Shpaget

Ooo, I like this. BO was a bit secretive and not very vocal about their progress, but these last few days of giving us pretty pictures implies more good news in the not so distant future. Although, I don't really like the mission control. I much prefer the amphitheater layout where each row of stations is placed higher than the previous. It gives a much better look at the big screen up front, and better line of sight from the front to the stations themselves. Also, blue LEDs under the desks... :barf:

Block 1 or 2? Block 2 or bust.

That is a good question. I'm not actually saying it's OK for NGs to fly. I'm freely admitting that I don't know the details of the issue; I would imagine that the full truth is not public, nor would I be perfectly content in claiming I know it without investigating it personally (as in crawling through the fuselage, opening every service panel, and a few that were not intended to be opened) along with examining the 16 previous cases of "failure in service". I'd like to see the cables in question taken from a plane with high number of flight hours and a lot of takeoff/landing cycles. It would not be unheard of to pull the product from the market after certification because certain issue arose in exploitation and was not foreseen. Not doing the recall just because there are too many units out there is exactly the wrong reason to not do it. As to why is NG allowed to fly and MAX is (likely) not going to be with this wiring is another question I don't have an answer to, but I would not be surprised at all if it turned out it was a result of a lobbying effort. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/business/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

Why when we can have fun here?

From Boeing's perspective this is a huge unplanned cost for marginal, or no benefit at all. I understand that their track record with NG is decent, but like already mentioned, that rule came into existence for a reason. They will of course try their best not to do this. From legal side of things, FAA should not give a damn about the cost and amount of work Boeing would need to do. If they have to take the the plane apart and rewire from scratch, that's what is going to happen in order for that plane to ever fly again. If there is a risk of damaging the existing wires, then rip the old ones out and put in the new ones. This is entirely on Boeing and their failure to follow the rules. The fact that Boeing came forward and admitted the issue, instead of waiting to be caught could perhaps get them off the hook from being criminally charged, not as a green light to not do the repairs. I'm also confused by the part that says “There have been 16 failures in service, none of which were applicable to this scenario. We’ve had no hot shorts.”. Were those unrelated failures, or 16 failures of wiring (the sort FAA is talking about) that just happened to not crash a plane? If latter, than there is no dilemma in my mind - take the MAXs apart and rewire them, and while they're at it, do the same with NGs.

The article says I understood this as Boeing changing something (procedure/material/path/whatever without certifying that change). I could be wrong of course. It wouldn't be the first time they made changes without the green light: https://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=24716

Run while you can. I got hooked about a year and a half ago during summer. I had to consciously quit it because I realized it was using too much time. The taming is what gets you. Anyway, C# Aurora 4x is about to hit the shelves (end of March), so I'm preparing for that.

:facepalm: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/boeing-proposal-to-avoid-max-wiring-shift-does-not-win-u-s-support-idUSKBN20W018 FAA found an issue with some wiring that they consider not to be compliant with safety standards and believe could lead to short circuit and catastrophic failure; Boeing disagrees, so we could see even more delays with 737.

That's exactly what should happen. Purge the management. This sort of corner cutting is mind boggling.

Successful landing number 50! That's a lot of landings. I think they may be getting good at this.

You know about the woosh and splash before the wormhole forms in Stargate? If OSHA saw that, they would have an aneurysm.

That's a big boy! Between this and Starship, SLS seems redundant (and late). I like this.

That sort of stereotyping is lazy writing. Vulkans are logical, Klingons are angry, Romulans are devious...

Pretty much everything in food industry is stainless (well, anything that touches food), and probably chemical stuff as well, but usually those things are custom made for a particular installation and are one off, so automation doesn't make sense. Looking at mass production, water tanks for domestic heating systems are not stainless, at least none of the ones I've seen.

Well, to be perfectly honest, there are more types of steel than you can poke a stick at, each with different properties. Unfortunately, the type that SpaceX uses in stainless (of which there are also countless types), which is trickier to machine and weld than your run of the mill carbon steel. Of course, automating the production process leads to uniformity and more consistent final product, and it is easier to fine tune the process. It does take time, skill and knowledge to nail it, though. I'm sure SpaceX has the money to find someone with skill and knowledge, so it's jut the matter of time.

Yeah, that thing really was in a hurry. Initial estimates are that it broke up at around 30 km. Local astronomy and seismological organisations are still processing data and collecting videos to triangulate.

This morning (9:34 UTC) there was a meteor over Croatia. It's still unclear where exactly it entered and exploded, videos are still being processed, but it caused quite some noise. Unfortunately I was in a basement at the time and didn't register the boom, but my mom heard it. There are already quite a few videos of it, some even from shot from Italy. This was shot in Zagreb and is the best video I was able to find:

That's his previous launch (2018), the one where he injured his back.

Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious to all of us that this was going to be the most likely outcome of his endeavours. Rocket engineers test their contraptions for a reason, and they stand way back while testing. I wasn't able to find any info on the backup chute. Anybody else managed to dig something out? RIP Mike.

This is worse than I thought. Out of 400 planes that are sitting in the Boeing parking lot, waiting for the green light to be delivered, 50 planes were inspected. Debris (tools, rags, boot coverings) was found in 35. That's just insane.

Each cycle you inject some hydrogen, but how do you get the fusion byproducts out of the chamber?

Pratt & Whitney T73 will beat any rocket.

Neither do I, but drastic times, etc. I'm using the one built in Opera at the moment. No setup other than enabling the feature, no personal data (other than stuff Opera already has), and it's free.

Watching right now. VPN seems to be working fine.

More trouble for Boeing. Debris found in several of 737 MAX fuel tanks: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/19/business/boeing-737-max-fuel-tank-debris/index.html In this context, debris could mean pretty much anything, but's it's usually something left from production, like a misplaced and lost tool, a cleaning rag or similar, and is actually a serious issue that can lead to all sorts of dangerous scenarios. What this means is that all the 737s have to be checked. Somehow I don't think airlines will have patience with Boeing for much longer and will start complaining, loudly.