RCgothic

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.

We're on track for a serious rise in average global temperatures. Whilst no-one here is suggesting the effects will be immediate, we could easily beach +3 deg C within my lifetime (twice that at the poles), and much more within our children's. The immediate effects of 3deg will be extremely servere storms, extremely severe droughts, and extremely severe heat waves. As temperatures and humidity rises, Wet bulb temperatures exceeding 35deg (currently exceedingly rare) will be experienced in more places, effectively rendering anywhere this could occur lethally uninhabitable to humans and animals without AC. Given that North America is already experiencing the worst drought on record, Canada is experiencing a crippling heat wave, we've had some of the most active hurricane seasons ever in recent years, and land temperature in the Arctic circle recently exceeded 48 degC, note that we're just getting started and then recalibrate your definition of "extremely". The last time global temperatures were that high, there was no ice cap and sea levels were 20m higher than today. Ok, we've acknowledged that temperature change won't happen overnight, and sea level rises will lag temperature rises. But 20m is enough to inundate almost every major city on earth, and the most productive farming lands are low lying. Over a billion people in South Asia alone would be displaced. Plant and animal life can't adapt to changes this fast. There will be mass extinctions and many food chains will completely collapse with unpredictable results. Even if not, the flora and fauna of regions will change drastically. With reduced land area, reduced farmlands, billions of people displaced, the socioeconomic pressure will be extreme. National borders will be re-written, with associated wars. Nuclear powers could collapse or become belligerent in defence or to secure resources. This comes with heightened risk of nuclear exchange. Honestly, I genuinely don't know if it's possible to be too alarmist on this subject. Anyone under 40 stands a strong chance of living to see a large portion of all of the above coming to pass. We are already seeing it come to pass. We're well past the point of evidence where we go "even if we clean up our act and it was all for nothing" - no, it genuinely is not for nothing. Every mitigation will slow and delay the coming changes, buying more time to adapt. But even so, the WHO estimates air pollution kills seven million people a year worldwide. Addressing that alone would be worth it even without the climate effects. As is, I think we're going to have to do some *serious* geo-engineering to get out of this one. Personally think we need immediate nuclear and renewable-powered carbon capture and sequestration starting yesterday, together with a complete ban on burning any fossil product as soon as practicably possible. Unmitigated climate change is most likely survivable as a species, barring some Venusian runaway. But there are a great many survivable things that we shouldn't want to experience.