JoeSchmuckatelli

You are describing my whole post save and reload KSP career. ...as long as it's not a crater and can 'do science' it's a success. Rite? Rite?

If it doesn't include 'Deism' (as understood by the 18th century rationalists) then it's not complete.

That is the statement on cost savings right there. Wow

Yep. And the Forum Kraken is occasionally letting me see the whole S&Sf sub. But as often as not I get 502 and 503 errors

Yes, but as Orion fuel?

If NASA (et. al) would just study my KSP lander design, they'd know the proper next step is to stow the landing legs, use the reaction wheels via WASD to right the craft, then lower the legs again for the perfect landing.

... well, don't forget that 'Freedom of Religion' originally meant 'freedom to discriminate against non-Puritans'. Catholicism was illegal in many Colonies and in New England the Sheriff could arrest you for not going to church. Somehow we survived all that.

I'm glad someone realized what this was. I kept seeing "Debris" at KSC and could never figure out what was there.

News Flash: Boys and Girls are different! (FMRI brain scans sorted by AI & science note structural and functional differences in male and female brains) AI Finds Women and Men Differ with Respect to Brain Organization and Function (genengnews.com)

Quality necro. 9 years - but a worthy topic. @KerikBalm is the only participant I recognize. Nostalgia much?

I've been thinking along the same terms. Take something relatively stable and not reactive - and have the ability to create the reactive products required at the place we desire to acquire them. Pretty hard for the hydrogen to escape before you need it if its locked up in water ice until you need it.

That question is the kicker. I think the problem is in the wording of the name and the collective fearmongering that has occurred. We call it Artificial Intelligence. And then label a tool that very artfully tells us what we want to hear as "intelligence"... and mistake that for actual intelligence (a word that in itself is totally muddled, especially in English). Think back to the last decade or so of people talking about people - things like EQ vs IQ (emotional quotient vs intelligence quotient), wisdom, intuition... all the things that make up a 'mind' or a 'person'. I frankly don't think we are anywhere close to creating a mind. We are just creating yet another disruptive technological tool that we cannot yet predict how far it will go towards changing our society. But to layer on top of this concern the fantasy that AI will both become self-aware and then decide to control us? (Remember the old saw, the only real way you control a thing is by possessing the ability to destroy the thing) The real foundational risk is 1984. When we (people) become reliant on the tool and the (government/corporation) decides what we can and cannot know. That's not a new risk. It is THE risk.

Probably not long - there are scores of examples of 'prey' relationships where the larger animals are responsive to warning calls by birds or small mammals or reactive to other herd actions. Being cognizant of the environment and what disparate signals might mean has been a key to survival forever. I liked reading what you wrote because it shows the tour guides (and government regulators) are aware of human impacts and trying to be responsible. But seeing humans has always been a threat for most of these animals, whether we are in a Jeep or not... and if we show up repeatedly right before the lion attacks - that's not much different from 10,000 years of evolution informing them that where humans are, dogs are likely to attack, and bad things happen. They don't know we're just watching for entertainment; they just know that where one predator acts in a given way (Jeep stops) it likely means there are others about to pounce. ... My biggest complaint about the AI hype is that it's all based on predictive algorithms; trying to predict the qualitative answer sought by the user - and thus is simply a more efficient tool. Even the graphic work is just predictive; "Is this what you want?" is the output. We're a far cry from any of these systems having a desire of their own. Think about it: elephants are supposedly self-aware. They have names for each other and recognize themselves in a mirror (among other things). That intelligence is tied up with their own survival and needs/wants. Nothing I've ever seen has suggested that these intelligent animals have any desire to learn to play music for their own entertainment, much less design a rifle and start fighting back against the poachers. Even if our tools can now mimic what our artists can create (AI music, AI art, AI writing) - that is still just a tool spitting out a predictive response based on inputs. Wake me up when AI starts writing its own music for itself to enjoy.

I know this is a side issue - and one affecting other advanced economies like SK, etc., but I wonder if it will be as problematic as predicted. Certainly the world has never experienced a net reduction in population (as some predict peak human population @ 2080). But I wonder if this fear is based on the 'traditional way of doing things'. Given that necessity is the mother of invention, a country like Japan is highly likely to figure out a solution. One that may rely on good relationships with other countries - something Japan enjoys. Having said that - I agree that so long as purchasing seats is viable for human launch, that makes economic sense - I still would hate to see a nation with the technical and manufacturing skill of Japan get out of space entirely.

"... if you were to transport Jupiter to the distance of Proxima, its cacophonous outbursts would be roughly a thousand times weaker than the faintest signal our radio telescopes can detect. In other words, this explanation for the detection depends on there being an extraordinarily noisy world orbiting Proxima Centauri. Not impossible, but a bit unlikely. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the signal is really, really local. A microwave oven in the break room of the Parkes radio telescope caused considerable consternation five years ago when it produced signals that, at first, suggested that something remarkable was happening in the distant cosmos. In fact, it was just someone heating up lunch." https://www.seti.org/signal-proxima-centauri I don't think this answers the question - but it does illustrate the problem Just for fun, here's a bunch of space sounds - from Jovian lightning to Saturn's aurora. Cool, trippy and weird https://www.npr.org/2011/02/20/133914639/tuning-in-space-noise-for-sounds-of-life FYI turn down your speakers before playing. Mid volume - no more.

When they dump a battery pack on the way to a 500km pe... Doesn't that leave a fairly small, fairly heavy bit of debris hurtling about? (I know they're dumping a stage, too - but its surface area makes it easier to track and degrade) Have they ever talked about this?

Won't lie - I'm impressed by some of this. Mind you - the folks already welcoming our AI orverlordes are premateuaur. (spelling intentional, for those who get it)

I'm in a place where I can't listen to the audio. What's the premise of the grid fin speculation?

Not a bad idea - except as I try to imagine this in 3D, it dawns on me that one of the tanks is above the COM and one below. As they rotate it the centrifugal force will push liquids to the separate ends of the craft, and then when they light, all the fluid on the far side of the craft is going to go engineward. So unless you're going to turn the whole thing while under thrust... The one thing I don't know is how violent SS's ignition is on Booster... presumably as soon as they light SS, that will cause some deceleration of Booster and inertia will start lifting the liquid propellants away from the bottom of the tanks. I'll go back to my prediction: a slow rotation, followed by deceleration to settle the fluids and finally a boostback burn.

delayed start / staggered start makes sense; if they can get the ship to decelerate fairly gently for a bit, most of the fluid should settle where they want it. Then they can kick back to earth. Might not be as efficient fuel-wise as they'd hoped, but could avoid a RUD.

So... from this, we can gather they liked the hot-staging. But I doubt they've had time to address fluid hammer - if that was the thing. Speculation: they're gonna try to get SS to the Pacific as the primary goal of the flight and just see what happens with a slower flip.

I pulled that from the second vid you supplied. My answer is based on this: SETI has been around long enough and is so well known that if there were anything exciting... we'd all know about it.

Pretty much. Gravity bombs do have some kinetic penetration ability - but the main weapon is the chemical energy charge inside. What changes is how the fuse works; a point detonating fuse doesn't exactly go off at the moment of impact - but it's close enough. Hit something hard and you get very little penetration before the chemical explosive is triggered and most of the explosion is at or near the surface. Put a delayed fuse on there and you allow the kinetic property of the bomb to (hopefully) penetrate the surface before detonating - and you get the damage inside the target (presuming a hit). This is with simple HE. There are a myriad of ways to design bombs and shells. The big, air dropped ones like MOAB or MOP are going to use their weight differently. MOAB gives you a LOT of chemical energy. MOP gives you a LOT of penetration. Simple gravity bomb design is going to take into account the type of effect desired and change things like the fuse timing, material of the body/nose, etc. You can compare with tank ammo; the SABOT is pure KE where the other variations of HE, HEDP, HEAT (etc. ad nauseum) are all designed in varying ways to mix the KE and CE properties of the round to one degree or another. With the first - speed is necessary. With the latter? Depends. One difference vis altitude is the hyperkinetic weapons under development - where they're going for extreme streamlining to maximize KE. There are a lot of ways to get the weapon up high and moving fast. But for the simple / improved gravity bomb? Weight, material, streamlining, etc all go into the 'what do you want to do' answer.

Also for "Remodeling" projects in California (and other jurisdictions) - where so long as one wall remains, it's a remodel, not a teardown and new build. People play funny games with the law. It's one of the saving graces of the profession.

A 72 second blank signal with no data. Too many other 'could be's ' to go automatically assuming it's actually a signal and not just noise. i.e. not likely to be an intentional transmission.