Mad Rocket Scientist

It still seems odd, considering that they released the footage of failed landings. Plus, it reflects well on SpaceX that their rocket can land even in terrible situations.

Ah, I didn't see any numbers on slip right at the fault itself. (Due to a lazy search) Thanks for correcting me. I wonder whether they figure the chances of a train being right at the fault during an earthquake is just low enough that it doesn't matter. If that's the case, then the sleds are no more dangerous. The hyperloop might be, depending on long it take for it to decelerate in emergency. I said not to do that! Yep, it looks like there's lots of slip. That photo brings up a couple of questions, though. First of all, why is it an S-curve, with both ends inline with each other? I imagine that a slip fault would just offset both ends, and leave a simple curve. Second of all, why is the ballast still straight? It seems like this might be a normal or thrust fault, which would explain the S-curve too; the rails have been shortened, causing them to buckle. Not to deny that it would be a problem for a tunnel, but it seems like tunnels aren't much more dangerous than other forms of transport during an earthquake.

I've looked into this a bit, because I've seen it before, and it seems like earthquakes have not historically been very damaging to subway networks. I found this: http://thesource.metro.net/2012/08/10/designing-a-subway-to-withstand-an-earthquake/ And this: http://blogdowntown.com/2012/08/6959-metro-tunnels-are-one-of-the-safest-places Both of which say that it is fairly safe. It seems that in the area around the fault, the ground shakes mostly uniformly, and wouldn't damage a tunnel. For one thing, the majority of injuries from earthquakes come from objects and loose parts of buildings falling. Don't quote me on this, but I think that at the fault itself, there isn't very much slip, and the energy of the earthquake comes from the fact that the fault is long and deep, so even a slip of a few inches means a lot of energy. EDIT: Turns out faults do slip more than I thought.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

I've been trying to calculate a transfer from earth to venus for my blog, but I'm stuck. Here's what I have so far: Source for constants: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gravitational_parameter A transfer orbit between Earth and Venus depends on the position of the planets at departure and arrival. For this example, the position of Venus does not matter, as aerobraking will work at either of those speeds. Earth should be at apoapsis, because in this case we want to lose, rather than gain, velocity as Venus is in a lower orbit than Earth. Let's begin. First, the velocity of Earth around the Sun at apoapsis. We don't really need to calculate this, as it is well known: 29290 m/s. The transfer orbit is an elliptical orbit with its apoapsis at Earth's apoapsis, and its periapsis at Venus' apoapsis (I think this gives the lowest delta-v). This gives a semi-major axis of: (Radius of Earth's orbit at departure + Radius of Venus' orbit at arrival)/2. Or (152.1 * 10^9 m + 108.94 * 10^9 m)/2 = 130.52 * 10^9 m. Velocity at apoapsis: v^2 = 1.327 * 10^20 (2/152.1 * 10^9 - 1/130.52 * 10^9) v = 26985.2 m/s Velocity at periapsis: v^2 = 1.327 * 10^20 (2/108.94 * 10^9 - 1/130.52 * 10^9) v = 37676.3 m/s The velocity of the spaceship in Earth orbit can be calculated from the altitude, and the altitude is as low as possible to take maximum advantage of the Oberth effect. I'm going to guess around 200 km. v^2 = 3.986 * 10^14 (2/6578000 - 1/6578000) v = 7784.34 m/s. Up until here everything seems fine. Now we subtract the spacecraft's orbital velocity from the earth's orbital velocity: 21505.66. We subtract because we need to lose velocity. But now it seems like we have too slow an orbit even before the escape burn, which seems unlikely to me. I can't find anything that could help me here anywhere else. Any ideas on where I messed up?

No, but I don't think it ever goes on sale. It's worth 20$, though.

Alright, I just bought Bastion Gunpoint The Half-Life bundle, with 11 games. OneShot Papers, Please Please, don't touch anything and The Room For a little over 20$ USD.

SpaceX doesn't patent anything they do. http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-patents-2012-11

Thanks for the suggestions! Here's some of mine: The Stanley Parable: Excellent, and 75% off. Planet Coaster: Very fun sandbox, the management side of it is pretty easy, though. 33% off, which is pretty good for how new it is. Space Engineers: Not a very good survival game, but a fun voxel spaceship building sandbox. Minecraft in space, with slopes. And moving vehicles. And destruction physics. Portal 1 & 2 (bundle) is a 90% discount, and probably worth it just for Portal 1. (The Half-Life series is similarly discounted, but I haven't played that) BeamNG.drive is 33% off. It's a little content light, but a career mode is in progress. EDIT: If you get The Stanley Parable, play the demo too! Even if you know you want to get the game.

Any suggestions? I was looking at Production line, but it isn't on sale. SimAirport is 20% off, but I think I might want to get Airport CEO instead, which isn't yet released.

SoonTM (About ITS plan update)

To join in on interpreting a Jool Odyssey, @Zhetaan's post made me think of good comparison in fiction: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Kerbals, like Dr Jekyll, are perfect. They have no vices or selfish tendencies, and they live in what humans would call a utopian society. The Kerbulans, like Mr. Hyde, are flawed. Their faults completely define them, and they are only out to serve themselves. Curiously, though, they do have a form of government, even if it is only by power. Just like Dr. J and Mr. H, no humans are completely like either. The characters were used as an extreme example for literary reasons. I would argue that so are the Kerbals and Kerbulans, for a similar reason: which of these do you want to be? Not if you had some magic button o' morality, but in your day to day life. To clarify: this is my interpretation, not necessarily what Kuzzter intended.

That's looking good!

I picked up Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm when it was free for a bit recently, but then I bought Oxygen not Included and Planet Coaster. So now I'm playing those.

Thanks!