StrandedonEarth

That'll happen when it becomes infamous...

Every harbor city is taking a close look at their bridge piers today. The consensus seems to be rock barriers a distance away from the bridge towers.

I’m guessing the main issue that even a laser beam will diverge, losing power intensity as it does. A larger beam will still diverge, but power intensity will not drop off as fast with distance as a narrow beam of the same total power. As long as the power intensity (W/m2) is still enough to achieve what it is intended to do

As far as fusion power goes, there’s also General Fusion, but I don’t think that’s easily convertible to a direct Fusion Drive…

Definitely not "all." One Soviet nuclear sat (Kosmos 954) crashed in the Canadian Arctic in 1978

Needs an extra +1 for referencing Professor Calculus’ nuclear hybrid rocket. Hopefully Starship-HLS can land the tank-style rover!

SpX: “Not enough control authority, adding more, with heaters to prevent clogs” FAA: “Ok”

Launch was a hit in San Diego, it's all over imgur... E: Video clip: https://i.imgur.com/abb2NnA.mp4 E2: I have to wonder if those white dots are stars or fairing halves...

Yeah, I was thining it would make more sense as combined cycle, since spacecraft need power. But would it not be more efficient to just keep heating the plasma with microwaves, like VASIMR?

Falcon 9 wows the crowd (and the announcers) at a spring training baseball game in Pt St Lucie, Fl: https://x.com/awfulannouncing/status/1768804502390358102?s=20

Methagox RCS makes the most sense, if reliable ignition isn’t an issue. The last thing they want is more complexity, especially hazardous chemicals like hypergolics. Although if that’s what they need for HLS, all bets are off…

Well, if government would up their budget, but *politics*

I had to watch the flight while also trying to work, and doing neither particularly well. Now I can catch up on the thread and post… What I did notice doing during reentry, after plasma started up, was “wait, now it’s moving sideways? …. Now it’s upside down?” Whoops, back to work, break was longer than it should have been…

I’m pretty sure those types of defects are found with xray or ultrasound testing

@Kerwood Floyd They also lost the first three Falcon 1 rockets (but they didn’t “blow up” unless you count the first one crashing) before succeeding on the fourth and final attempt. That story is detailed in the book “Liftoff!” by Eric Berger, which is worth the read IMO

Does the F-15 even have any decent attachment point for the arresting hook. How much re-design would that have taken?

Google is your friend... Oxford Electric Bell - Wikipedia

Early theories also postulated that the large moon was necessary to strip away excess atmosphere, preventing a Venus-style runaway greenhouse effect. But I think that theory was disproven, or at least has not gained much traction.

I was under the impression that the corona still emitted UV, and under the darker skies of totality the eye's pupils open wider, letting in even more. But apparently I was mistaken or misinformed. At least it spurred me to do a little research on that. I edited that post for clarity.

I was going to call bullcrap, but decided to research first, and got an answer straight from one of the biggest solar experts: Safety (nasa.gov), so I would have been wrong.

Hmmm, I wonder if the RV parks have cranked their rates too. Not that we would make it there…

I’m guessing they need thrust for ullage to dump the LOX, especially at any reasonable flow rate.

It’s also used as a command for my dog to find and clean up dropped food…

Metal-poor worlds. Assuming intelligent life could even develop, advanced tech requiring metalworks would be rather difficult…