aeronáuticas S.A./CASA of Spain. More history here. Airbus is now part of EADS, but has existed for a lot longer than EADS. Airbus history

The two most prominent links to IEC-based fusion technology seem to be Arianespace's FusionStar FS-NG1 Neutron Generator and the Advanced Fuels Project at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

These pretty much place fusion by IEC techniques on solid ground. Now we "just" need to focus on issues of scaling up to positive-power systems. :-)

Here's a link [eads.net] to Arianspace's commercial product (a lab tool, not a positive power fusion reactor) which generates a useful neutron flux based on these IEC techniques.

Given this, presumably there can be no more discussion as to whether IEC produces fusion (although alternative mechanisms are always a possibility). Scaling up is the real question now.

And I forgot to mention the European Aerospace Defense Corporation (formerly Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace) which sells these guys. Portable neutron generators using IEC. I doubt they just mistook the neutrons for background neutron flux...

Actually in larger metropolitan areas Police helicopters are equipped with Steadicam style cameras and near military grade image recognition systems that once locked onto a vehicle will keep the camera tracked to it at all times. Older systems required manual reacquisition of the target after it passed under a bridge or similar obstruction, but many of the newest units are perfectly capable of doing this on their own. The D.C. area even has a U.K. like ground based video surveillance and tracking network.

What the military can provide is a larger number of high resolution imaging and tracking systems making it more likely that they will be in the right spot at the right time to be able to acquire the fleeing suspect's vehicle.

Still I would have expected it to be cheaper to borrow air units from Baltimore and other neighboring cities than to re-task surveillance aircraft from the military. The "sword vs scalpel" analogy is apt. The military is a very big stick and tends to be a bit cumbersome to communicate and interoperate with. Particularly when going through multiple levels of city, state, and national governing bodies.

But it is also likely that this is partly about the blame game. With military units involved the D.C. police department has some of the pressure and blame removed from its shoulders should this drag on too much longer. That is not to say that passing the buck is a primary goal of involving the military, but you can be certain that the benifit has been brought up by someone within the police department when they were discussing this idea.

And the link to the actual Cryoplane site (with lots of artists renditions of H2 fueled aircraft is here

You can apparently even buy a working (fusor type) fusion reactor from EADS