cubinator

I think we just solved dark matter.

We should eat the bugs too. Also, parasitoid wasps are helpful in controlling insect pests, when they can be found. No poison required, but we don't have a wasp for every pest yet.

Think I will go do some plane spotting tomorrow today, as I will happen to be near the airport with a fair amount of time to kill.

I dunno, Celestrak has a "click to estimate decay date" for a Starlink that says yesterday (because perigee < 150 km) and another that says tomorrow. https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/table.php?GROUP=last-30-days&FORMAT=tle

So what would be the time of day to go watch for falling satellites? 7PM/7AM? It's not dark then, but such things are pretty bright sometimes.

If you have a core, and you want to add side boosters to it for the purpose of adding thrust, then the core has to be designed to take all that thrust into its structure. It might be able to handle two big boosters or six small ones, but six big ones might crush it. Separating thrust out into many individual boosters also increases the dry mass of tank walls, number of parts you need to manufacture and test, etc. when you might be able to accomplish the same thing with fewer boosters. It's a big complicated tradeoff with many different answers, but I guess people who do it generally find they can get by best with smaller numbers of boosters.

Definitely smaller. We are comparing the groups of people "I think rockets are cool and I like to dream about them" with "I build real rockets for a living at the rocket company". Real rockets are a lot more complicated than KSP rockets and you're really going to be using a multitude of different softwares to simulate and evaluate them for real work, there's no one program that'll do it all and I think KSP wouldn't be a very good base for such a thing.

Have you tried GMAT? I haven't seen what it can do between ground and orbit, but it's highly versatile and professional for interplanetary stuff.

https://www.aavso.org/t-crb-time-sensitive-alerts-forum-thread I know I'll be posting about it here as soon as I see it, but the initial call to action will likely come on this AAVSO forum thread.

Were you expecting a smaller explosion when the rocket fell over into the water and broke apart completely nominally as per the test plan? Remember, they are undoubtedly still tuning the landing control systems for this new vehicle as they test, and they're probably leaving the tanks fuller than they need to be so as to have extra margin.

You could probably have a spacecraft that approaches space debris and spears or tangles it with a disposable electrostatic drag tail, or perhaps even a large inflatable balloon (no power!). The spacecraft could be armed with many of these devices and maneuver to rendezvous with numerous pieces of space junk.

Could be reflected light off something behind the camera. Of course, I'm not sure it's real either. I wish we could see it tipping over. Honestly, even if it's not real, we all know that's pretty much what it looked like.

They can construct the exhibit hall at the National Air & Space Museum with an open top, then land it directly there before building the roof.

Ok, so it floats. Now you need to make it not burn when it comes down.

Closest thing is probably the one in the NBL pool and its counterparts. I'm pretty sure that's split into various sections, but is complete enough for the astronauts to climb around on and practice whatever they need to. I agree, a museum replica would offer almost all the educational value of the real thing, aside from stuff like "that scratch came from a micrometeor strike back in 2015 etc. etc."

I still find myself wishing they could find a way to put it in a museum. But I know that to bring it back would take the same amount of effort that was taken to send it up.

I just went and found an adequate controller so I'll probably be getting more into MSFS soon. (i.e. once the update finishes in a couple days) In the meantime, I have been getting some microscopy equipment - I have a microscope, but didn't have blank slides and cover slips up until a few days ago when I got those, and today I got pipettes and some plastic vials for samples. Now I'm ready to go scoop up some lake water and see what's living in it!

Last time this nova was observed was in 1946. Were we even doing any meaningful radio astronomy at that point? I was thinking earlier that we may not have any detailed radio observations of this nova.

By the way, asteroid Pallas has been right next to this star the past few days, which is fun to watch it move from day to day.

That's definitely where he's getting that enormous number. I think he could stand to calm down just a little, as far as the timescale for humanity destroying itself. I applaud the initiative toward making some progress, though.

I'll most likely give Acolyte a shot at some point, but I haven't been feeling like watching a show lately.

Mealworm adults have started emerging, so I have to prepare some more bran for them to walk on. And I found that the typical plastic storage bins are not fit to handle the depths, so I will be using a length of PVC pipe to construct my sub.

The music.

Biked 26 miles today. The other interesting thing I thought of doing besides taking photos is scooping up mud samples from the bottom to observe the microbes under my microscope.

Hmmmm, watching out for an opportunity to go down to Texas... I'd honestly not be that surprised if they manage to throw at least one Starship at Mars in three years. They'll have done a fair number of test flights by that point, many of them orbital and probably cislunar, so I think they'd take the first opportunity to try to send something to Mars. If refueling turns out to take extra time to fix problems, I can see it taking longer. Maybe they could set down a tank of water with it, since there's no telling how long it'll be until anyone's there and that's a pretty universally useful resource.