cubinator

I'd be worried if there's still no communication after the dust clears. It's still quite thick from what I can tell visually.

(removed)

Try waiting a while. More space will appear between galaxies.

The ISS operates on GMT time.

Rock.

I don't question the fact that they would probably not look anything like us. Different environments call for different adaptations, after all. And there are plenty of known lifeforms that don't want to leave, like trees and mice and beetles. The question is whether anything besides us would try to go to space, and succeed. Of course, there are ways to colonize space even without intelligence. Primordial microbes have an aptitude for surviving in space, and given the right conditions could spread to many planets.

Do many people realize how much Undertale is based on Super Paper Mario?

I think we know very little about the conditions on Mars in a way that would allow us to make meaningful conclusions regarding terraforming. However, it's pretty clear that sending people there to stay just a little while is doable with today's tech, and I think once we accomplish that we will be able to find out for sure exactly what it takes to make Mars really habitable.

Oh boy...that's more than 2.16 million cubic meters of cubes...at least they fit neatly together. I'm gonna sell the metal and component parts and make like $4 million.

Last night I was looking at the stars, and while I have always believed it is likely there are other beings more advanced than us in the sky, I thought about the time it would take us to colonize the galaxy. Even without FTL travel, we could use high-impulse colony ships to reach the other side in just a few million years. If there were some other beings to achieve this, they would probably have spread throughout the entire galaxy, perhaps even to Earth. But we see no evidence of this. I considered the possibility that we are the first ones in the universe to come this far. We may be the only living beings in the universe with even a chance at outlasting our sun, and answering those ultimate questions. If we really are the only ones, we really must hold together for the next hundred years. If we can make it out to the other planets of our star, we will be able to eventually find a way out into the galaxy, and doing that will very nearly guarantee that Earthly life lives on for at least 100 billion years, by my estimate. Even if there is an end to all things, as our understanding of the laws of nature predicts, we can do better than dying on this little planet. I want a future where people can explore other star systems. A future where we outlive our sun opens up so many more possibilities for worlds and histories, it is too good a chance not to take. I am not ready to leave yet. There is much to be done on Earth before I am ready to leave the cocoon of our world. But Mars is where I will go. I want to be a part of setting up the first real settlements on another world. We have the chance to colonize Mars in this lifetime. If we succeed, we will almost certainly be able to move on into the galaxy. That is the difference I want to make. A positive influence lasting, at a minimum, 100000000000 years. If we are the only ones in the universe to get this far, we must prevail, because if we don't go to the stars it may not ever happen.

I agree, the whole point of an SSTO is for it to be all-in-one for reusability. If you have a 100% reusable two-stage rocket, it's just as good at reducing cost, and you don't have to land something 90 meters tall on Mars.

You can do some serious orbital assembly with even a 9 m ship, and that might be cheaper if the rockets are ~100x reusable. Might even save dry mass on the space tug. Going back to 12 m ITS design would be a sound step either way once the 9 m BFR is flying frequently. TWR ASL is probably way too low to take off, though.

Really makes you wonder if there's really some monolith sitting around for five million years or something...either way, if we are the only ones I hope we don't blow it for ourselves just yet. And I hope there are lots of creatures out there with great and wondrous abilities, even if none of them have decided that it's worth it to invent, tinker, and wonder to the point of expanding into the stars.

Nooo, you beat me to it!

One dream of mine broke suspension of disbelief because there were four modules on the ISS that formed a loop. I thought, That's not how the ISS is layed out!

Movement and rotation of a 4D object requires a fifth axis for time in this model. One thing you can do is imagine all the ways a 3D cube can rotate in 4D. You can do all the normal 3D rotations, but you can also make it appear flat 2D, and flip it over so that it is mirrored.

Have cephalopods always been so intelligent? Squid and octopus-like creatures have been around for a long time, but have not built megastructures or colonized land or space. Is their relatively high intelligence a recent development, or have they simply never felt like taking over the world? Perhaps there was never an evolutionary necessity to advance beyond the point they are at now, and they don't have a reason to become intelligent enough to have such ideas.

"Did you ever hear of the sad story of Dark Side Guy the Knowing? It's not a story the Light Side Guys would tell you. It's a Dark story. Dark Side Guy the Knowing was a Dark Guy so strong he could use the Force to make life. He knew so much about the Dark Side he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The Dark Side of the Force is a path to do many things some think are not normal. He became so strong the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which after some time, of course, he did. He taught his student everything he knew, which was bad for him because the student killed him in his sleep. Funny. He could save others from death, but not himself."

New song: Emergency

Imperfect fairing recovery:

If you have large side boosters, you should put struts between them so that they don't move around too much. If you have reaction wheels available, place one on your stack and press "T" before launch to help stabilize the ship. "T" is useful even if you don't have reaction wheels, because most engines will gimbal to control your orientation while firing. For most people, launchpad operations usually consist of "T, Z, Spacebar" to activate stability assist, set throttle to max, and then fire the engines.

That's an interesting idea. To have a word for +W, for instance, you need to understand what it means for something to be on the W axis. Then your mind would recall that concept when it hears the word. I don't think language helps except as a tool for understanding a concept like higher dimensional space and time. Most of what I understand about 4D space comes not from words, but from visuals like drawing pictures of 4D shapes and their 3D cross-sections, and experimenting with 4D blocks, abacuses, and twisty puzzles in computer simulations. Through that experience I now can understand certain aspects of what it would be like to see in 4D space, and I think if I think about it hard enough I can put it all together and really, actually visualize in four dimensions with my mind. But I agree that thinking about words that beings living in a 4D world would use casually which we have no need for could help to understand the nuances of that world which are harder to get with hard geometry. P.S. If I ever do get to the point where I can really see in 4D easily, I will be sure to draw some 4D art to share!

Up, down, left, right, forward, backward, and a couple more words for +W and -W should do it for spatial 4D. Not sure how much more complicated it could get.

I think in that case you could have just told her it was part of a spaceship and she would have been smart enough to figure it out.

Last night I got my first close look at Mars in a while, and the only surface feature I could discern was a slightly darker brown smudge which I think is where the Valles Marineris is. Everything else was just orange. I think there's only one way to see Mars up close the way I want...