Beamer

Sounds like your QA department ran out of snacks

Cleopatra was born closer in time to the moon landings than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

Having a 1 month lull in launches and arrivals, which gave me some time to practice my mediocre witches broom aeroplane flying skills. I took out the SuK-Hai Mk-1P "KerBut" to fly a crew rotation to the Desert air strip. 2 pilots and a scientist, the engineer on duty will have to stay for another tour as I only have lowe level ones available at KSC at the moment, and I need a good one in the Desert to allow for efficient refueling. Ready for take-off: It's one of my fav winged designs, not necessarily made for transporting crew but I'm just dipping back in after a long break and didn't want to risk taking out the Koffer FU-134 while still getting used to the controls. Fortunately even in its passenger configuration the SuK-Hai can easily make it to the desert. On approach to the Desert air strip I was able to confirm I still suck at nailing the landing. My first attempt wasn't all that bad but I skidded and flipped after landing. The second was an outright crash. Third's a charm. A bit of taxiing later and the SuK-Hai was hooked up to the mobile refueler parked at the Desert air strip while the relief crew was being greeted and instructed by the mission leader. While waiting for the refueling to finish, Bobler and Haloly inspected the grounds using the 3-seater DesertBuggy, a prototype of the DunaBuggy currently underway as part of a convoy to Duna. Thanks to the protective plating this buggy can survive a flip and even multiple rolls, as long as the g forces of the impacts aren't big enough to rip off the scanning arm it will at most lose one or two small solar panels. The trip back to KSC went smoothly and this time I was able to nail the nightly landing on the first try, tarmac is so much easier to land on than dirt (also it helped that I severely reduced the steering range and disabled the brakes on the front wheel which made it a lot easier to stop without skidding). Still I decided to add some drogue braking chutes to the KerBut for future use after landing, something I actually had on some of the prototypes but neglected to add to the final models.

Great pic, even before I read this it immediately reminded me of that scene in The Expanse.

The fuel situation in orbit of Kerbin is starting to look a bit dire: Only 2 Class E roids left to mine, and one of those is barely even a proper E at 863 t (but it's glowy, so it's got that going for it). Unfortunately I haven't found any roids that are going to enter Kerbin's SOI for quite a while now, so I decided it's time to start developing some hardware to drag them into orbit from inter-planetary space. This is mostly a variation on a theme as I already have some similar crafts meant to catch asteroids that enter Kerbin's SOI without coercion. This one has more fuel and less engines to operate on Kerbol orbit. Its only task will be to massage the orbits of roids to get an intersection with Kerbin's SOI (and eventually Duna and Eve) from where the more powerful catchers can take it over to circularize the orbit. On Kerbol orbit there will be plenty of time to take things slow, and it won't have to deal with fixing the orbital plane around the planet. Since I have control over the insertion path I can even make sure it enters Kerbin's SOI around the equatorial plane, which should save a lot of hassle in the end. The Duna convoy I launched at the last window reached its halfway point course corrections. No less than 7 crafts with a MultiSkan probe and 2 Ant miners for both Duna and Ike, various station expansions to satisfy contracts, an upgraded lander and STO tanker for Ike and a NuKerBus full of tourists. They will all be arriving in 192 days, which will be a busy time with 6 orbital insertions in a single day with a 7th coming in a few hours later. Of course as expected when you have 7 ships arriving at Duna you'll have at least a few where Ike decides to run interference, but fortunately nothing I couldn't work around with a few m/s thrust and tricking the orbit lines with some empty manouver nodes. Next up in about a month will be the arrival of the first manned Jool expedition in Jool's SOI, consisting of a Jool orbital station, a Pol surface mining and science installation and various landers and fuel tankers. Their trip down Jool's gravity well will take a full 2 months though, so actual manouvers are still 3 months away. I need to stop launching stuff. I currently have over 100 Kerbals in transit on Kerbol orbit and I've ran out of available high level personel at KSC :s

Dres station needs some extra fuel storage, in its current state every time I refuel a ship I need to send my tanker to the local asteroid miner to refill the station. Dres Station with a NuKerBus Mk-3 used for the last batch of tourists, the KerbHerder 21Kvac lander and the OTO Tanker docked to it. So I launched a dual extension. It's basically 2 rockets tied nose-to-nose with the top one having its engine section replaced with a cupola. Once arrived at Dres it will split down the middle and dock to the station to form a cross, providing lots of additional fuel storage, and 8 luxury cabins for up to 4 persons each. It flew surprisingly well, only needing 2 Clydesdale boosters to get the entire thing to orbit where it refueled at Kerbin Refueling Station Alpha. Needless to say docking was a quite slow and deliberate operation, but ultimately uneventful. Aside from Dres there is also a launch window for Moho. 2 tourists were waiting at Kerbin Station for a trip that way. I built a new NuKerBus model (Mk-5 Moho Edition) with its 5800 m/s provisions it should be able to make the trip on any but the most unoptimal launch windows. A quick stop by Kerbin Station to pick up the 2 tourists, filling up the last cabin of the ship as the other 9 seats are taken by a crew rotation for the various Moho installations. After that a top-off of the fuel tanks at Kerbin Refueling Station Alpha, ready for departure in 3 days. Moho Station can also use some additional storage and living space, so a modified copy of the Dres Station Expansion was launched destined for Moho. Of course this needed some additional fuel tanks to be able to make the trip, that's ok, nothing a few extra boosters can't handle. Once in orbit of course the rig needed to be refueled, busy days for veteran engineer Podely Kerman at Kerbin Refueling Station Alpha, but the E class asteroid still has a few drops to spare, so loudly singing along to Hanson Brothers' "Rink Rat" (he's Kanadian) he swiftly set to work. Fill er up! With 2 convoys in orbit everything is ready for departure to Dres and Moho to upgrade the respective orbital stations and bring crew rotations, tourists and additional utility hardware.

(Back after a long hiatus playing some other games while waiting for KSP2 to mature. Recent news surrounding KSP2 made me itchy, so back to the old game to scratch it.) Eleven new recruits were sent on their way to Minmus for the traditional flag planting. After an uneventful trip and a perfect landing at the Minmus City town square, the group had a little party at the Minmus City OMB Bar to celebrate their promotion to official KSP Kerbonauts. The view of Minmus City as the group celebrated through the entire Minmus night waiting for a spectacular sunrise over the nearby mountains: From left to right: The Minmus City Bike Garage with some of their rentals parked outside, in the distance behind it a relay antenna (nobody is entirely sure what its function is, but it was agreed not to touch it as it may be important). The large green-lit spire of Jeb's Garage, home and business of Minmus City mayor Jebediah Kerman. Central the purple lit magnificent Kerbodyne Superkolossal, with its total wet mass of just over 3 kt the largest structure ever landed on a celestial body, supported by 2 Ant Miners which just finished topping off its huge fuel tanks. Parked just in front and to the right the silver domed KerbHerder 21Kvac that brought the group down from the Minmus KerTank! station to Minmus City. Finally on the right, in the foreground the Minmus City OMB Bar serving snacks to the group of new recruits, and in the distance behind it the 8-wheeled Minmus Mobile Refinery. Early on during the excursion the group decided to "party all night" (a common mistake made by the new recruits as they are not fully aware yet of the length of Minmus' nights). When the sun finally rose over the city, the only one still sober enough to remember a flag planting was involved was Henory Kerman, who can be seen here performing an unsolicited and impromptu field sobriety test to prove he was indeed still stable enough to perform the task: Luson Kerman, the proprietor of the Minmus Bike Garage can be seen parked nearby on one of their rental trikes. The only one brave enough to take her up on the offer of a drive around the city was Jenwise Kerman, which ended with a helmet full of... let's say "recycled snacks". The group was generally well behaved and was waved off by mayor Jebediah Kerman as they stumbled back to the KerbHerder 21Kvac for their trip back up to Minmus KerTank! station from where they will depart to the Mun for another flag planting. The only complaints came from some residents of the nearby Rock o' Max luxury apartments, the oldest (and most luxurious) apartment building situated just outside Minmus City. Apparently some of the new recruits had driven the residents' cats wild by shining laser pens through the windows of the apartments, but the mayor was quick to dismiss this as "some poncy whines from people who should have enough dough to buy some curtains". Stay tuned for upcoming launches and departures. In the coming few months an expedition will depart for Dres, which will include a large asteroid mining station as well as an expansion to Dres Station with additional fuel storage and living quarters. Also expected soon is the arrival of the third Duna/Ike expedition comprised of two MultiSkan probes who will perform more detailed scans of Duna and Ike, a mobile mining station with residential quarters carrying the DunaBuggy and DunaKopter, a large Surface-to-Orbit fuel transport as well as some AntMiners to replace the worn out Ike Mobile Refinery.

I can just imagine one of these landing on a carrier and hooking the arrestor wires as the lids pop off and the 2 troopers get launched off the other end of the flight deck. It's one of those things that looks good in the concept art but when you think about it is a totally bonkers idea

Normally Dr. Becky is pretty high level, but Supermassive black holes happen to be her field of specialty. She takes a deeper dive into the claims of the paper here, starting at 20:56. She's not convinced as you might guess from the thumbnail

A clever new way to detect a potential Planet 9: https://phys.org/news/2023-02-planet-unconventional-approach.html

I'm excited about the images I saw of Minmus' icy surface. It immediately made me think I want to build a sled and slide down the Minmus slopes. Needless to say it will be a rocket powered sled.

Yesterday while watching some YT videos I saw one in my suggestions that was titled something like "Piece of the sun breaks off, scientists baffled!", with a suitably explosive thumbnail and sensationalist typeface. It got a chuckle and a shake of the head and I think I might even have mumbled "Must have been the aliens" to myself before I clicked on to more reputable sources. But apparently, at least something did actually happen in this case (so it can't have been the aliens!). No, it wasn't a piece of the sun breaking off (surprise!). https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/part-of-sun-did-not-break-off-1.6749333 And doesn't it always...

Jeet Kune Do is most certainly not traditional, it didn't exist before Lee and he didn't live long enough to formalize it, so in a sense you could say it's still in development (and might very well forever remain that way). It's by all means a very modern form. It's definitely true the various arts were developed to serve different needs. Jeet Kune Do as Lee practiced it (taking a lot from Wing Chun and Jiu Jitsu) is a fighting style optimized for self defense and quickly taking out your opponents. Most of its attacks are aimed at the 'soft parts' along the center line of the body - groin, belly, throat, eyes. Even the defensive moves are often aimed at damaging the attacking limb rather than blocking it. Basically everything that would be considered illegal or at the very least dishonourable in the more formalized traditional duel styles. This also makes it not very suitable for tournaments, probably one of the reasons Lee was reluctant to take part in them in his US years. He would have had to ditch 90% of his tool set against people who were trained their whole life in tournament rules karate. It does however make it a particularly good style to look at the physics involved. It's so heavily centered around efficiency that it becomes interesting to look at the solutions they came up with. In the end it's all still action and reaction, so how do you optimize your action such that it creates the biggest reaction? None of the developers of martial arts took out their slide rules to figure out how to do that, but through trial and error and evolution they still managed to come up with some pretty clever solutions to maximize friction, utilize angular momentum, etc. Of course people still want to measure themselves without having to pick real fights with American marines twice their weight (as Lee was reported to do in his Hong Kong years) so along the way tournament rules develop, and that will change a fighting style without prior formal dueling framework considerably. I suspect that's the case for a lot of the Chinese styles, unlike fighting styles like Karate and wrestling and their many variations which were mostly formalized a long time ago and often centered around 'fair and honourable' dueling rather than actual combat or self defense use.

From the Friday-afternoon-research-department: turns out Bruce Lee's 1-inch punch wasn't magic at all, it's just physics! https://www.wired.com/story/the-secret-to-bruce-lees-superhuman-one-inch-punch/ Context: Joe Lewis was the Heavyweight Full Contact Karate Champion of the time and the first ever Kickboxing champion, nicknamed the Muhammad Ali of Karate, standing 1.83 meter/6 feet tall and weighing 88 kg/195 lbs. Bruce Lee was 1.71 meter/5'7" tall and about 64 kg/140 lbs. This was their first meeting, they would go on to become good friends and Lewis studied Jeet Kune Do with Lee for several years after. Lewis was originally supposed to be Lee's opponent in Enter the Dragon, but due to either a scheduling conflict or a falling out (accounts differ) was eventually replaced with Chuck Norris.

Extraordinary claims and all that, but it will definitely be interesting to see where this goes. Solving a couple of problems at once, old supermassive black holes are 7-20 bigger than they should (could) be, and this might explain where all that dark energy is hiding: https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-evidence-black-holes-source.html

I imagine you can get away with some sub-par production methods and still get a very decent overall efficiency. Higher efficiency is always better of course, but many aspects that require both high efficiency and high durability on earth should be absent or far less stringent on the lunar surface due to the absence of atmosphere and abundance of available real estate.

Blue Origin creates solar cells out of simulated lunar regolith: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/blue-origin-makes-a-big-lunar-announcement-without-any-fanfare/

I'm not typically into law subjects but I subscribe to one law channel because the guy is a bit of a nerd and often explains the legal perspective of news that interests me (for example he did pieces on the recent D&D license changes, AI copyrights, the FTX situation, etc). Together with a frequent guest he just released a look at the legal matter of the US shooting down this balloon. It's an interesting walk along the various state and international laws and agreements. Warning: it's a bit dank meme heavy at the start but they soon get to the gritty stuff Sponsor message is all the way at the end so you can stop watching when that starts without missing anything.

Good news, it's up and running again. The cause was bit-flip from a high energy particle. They fixed it by turning it off and on again. Classic tech support solution.

Jupiter is still ringed in fact, they were visible in the Webb image:

Innovation is exponential. The first million years is a horizontal line at 1. The last 100 years is almost vertical.

They are known as Acheulean Handaxes and have been found in many places, often in large collections. As far as I understand, in many cases they show no sign of wear or actual use. The numbers they find are often such that it goes way beyond "having a few spares in case this one breaks". This has made some evolutionary scientists suggest that the initial fabrication/collection of them may have been a form of what is called "costly signalling". This is something that can be seen in many creatures, typical examples are the exaggerated plumage of peacocks and the crazy jumps gazelles make when fleeing from a predator. They are a way of signalling "look at me, I'm so strong and healthy, I can afford all of this, you better mate with me / try to catch someone else". The suggestion is that initially, these collections may have been just a way for humans to signal those same things. Like "Hey babe, wanna see my hand axe collection? I've got tons of them!" Some might have seen use, but having an exaggerated collection of them was just a way to show you could afford more than the one with the smaller or less shiny pile. Jupiter takes back the crown. I never doubted it of course, the bringer of jollity has always been my favourite! https://phys.org/news/2023-02-jupiter-moon-solar.html

As always, nature does it better. Fireworks!

I've got a number of RSS feeds running in my browser (I use the 'Brief' extension for Firefox, can recommend it). phys.org, newatlas.com, scientificamerican.com, wired.com, slashdot.org, theregister.com, arstechnica.com, huffpost.com for the funnies. Note that some of these are primarily IT news related rather than science news related. Whenever I find an article I like, I click through to the source and see if that website has an RSS feed too. Surprisingly most of them still do.

There's bears on Mars! https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bear-on-mars-nasa_n_63d733d8e4b0c8e3fc7f0c49