GoSlash27

Yes, the F9 performed properly. No, this "failure" (allegedly) will not affect future flights. IF (and that's a big if) there actually was a failure, it was not on SpaceX's end. They have no intention of doing a review. HTHs, -Slashy

Hell, who was in charge of checking the staging and reading the engineer's report? Didn't they think to revert to launch? What kind of a space program are they running here?? -Slashy

Nibb31, Good catch. I think PAN was a SIGINT sat and CLIO looked to be the same. SIGINT would fall under NSA, so that may be what ZUMA is about also. -Slashy

tomf, Another possibility: They changed the name to "Zuma" because "crossbow" was too obvious. Expect an MIT professor to wind up with a house full of popcorn shortly. Best, -Slashy

So summarizing what we *think* we know: Not nuclear, Doesn't weigh more than 10 tonnes, approx. 50 degree inclination...

Nibb31, Yup. I'm not convinced that Zuma actually failed. #1 Somebody's willing to talk about the rumor that Zuma failed, but not about what Zuma is? Implausible. #2 Zuma is so critically important and secret, yet they designed their own adapter and then failed to make sure it was perfect? Also implausible. It's all too convenient. I think they just want everyone to *think* Zuma failed. Best, -Slashy

I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's a spy sat. I think it's something that would cause a huge flap if people knew it was up there. Perhaps a testbed nuclear rocket engine, or some type of weapons platform... Best, -Slashy

All this breathless reporting of "possible failure" is just another example of bad journalism. One single unconfirmed rumor, and all the news agencies go into a feeding frenzy quoting each other. It's really quite pathetic... Best, -Slashy

Just Jim, I was just taking another look at it myself. Best, -Slashy

I sat through the entire holiday special once, just to say I did it. It's all "very bad®", but the animated sequence with C3PO on the ocean planet has a sort of "Heavy Metal" feel to it. Still a better love story than Twilight. -Slashy

My favorites are IV and the first half of V. Rogue 1 and VII are okay but not great. I have no use for the rest. Best, -Slashy

PakledHostage, This is why I was so careful to differentiate between "story" and "enjoyable". As SoE said, " if you think about the story in Ep7-8 too much (like at all) it starts to smell like a wet wookie". But that doesn't mean you can't have a good time watching it. Also, I should point out that the reviews on RT have gone down since the last time I mentioned them. Now they're 90/50. Best, -Slashy

Earthlinger, Ask a thousand different people, and you'll get two different answers. The viewers are split 50/50 on it. Is it objectively a "good" movie, story- wise? No. *Emphatically* no. The majority of viewers will agree on that point. Is it an "enjoyable" movie? Maybe, maybe not. Here's where the viewers are split. It really depends on your ability to enjoy the fun parts and overlook the bad parts. I have a low tolerance for wading through bad storytelling to get to the good parts, and others don't. It's entirely subjective. So maybe you'll enjoy it, maybe you won't. Many viewers did, many didn't. Best, -Slashy

My home computer wallpaper is a screen cap from back when I was heavily into FSX. A pair of F-14s flying close formation out on patrol. My work wallpaper is a large folder of random geeky/ space nerd images that make me happy. Best, -Slashy

COD, I hadn't read it. Nothing personal, but I'm not interested in alternate storylines, characters, etc. I'm just interested in why what we got was so bad. I'm really interested in finding out how this screenplay wound up being so bad. JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson are credited with the screenplay, but I don't picture them writing this. In both cases, previous scripts had a lot more complex characters and conflict than this. Best, -Slashy

KSK, I really have no way of convincing you that your personal view of Rey is "wrong", and I won't bother trying I would, however, like to point out that a "Mary Sue" character is about a lot more than just being overpowered. Here's a common list of Mary Sue traits: *Implausibly good at everything s/he attempts with no prior training or experience *Better at the tasks of other protagonists that are their specialty *No noticeable imperfections or weaknesses *Universally liked and admired by all other characters, including occasionally their enemies. *Never seen struggling; everything comes easily I would argue that Rey is a textbook example of this in all respects. Better at flying the Millenium Falcon than Han Solo (with zero previous flight experience) and also better at fixing it than Chewbacca. Better marksman than everybody else on a battlefield with no experience. Able to defeat a room full of Imperial Guards with no training. Has only just met Chewbacca, but is interpreting for Luke Skywalker, who has known Chewie for decades. Everybody knows Rey. Everybody loves Rey at first sight. Even Snoke loves Rey. Rey never gets into any serious trouble where she needs help. She's more likely to end up rescuing whoever is sent to rescue her. And on, and, on, and on.... So yeah... if it's not enough of a problem to distract *you*, then for *you* she doesn't qualify as a "Mary Sue". But I'm sure you can see how, objectively, others might. Best, -Slashy

"Is Daisy Ridley right that calling Rey a Mary Sue is sexist?" Absolutely not. Best, -Slashy

After having a week to reflect on this film, I have come to the conclusion that this would not have been a "good" film no matter what they did with it, *but* it could have been a much more enjoyable film with better editing. There were enough enjoyable scenes and sequences in there to make a fun movie out of, but they are disjointed by a hash of bad (and sometimes cringe- worthy) scenes that ruin the film as a whole. While I stand by all my complaints about the script, acting, character development, micromanagement etc that kept this from being an objectively good movie, I'm willing to set that all aside and focus on the editing as the main problem. AFA the whole "Rey being too good" flap, I want to reiterate my position. This guy is basically the male equivalent of Rey. He's not a "hero" archetype, he's a cartoon character. He's funny because his awesomeness is so absurd. The problem with Rey isn't whether or not her awesomeness is justified by canon or explainable by the mechanics of the story universe. The problem is that she is simply too awesome to be a hero character. Nobody sees her suffer, struggle, overcome fear and adversity. Nobody can imagine themselves *being* her, so they never develop a bond with her. She's just plain boring. Best, -Slashy

wcmille, When you run into the question of single vs. multiple stages, it really begins to illustrate just how futile raw Isp is as a benchmark... at least in stock KSP applications. When the DV budget runs to the edges of performance for a single stage, I usually run a few iterations of single vs. 2 or even 3 stage combos just as a sanity check. After a while, you kind of get a feel for what's a good single stage solution vs. what's not. For hybrid combos, that's absolutely a problem. There's an insanely high number of possible combinations of random engines to check. Maybe one or several combinations are better than the single engine solutions. Since I'm such a lazy man, I've found that the best approach is to not look at hybrid solutions at all, just to simplify the math. There may be some superior hybrid solutions out there, but usually they're not superior enough to justify the effort of looking for them. You could perhaps do better with a hybrid stage, but not much in the overall scheme of things. In almost all applications (especially once you get to orbit), I've found that the most expedient solution is one that involves a single engine rather than multiples. Easier to build, more structurally sound, etc. What this approach *really* lacks is evaluating the merits of serial staging vs. parallel and other more exotic concepts like drop tanks, asparagus, twisted candle, etc. It's just straight serial. Too hard to model that stuff in a simple fashion, but there are often substantial gains to be found there. I've figured out some rules of thumb for lifters. When to trade complex for cheap, etc. But once in orbit, I try not to stage at all if I can help it, 'cuz I prefer to reuse my hardware rather than throw it away. Best, -Slashy

^ Exactly. This is why the mission is planned backwards before designing the hardware. In order to design the ideal stage for a job, you need to know exactly what the job is. Atmospheric density, minimum acceptable acceleration, payload, and DV. Once you have those defined, you can mathematically model stages using every engine to find the lightest or cheapest one. Best, -Slashy

Kinda sad, but after getting served this steaming pile of a movie and hearing about all the production problems with Solo.... I think I'll just wait for the audience reviews before going to see it. Looking forward to Ready Player One tho' -Slashy

T-10a, As bigcalm pointed out, you need m-dot to figure out the thrust. You need to know how big the engine is; how quickly you can stuff fuel down it's throat. Since the engine can theoretically be any size, there is no single answer. Best, -Slashy

I see no reason for this to be true. e^(DV/Ve) is simply Mw/Md, or how much of the rocket is fuel. All else being equal, I don't see any difference whatsoever if the first stage is more efficient or the second. You either wind up with a heavy payload pushed by a lighter stage with more fuel to compensate, or a light payload pushed by a bloated stage. It all works out the same. What *really* matters is that each individual stage is optimized for it's mission. There are a lot more considerations than just raw Isp, and that often isn't even the big consideration. To be sure, you have to mathematically model each stage with every engine and then pick the lightest resultant stage and then rinse and repeat. This is pretty easy to do with a spreadsheet, and how I design all my missions. Best, -Slashy

DDE, They may well have done this, but if so it's a huge "screw you" to the viewer. It'd be like having the big Luke reveal at the end of VII and then not having him appear at all in VIII. The foreshadowing is a bit too prominent and detailed for them to just hand- wave it away like that. Happy New Year, -Slashy

tater, Yep. The important phrase being "steaming pile of a movie". Anakin was also a lousy hero character. For me, the concern is that her back story was set up to be something bigger in Episode VII. She was bundled off to some backwater junkyard to be watched over by one of Luke's friends, and she patiently waited for her parents' return all those years. Either Kylo is blowing smoke up our collective asses or else this is a major continuity error. My bet is the former, and her true origin will be revealed in IX. Can't fault that logic -Slashy