RCgothic

At least a month probably much more. Just entering a minimum one month public consultation period, after which the are more steps. Environmental Impact Assessments don't move fast .

Still a lot of tiling to do on the fairing!

The national team's stability probably isn't much better than Starship's. It's a full ascent stage sitting on ton of a tall and empty descent stage. Despite the wide legs the CoM is going to be high. Whereas Starship may be tall, but its ascent propellant will be sitting at the bottom of its tanks which will help to counterbalance high payload.

Asked and answered:

Also is not a good representation of what NASA had to say about the sum of risks of both programmes in general. Something something propulsion system. Something something long astronaut days.

Not a good look.

That's a great interview Tim did with Elon. Loads of engineering goodness!

When the booster is tilted away from the direction of flight it generates lift like a very draggy wing (body lift). As the goal is to slow down, both drag and lift is good. But body lift creates a very turbulent wake on the lee side of the booster (because it's at an angle to the flow). Fins placed in the turbulence are less effective. Placing them in the side makes them more effective, which means the booster can be tilted more, which creates both more lift and drag.

As has been stated, the nozzles aren't hot. If I were to guess at what sevenperforce means, because each engine is completely surrounded (or at least one engine in the cluster is in each case, F9 and SH) the inverse square law doesn't apply. What counts is the width of the sight angle from the engine head to the exhaust plumes. This angle can be significantly cut down by placing the engines close together.

IIRC from Liftoff, not much if anything. SpaceX did get an injection of cash towards Dragon and Falcon 9 that helped keep it afloat around the time of F1 flight 4, but before that it was completely on Musk's capital investment and their commercial contracts (for which they needed to put payloads in orbit to get paid).

Biggest is heavier and draggier is less payload.

It takes about 5 years to build an established design of nuclear plant with an established industry. See France, world leader in clean energy.

They're building a rocket with wooden scaffolding boards! There are over 20 people in that thing! Under $1000 per ton of thrust is under $230k per unit!

I agree. I'm not sure what they have planned, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Well no, Waterworld isn't a thing, RIP Kevin Costner's career. But up to 70m sea level rise could be, and that's only one of the adverse effects of rising temperatures.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Last night I watched Master and Command, one of my favourite films. At one point a damaged mast gives way in a storm, dropping a sailor into the sea. Though he could reach the wreckage and get back to the ship, the wreckage was causing the ship to broach sideways and inevitably be capsized by the storm. His best friend and his captain together cut the wreckage loose to his certain death because not to do so was would have doomed the whole ship. Similar situation. Sucks to be in the oil and gas industry, really. I grew up in it. My father worked for Shell his entire career. Ideally we'll compensate workers and retrain them for new industries. There's going to be plenty of work building the necessary mitigating infrastructure. Not all countries are that fair. Even so almost total closure of the industry is absolutely necessary. And I'd prosecute those industry individuals who knowingly lobbied against earlier climate action and spread disinformation despite knowing the effect was real. When we say we're headed for the worst case scenario where all the ice is gone, that doesn't mean it couldn't be worse. It can always be sooner and more severe. As I said earlier, I genuinely don't think it's possible to be too alarmist about the effects. I'll admit I'm less sure on how to effectively communicate the urgency of static action. Te Paris Climate Agreement isn't going to be enough. A ban on the sale of new ICE vehicles by 2030 is not going to be enough. I'm not seeing the new nuclear stations being built. I'm not seeing the 10x more renewables that are going to be needed being built. I'm not seeing has central heating being ripped out in favour of electric. I'm not seeing widescale trials of carbon capture and sequestering ready for imminent full scale roll out. Until those things start happening at a serious rate we'll know this isn't being taken as seriously as needs be at the top.

I work for big engineering company. The bonus scheme was scrapped and replaced with a consistent salary supplement. Basically, management didn't know who was performing so the entire department was getting bonuses based on overall group performance, something we had no direct control over. We much prefer this method.

Again, I genuinely don't understand a lack of panic about the climate emergency. The best scientific consensus is that total melting of the ice caps well occur at 1.6degC above pre-industrial levels. We're all set to blow through 3degC within reasonable average remaining lifespans. That'd result in a 70m sea rise which will displace every coastal settlement including must of the world's major cities. My city is about as far inland as it is possible to get in the UK. (69.6 miles Vs 70.0 max). It's only 63m above sea level. Only immediate bans and sequestration efforts have a hope of slowing the coming catastrophes. This will only get worse the longer it isn't addressed. And yes, developed nations will need to aid less developed nations.