SunlitZelkova

I wouldn’t say I am a bonafide “public transport supporter”, but I do agree with the sentiment. Also I can’t tell if the top of the picture in the tweet is visible while imbedded as I am on mobile, but it says “I don’t want self driving cars”. I don’t think it really is. This thread doesn’t specify that it has to be something already in the works in some form, so even things that people have thought up but not yet seriously pursued are on-topic too.

What the US government of the 1800s was willing to do for “da money” (albeit with the thinking that this would go back to the average Joe (no joke intended)) is very different from the US government of the 2020s. Even just one accident would be extremely traumatic. I don’t think the public has the appetite for profit over life anymore*. And in contrast to the 1800s where “bad things happen but life goes on”, raising one’s voice and trying to effect some sort of change- sometimes just for the sake of change without thinking it through- is the norm today. It will be interesting to see what happens though. What constitutes culpability in an accident can be very complex, I wonder what exactly Musk was thinking. Let’s say a guy changes lanes in an abrupt manner that a human might have been able to catch, but due to some flaw in the system an accident occurs and he nearly dies. Did he cause the incident or did the AI? From my personal point of view, it could be either, and these sorts of cases are what will be a major impediment to the large scale rollout of autonomous trucks. For cars it will be even tougher. *In this very specific case however. We accept the death toll of automobiles because they are convenient for the majority of us and they of course create economic benefits through transport and what not. I think it is because these are being caused by humans that these are accepted, however. I.e. if a human does it is acceptable because we are only human. We can’t go around banning and regulating everything where humans cause accidents- it would simply be infeasible as it would cover almost everything that goes wrong. But accidents caused by a machine itself? That’s the fault of the machine, and the machine will never truly be able to learn from its mistake- accidents will continue to happen. It will depend on just to what extent the issue is considered to be- is it a one time bug or is the system inherently flawed? The Space Shuttle was a flawed design so it was retired- and arguments were made to keep it flying on the basis that it’s benefits outweighed any loss of life. They failed. There is that argument that many go back to. A self-driving car is driving down the road. A kid runs out into the street, chasing after a ball or something. Does the self-driving car swerve into pedestrians and run them over, swerve into oncoming traffic and cause an accident, or hit the kid? If a human did this, that human alone would be responsible. In these sorts of accidents, the car, train, or aircraft is merely a tool- the human did it. But with a self-driving car, that car- and by extension all other cars- will be responsible. Each of those terrible choices is a series of victims who will blame the car- after all, all they did was drive down the other side of the road, walk on the sidewalk, and play in the park. The occupant isn’t culpable because he wasn’t driving. And if the car gets blamed it could spell doom for all of the cars. People blamed the Hindenburg and now we don’t get to see cool zeppelins gracing the skies, despite Graf Zeppelin having had an excellent safety record. 737 MAX was rightfully blamed and calls for it to be decertified continue. But aviation is established and that human factor is still present- with modifications pilots should be able to prevent future accidents. But can the system that caused the accident be trusted to not cause another accident? Especially if there was no particular bug. As I said above, it is these sorts of things that pose a very serious challenge to automation of cars and trucks. It is by no means a guaranteed thing, IMO.

I think the economics of this have not been studied enough to make it clear. How is AI supposed to produce a vibrant society and economy if 99% of the people are out of the job? It seems like in business circles, AI is discussed from a cost savings point of view- this is what is really meant when they talk of “efficiency”, even if there is an increase in physical productivity. And both it’s creators (i.e. companies working on it) and it’s users (businesses) are treating it exactly as one would treat utilization of cheap foreign labor instead of looking at it as an entirely new socioeconomic problem. Of course, if we define “productivity” as “how big is the number on my spreadsheet” and not “how are the humans doing”, it will probably result in an increase. And I am skeptical of the viability of self-driving vehicles. All it will take is a single accident- let alone multiple- and we will see a 737 MAX style movement to end or heavily restrict its use. While they aren’t too vocal/aware right now, I imagine we will see a movement to at least restrict its use from truckers themselves. The reason why I don’t see them asking for a total ban is that they likely understand how a shortage of trucking capability exists/existed, and supplementation by automated trucks would increase business revenue and result in an increase in their own paychecks. But such trucks will still have to contend with opposition following any accidents involving them.

The cover of that magazine doesn’t identify what colony. How is the Advanced Plant Habitat on the ISS doing? Also how long must something exist to be considered a colony? Chang’e 4 has been hosting plants and insects for awhile, even if it will probably eventually fail. Roanoke wasn’t a “base” just because everybody died.

The Soviets built a reverse-engineered copy of the B-29 called the Tu-4. A variant of the Tu-4 carrying two KS-1 Kometa anti-ship missiles was produced called the Tu-4K. The weapon system was tested between 1951 and 1953. To test the KS-1, a demonstrator called the izdeliye K (product K) was built, which was basically a crewed version of the missile, capable of reuse. The izdeliye K would operate like a real KS-1, up until near the moment of impact when the pilot would take over and fly back to base. One test flight was particularly eventful. The crew had taken off and were flying towards the test area, when suddenly there was a jolt. One crew member looked out of the observation blister, discovering that the izdeliye K- along with its pilot, WWII ace Sultan Amet-Khan- had disappeared! Having no idea what happened (the release button had a guard that had to be removed before pushing it, and obviously the bomber crew had not done so), the crew quickly spotted the demonstrator descending in a dive. Amet-Khan managed to fire up the engine, pull up, and make it back to base- definitely on the part of his flying skills. A lesser pilot may not have been so lucky. Despite the mysterious nature of the incident, no "investigation" was required. Amet-Khan immediately admitted that he had simply gotten bored during the transit to the test area, and started pushing random buttons. He thought that the power supply from the Tu-4 was not in operation, but the release button's supply was always active in case of an emergency. He apparently suffered no serious reprimands as a result of the incident. He completed further test flights as part of the program, and was awarded the Order of Lenin and became a Stalin Prize laureate for his work on it. This was originally intended for the fun fact thread over in the Science and Spaceflight section, but then I realized it made more sense here.

Meanwhile, the exact color Japanese A6M “Zero” carrier fighters were painted early in the war is heavily disputed, even amongst veterans who flew them! So at museums and images (both colorized pictures and paintings) we see colors ranging from “yellow-gray tan” (plastic models and a lot of modern renderings, some restored flying examples) to grey (many museums, and older paintings and plastic models) to white (also older paintings and plastics models, but most notably in the 1970 movie Tora, Tora, Tora!). It’s worsened by the fact that the color that Japanese military aircraft (army and navy) were painted in ranged from both grey and white to different shades of tan. So any could theoretically be correct, or have been correct depending on the unit and theater. The Armata’s turret seems rather tall and broad above where the gun is mounted. Has anyone found a common point with a certain president’s forehead? I imagine a comparison could also be drawn between the first Russian President’s alcohol related incidents and the T-80’s fuel consumption.

Considering we got tweets showing off the Snoopy zero-G indicator and the four Lego minifigures going around the Moon (there might even be a Playmobile astronaut and robot but I might be mixing that up with Thomas Pesquet’s recent ISS visit) it is unlikely an announcement would be that cryptic.

I don’t think this has anything to do with culture. It’s political. *cue mods gasping* In Japan our political slogans are just as straight and to the point as Western ones. Even the Japanese Communist Party’s are rather simple. This is despite having certain cultural aspects similar to our communist neighbors. If you look at a picture of any Stalin-era Soviet parades on the Red Square, you will see a very long placard, sometimes consisting of a single slogan stretching all the way across the State Department Store (the other side of the procession across from Lenin’s Mausoleum). China and North Korea adopted this one way or another at some point. Note that in the Republic of China- both prior to and since 1949- political slogans were/are fairly similar to whatever was common at the time in the West. ——— Getting back to space related stuff… Here is a neat video showcasing China’s first atomic bomb detonation, first hydrogen bomb detonation, first MRBM (including a nuclear test), and finally, China’s first satellite, Dong Fang Hong (The East is Red)* 1 (the space part, yay!). It is set to… music, not too bad but different from as advertised. Disco apparently has a different meaning in China. The PLARF once released a promo video supposedly featuring disco music, and an OSINT dude remarked it was definitely not disco as we know it in the Western bloc. *Before anyone makes a comment about long winded names… I personally don’t think that’s the case. It only seems that way because “translations” are at times rather garbagy and while they do capture the detailed meaning, there is a simplicity that is lost somewhere too. In Japanese (and presumably Chinese) this is not what would be considered a “sentence” in a Western language, but is more of a phrase-like word with meaning, like how in English one can call someone an “explorer” instead of “a man/woman who travels to new places in search of discoveries”. It’s just that English is not as flexible as Asian languages at times so 东方红/東方紅 jp btw not traditional cn gets translated as a literal sentence instead of the far more simple phrase it actually is, because there is just no equivalent in English. Similar examples can be found in Japanese late WWII aircraft names. The C6N 彩雲 (Saiun) is a “phrase-like word with meaning”, but in English is the somewhat long winded (for an aircraft) C6N Iridescent Cloud. I imagine there are other Chinese examples too.

In case anyone does want to give a name though, Saturn VB and Saturn VC, and presumably a continuation down the alphabet would be likely designations if it was built (like how there is a Saturn I and Saturn IB). Saturn VB and Saturn VC were actually discussed in NASA planning documents when they thought development would continue.

While this is a problem (for them, to be clear), I don’t think it is the motive behind their military counter-Starlink studies. This could be countered on the ground by interdicting smuggling of Starlink terminals. That would be extremely difficult, but another option would be to set up some sort of system designed to detect Starlink connections. Have a sat in GEO above China listening, have it pick up Starlink signals, and then pinpoint the location so it can be forwarded to the police. But a much more effective “counter” to that side of the “Starlink crisis” is the fact that revolution is hard. As has been proven over the last 80 or so years, it is one thing to know what is going on in the world, but it is far, far more difficult to do something about it.

Surprisingly and yet unsurprisingly similar to SpaceX’s early Mars plans (crew live in converted Starships).

I know many like to say “it’s all because of SLS”, but to what extent does Congress actually hold sway over NASA planning? Why hasn’t doing an architecture with the Commercial Crew vehicles and LSS in LEO and then traveling to the Moon been at least been mentioned as a possibility? 1960s NASA documents are full of proposals denying their own purpose if something more efficient for the same job comes along. If they do have some reason not to adopt such an architecture, they ought to inform the public. If we get one Moon landing in 2026 and nothing happens for five years, can you imagine the hard time the media is going to give NASA for choosing the mission profile they did and rejecting other concepts? Especially if Starship is flying regularly by then and perhaps done a few crew missions. Apollo literally began with North American offering to build a direct ascent lunar lander but then agreeing to shave off part of their role in the program (and thus income) in favor of LOR with Grumman’s LM. Why would it be so difficult to cut Gateway or even SLS out of the picture? The current situation says something rather sad about NASA planners, as this is the “almost like someone playing KSP” type of concept that can be found in many 1960s studies and concepts.

Regardless of whether it is a second, modified Starship HLS or takes the form it currently is in, would using Gateway as a man-tended experiment platform make sense? Studying the effects of radiation on humans in that environment with it is dumb, but man-tended platforms have been proposed before for LEO, and they could have value. ESA had a backup plan for the Columbus module of Space Station Freedom, in which it would launch with a propulsion unit on an Ariane 5 and then be periodically visited by Hermes, bringing experiments back and forth. The astronauts would pickup experiments and bring new ones, or have them delivered in Dragon-X or HTV-XG and then just offload them and set them up. All four then descend to the surface for their surface expedition, with not much happening otherwise at Gateway.

Ironically another part of the issue with that might be SpaceX themselves. They move so fast and changes can come so out of the blue, building a coherent “Battle Starlink” program might have been difficult. It depends on the situation. In a mere accident or isolated confrontation (maybe Battle of Zhenbao island style), I would agree, but total war would be different. Axis merchants posed no threat to the Allies but they were perfectly legal naval targets during WWII. It is also an ideological thing I imagine. But at the same time, it isn’t just classified military applications that are feared- it is Starlink itself. Ukraine is purportedly using off the shelf Starlink terminals to pretty good effect in the “current event”. Now targeting what are basically civilian comsats is probably inconceivable to the average Westerner. And they* definitely like to think that private and government are separate from each other. But imagine this- war is on, and some neutral nation provides targeting data to the US’ enemy, information without which they would not have been able to sink an American aircraft carrier, or provide highly effective artillery and air support in some key battle. How would the US respond to that? Now change that neutral nation to an American company and have it providing quality communications, communications which are key to coordination- and coordination is key in effectiveness and success. And America is actually in the war. This is basically where China stands in their thinking. If the US suddenly had only two aircraft carriers and a semi-conscript military still somewhat widely equipped with 1980s legacy equipment** or modifications thereof, and they had Chinese bases just a few hundred nautical miles off the coast of California, and China had a Starlink-esque constellation providing their guys with quality communications and coordinating capability, the US would probably be planning to do the same thing to China’s- civilian or not***. *Based on the vibe I get from discourse surrounding the laws and morals of not only targeting, but just what constitutes bearing responsibility for actions occurring wherever **The sad thing is it’s true in some cases *cries in F-16 airframe life expectancy* ***The US military itself understands the value of comms very well. See the opening air strikes of the Gulf War against Iraqi IADS control stations

It’s funny how often that scene from Space Force gets used by the real Space Force in different hearings and PR. “ “Shijian-17 and Shijian-21, which are satellites with robotic arm technology, could be used in a future system for grappling and disabling other satellites,” U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, Commander of the U.S. Space Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. ” I would link the scene but it contains profanity and thus isn’t allowed. (I’m on mobile so it won’t let me add a quote)

@RCgothic @Pthigrivi I think the real intention is for fast resupply to a rear support area, which would not face such threats. Any talk of employment in or near a combat zone is just “trumped up icing” on the “proposal cake” to help gain traction with others who might object to its development.

Interesting. It was known that the schedules basically lined up. I believed and had mentioned last year that China could theoretically end up bringing back the first Mars samples some weeks or months prior to NASA’s depending on how the schedule works out. So NASA’s schedule slipped then I guess? 2031 is the same date for China’s MSR as it was when I mentioned it last year. Regarding the slippage, it will be interesting to see. Chang’e 5 was on time but I think Tianwen-1 was originally supposed to launch in 2018 but slipped to 2020. They won’t be doing it for the first time next time though. Also, China has so far notoriously been careful not to engage in direct space competition, at least not in petty firsts. A late Chinese MSR that works would be preferable over a rushed 2031 one. Finally, this is interesting as it indicates they have completely dropped the use of the Long March 9 for MSR. This could be interpreted in a number of ways- 1. Problems may be encountered with the LM-9’s development and they aren’t confident it would be ready in time for the launch window 2. They have decided to prioritize a timely MSR mission and are dropping the iffy LM-9 in favor of the dependable LM-5B and LM-3B in order to maintain the schedule 3. OR, this is unlikely but an intriguing possibility, they want to use a multiple-launch mission profile in order to gain experience in planetary spacecraft operations, in order to prepare for a crewed Mars landing at some point in the future. A single launch spacecraft would not be useful for this. A similar decision was made with Chang’e 5’s overly complex rendezvous and docking mission profile 4. The boring option- they are experienced with Tianwen-1 sized probes and want to stick to that and the existing medium lift LM series instead of the unknown LM-9 and single stack Mars spacecraft

Fair point, but it still feels meme-like because of the scale. Landing men on the Moon was quite a challenge, but certainly doable, as multiple studies had indicated prior to 1961. If it wasn’t the US government would not have funded it in the first place. ”Making life multi-planetary”? This raises a huge amount of issues. It doesn’t help that SpaceX’s plan in that regard (and to a certain extent in the “end game” cost reduction levels they claim too) is basically 1970s Space Shuttle flight cadence and cost level vague. To be clear, I am not trying to deny that Starship will be groundbreaking or cheap at some point, has potential for cost reduction, or can land humans on Mars. And they certainly have the right to pursue “making life multi-planetary” with maximum effort. It’s even completely fine to hold as an official ultimate goal. But stating it so often feels odd. One doesn’t proclaim they are working towards living an enriched and fulfilling life full of family and friendship when they buy a new car, after all, even if the purchase of that car is technically, in the end, a step as part of that effort which the average human takes part in. I personally disagree. Although I would need to research some more, I am certain that the military has the ability to do launches rapidly and without warning in the event of an emergency- and if they can’t, they probably will work to gain that ability. Was not the Shuttle’s special satellite retrieval mission intended for wartime? They wouldn’t be waiting weeks or months for bureaucratic approval in such an instance. Starship’s real military potential comes in a rapid resupply role in the event of a major war. Forward bases capable of accommodating big transport aircraft like the C-17 will be knocked out by ballistic missiles early, while the Osprey is not a good option if air space is contested, not to mention its poor range for somewhere like the Pacific. Example- While flying in a C-130 or getting transport ships to a Pacific island airfield (like in some of the distributed ops concepts studied by the USMC) might be problematic, Starship could deliver a fresh supply of AIM-120s for an F-35B squadron basically unopposed and in very short time.

It feels like Elon mentions making life multi-planetary so often it might as well be a meme. Imagine if after every news update on Apollo, it ended in “this is the only way to beat the Soviets to the Moon”

I was originally gonna post this as a spoiler but it qualifies as a fun fact and therefore I will post it normally. Fun fact: France used the German WWII PzKpfw V Panther until 1949 in relatively small numbers. They even considered sending them to French Indochina in case they needed to halt a Chinese intervention, once they realized China had been given IS-2 heavy tanks and ISU-122 SPGs. But the Panther’s severe maintenance problems- compounded by the fact that they were running on random spares to begin with- led to this not happening. The Panther also had engine issues so it might not have fared well in the tropical climate.

Posting here because it doesn't pertain to Chinese spaceflight that much, it was just published there-https://gaodawei.wordpress.com/2022/05/25/prc-defense-starlink-countermeasures/ While the only "counter-Starlink" proposal had basically amounted to a meme from a former Russian president up until now, an article seriously examining the subject has been published in a journal in China. The article, however, has since been removed. That could mean Starlink-counters are actually being studied in China and they don't want info slipping out, or it could just be a random paranoid security action. There is no way to know. TL/DR: Starlink is a difficult target and will require new tactics and technology to deal with. More investigation is needed into attack methods and space tracking needs to be improved. The article starts by going over Starlink's characteristics and its potential applications. Some interesting things I didn't know about- If I'm interpreting this correctly, they also theorize that Starlink could form the basis of a next-gen co-orbital ASAT network, although it could refer to space-based target acquisition too. They then examine the problems it poses as a military target. They conclude it would be extremely difficult to destroy through either existing passive or active means. They then state that alongside new passive and active countermeasures, improving space tracking is a major priority in dealing with Starlink. Note how it assumes that the attacker will try to differentiate between military Starlinks and civilian ones. But aren't the ones being used in combat currently just the regular civilian ones? Not unlike how GPS simultaneously lets me figure out how to get to the nearest McDonald's while also guiding JDAMs on to targets thousands of miles away. Now this is obvious but interesting. While traditional ASAT has been based on single satellites and an active or passive attacker, they suggest Starlink should be treated as a system instead of a singular targets. The closest thing I can think of this being to is the way one goes about destroying a rail network instead of trying to destroy every single individual train. What this "low-cost and high efficiency" is is like dropping dumb bombs on a railyard in a single raid instead of flying 24/7 patrols and attacking individual trains with LGBs. I don't know how that would translate into neutralizing Starlink though. Their final conclusion is that a lot more studies need to be conducted and that a combination of active and passive means will be needed. To be clear, when they say "destroy the constellation operation system", they may mean the military portion of the full constellation, if that happens to be a thing. Also, not completely related to Starlink, but one thing I found interesting is how it draws a direct connection between the supposed increasing civilian space "competition" and national security. This makes me wonder if other space powers have drawn similar conclusions, thus Artemis surviving the change of government intact, ESA's new space studies, and JAXA's calls for its own increased space launch capabilities. Note- It apparently used machine translation which is why it is weird. "Disposal" means neutralization through active or passive means.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-06-08/China-releases-new-moon-map-the-world-s-most-detailed-to-date-1aH3PQaO0Ok/index.html Neat! I have a Moon map dating to the late 70s/early 80s. It has a scale of 1:2,300,000.

There is a theory that Rheinmetall is trying to one-up the French-German Euro-MBT project (which they themselves are part of). LOL

It would not. From kerbiloid's link ( https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-nuclear-spear-casaba-howitzer.html )- That would include the Orion spacecraft itself. And I'm certain there are even more important reasons others can go into. You can still make a story about it though, just don't worry about the technical details. I myself have two separate worlds in the works involving the PK-3000/5000 and some of the atmospheric Orions.

Looking at the author’s other articles, I don’t think this is a serious report so much as it is a neat piece of info with a funny interpretation.