JoeSchmuckatelli

Yeah - there's no need for him to even engage.

That's awesome! ... I grew up in L.A., and the most wildlife we saw were skunks and possums. Possums, are, by the way the most successful mammal in America - as far as I can tell. They live everywhere from San Diego to Seattle and I've seen them all along the Eastern Seaboard, Arkansas, Kentucky, Colorado and Michigan. They're literally everywhere. Another fun fact: LA is one of those cities where you can go jogging along a trail and get killed by a mountain lion. I never saw one... but I read the papers!

Coyotes. In the city... ...the city of Compton

Ah - the Huggies Wet Wipes... Like a shower when you can't take a shower!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/blue-origin-new-shepard-ns-17-launch-webcast Curious as to how suborbital flights are going to be economical or perform sufficient science to make continued use of NS viable. Looking more like a Texas sized tourist attraction Maybe once the kids are out of college and it's just the wife and I... She'll buy me a ticket? ... (he said worriedly)

There is a certain benefit to having a place like Starbase adjacent to (or inside) a refuge: it won't be paved over for mega-hotels, parkinglots and shops. There are people in the US who are completely and totally against any and all building/industry in such areas, but they're rare.. Admittedly, some places do need protection like that (no one wants to see massive, industrial thermo-electric plants in Yellowstone) - but many can be dual-use. KSC showcases how: NASA - Space Center Balances Nature and Launch Operations

There are some really good videos out there. Sadly most seem like they're designed so my 6th grader can understand (which is good when trying to get her excited about space) - but sometimes a duffer like me needs a bit of a deeper dive. Those are hard to find! Now - this one is quite good (about the EHT effort to image a BH, and (IIRC) Stephen Hawking's last (and less famous collaborators') paper on soft hair (attempting to solve the information paradox). The Edge of All We Know (2020) - IMDb - its on Netflix (I think)

Not exactly a Russian launch product (or is it...???) - but this was filmed in Russia and is pretty cool: Mystery ‘jellyfish-shaped object’ filmed ‘entering atmosphere’ over Russia (the-sun.com)

@.50calBMG Wait - Starliner is the payload, right? Is the above argument like saying Dragon 'was so close to orbit when it started...' because Falcon did the heavy lifting? Color me confused.

Maybe Amazon won't deliver?

Shenanigans

So long as it looks 2050 I'll feel like it wasn't false advertising

How in the? I can build a house in a matter of months. Strip and rebuild an engine... Never mind you get the picture... How does it take 4 YEARS to build... Anything?!?

If it doesn't float on lasers... I am dissapoint

Lolz! Well played

Companies routinely give to both parties - and yet more often than not - greater amounts to the party in power, the politically powerful and the - local guy' regardless of party (unless she refuses to play ball). Not so much evidence of corruption as much as 'how things are done'

yep. Me too - most of these modern boring machines auto-place prefabbed concrete rings as they trundle along... and Boston and other 'coastal' mining / boring / tunnelling projects prove its possible.

I'm no geologist... but it looks like the 'rock' they'd be drilling through is pretty much alluvia. Report 365 chapter 2 (texas.gov) Sounds like a muddy mess to tunnel through.

For those interested in such things: a candidate 'previously unknown branch of archaic humans' may have been discovered. A divergent or parallel population to the Denisovan humans who preceded modern humans into the SEA islands. Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea | Nature Ancient DNA from a teenage girl reveals previously unknown group of humans - CNN

LOL - at this: "Today I am sending invitations to Mr. Elon Musk, whom we respect in Russia. Of course, we would like to invite Mr. Branson, Mr. Bezos..." (the implication of 'who we respect' and the location of the period in the sentence.)

Yes - but could you stand on it... or would you have to swim?

The timing is odd, however. The 'date sent' about the purportedly SX favoring 'Trump appointed idiots' in charge happened after said appointees were gone. I'm not 100% denying these are authentic - but RU and CN agents have gotten really good at manipulation of American public opinion via insinuations like these. So I'm very leery about trusting 'leaks'. ... Edit - let me also add this: while our recent SX vs ULA vs BO discussions have all been about domestic (US) launch products and the rapidly (or not so rapidly) changing cultures (Space is Hard, Change is Harder)... there are other entities who are alarmed by SX's progress. Places where launch tech is intrinsically tied with their military and national pride projects. Remember - people look at other people through their own filters. While our legends are replete with US and Soviet misunderstandings / misinterpretations of intentions & capabilities... that tendency has not stopped. It is likely that policymakers in RU and CN cannot help but see SX as developing military capabilities for the US - and even if they view it's efforts as a National Prestige project... too often people see such as a zero-sum game: 'their' advancement is a mark against 'us.' So while we in the US are 'comfortable' with inter-corporate competition and see these as natural and not 'government' - people outside the US see it as 'American' advancement and might just want to throw a monkey wrench into the works. We've proven to be our own worst enemies in the past several years, easily manipulated through hints, innuendo and misinformation spread on social media -- so if it works, why stop using it? While this edit might sound political - it's actually just a RealPolitik* reminder to readers as we view this latest 'leak' and 'controversy' to ask - 'whose purpose is served' by the release and timing of the communication (regardless of whether it is true or false). Rather than grab our +4 Lance of Outrage and tilt at the closest windmill (ULA, Unions, Government)... we should remember the whisper-campaigns of middle school. Not everything 'he said' or 'she said' is true. Thus endeth the sermon. *Realpolitik is distinct from ideological politics in that it is not dictated by a fixed set of rules but instead tends to be goal-oriented, limited only by practical exigencies. \ EDIT 2: @SunlitZelkova - I'll append this here, to also take no more space:

@Beccab - I'd be pretty leery of trusting what you read there. Looks a bit more like someone cribbed an authentic looking email header and put in their own text designed to stir controversy "The emails make claims, some of which are verifiable and some which seem to be wildly erroneous..." https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/science/2021/08/in-leaked-email-ula-official-calls-nasa-leadership-incompetent/%3famp=1

Thanks to you - I had to Google that... Yeah - I get that - so the place to look would be in the repellers*. Makes you wonder if a star could be negative mass whether it's light would be visible at all (as in - if it does not follow one rule, why would it follow any rule?) ... And even - if a particle could be negative mass... Would it be attractive to other negative mass particles? Could there ever be a negative mass star??? (Alice - are you down there?) * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_repeller

So - while I've never launched a rocket to space - I do have years of experience working with 'Range Control' in various places - and you are right: even the best working relationship with RC is still a pain. I've worked on Army bases where it seemed like we were not allowed to do anything but a canned and rigidly controlled shoot (and if you missed your time, you went to the back of the queue) - and others where it seemed like we could literally do anything - I mean ANYTHING - presuming we could show all our ducks were in a row and it was safe (order on purpose). At times it seemed like the only difference was the person sitting behind the desk, at others it was the whole Range culture - so you never quite knew what to expect from one visit to RC to the next. On Marine bases everything was much easier (because we spoke the same language) - but still a pain because the restrictions (whether on time, space or direction) were hard set - and here's the key - we had to share the range with other entities. Even when we owned the range entirely, coordination with outside agencies was required - and that proved to be the best situation because we controlled the most variables. So SX moving to BC is actually brilliant.* There is no way that they could have done what we've seen in the last 18 months without owning their own range. *(What they should do is build yet another connected launch area and offer it to NASA / SpaceFarce - which will get the government committed to making sure that the environmental reviews are passed)