DerekL1963

Mocked up a new version of the Norge. (You can read the adventures of the original version here.) The new version has a landing deck on top... Whether it remains depends on whether I can master this little beast: Something I am not having a great deal of success with. I'm a planner and an engineer by nature, not a pilot.

Ouch! But it's good to hear you've made it through!

Initial damage assessment is underway - KSC to remain closed at least through tomorrow. The more thorough assessment should start tomorrow. https://blogs.nasa.gov/kennedy/2017/09/11/kennedy-space-center-closed-through-sept-12/ http://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2017/09/11/ksc-cape-hope-have-dodged-another-bullet/655175001/

Ahhhh.... Angel, I find your service modules so much better looking than stock ones, I'd hoped you'd made a 2.5m one to go with the Delta revamp and not told us, leaving it for a nice surprise. Alas, my hopes were dashed! Maybe in the next revision?

As the storm loses energy (once it's over land, it's heat engine is stopped), it moves down the scale. Can't find any details of peak winds in Brevard County or what the storm level was at peak, but it appears to have been Cat 2 at worst... well within what the buildings are designed to withstand. (Doesn't mean there isn't small scale damage or flooding though.) Sustained winds have fallen below 50MPH, which I understand is the threshold for the rideout crew. If they aren't already, they should soon be out conducting preliminary damage surveys.

A 3.75m base diam command module? It'll also make a nice Kerbin orbit large crew delivery/recovery vehicle too.

Mmmm.... space station modules... drool.. Want!

Storm winds and rain starting to be felt in the Brevard County area, though NAICT the peak is still 12+ hours away. It looks like it will hit at tropical depression levels, which are still bad but well within the ability of the facilities to withstand. Less optimistically, it looks like forum member Just Jim is going to be near the center... Stay safe Jim!

Large numbers of simple things are not as complex as inherently complex things.

We had to be surfaced somewhere, for reasons, for two days during a North Atlantic winter gale. Our bridge was almost thirty feet off the waterline, and we were taking green water over it... so we abandoned the bridge. The 'scopes were considerably higher and even they were occasionally taking green water over them. Nasty, nasty stuff. Sub sailors are notoriously prone to seasickness, both because the boats roll like pigs and because we spend so little time on the surface to get used to it. We had so many guys sick we were making up the watchbill as we went along. Ended up standing MCCSUP for over eighteen hours at one point because the only other qualified SUP that could get out of his bunk was needed to plug holes in the COW and DOW watch rotation. My lame-[curseword]head of a weapons officer heard I was eating on watch (no choice because there was nobody to relieve me for meals) and all but literally crawled into MCC to chew me out. (Stopping to dry heave every other sentence or so.) I pretended to pay attention and he eventually went away. Finally the morons at SUBLANT gave up on trying to make the reasons work and released us. We dove and hauled tail outta there and spent the next three days deep while everybody rested and recovered. @Just Jim, you be safe. We're thinking of you. (Which is about all we can do.)

Speaking of evacuations... Saw some coverage from Miami Beach last night. No normal traffic, but you couldn't have parked if you'd wanted to. The streets and parking lots were lined with satellite uplink trucks.

Tropical depression hard is way better than hurricane hard any day of the week. But yeah, she hasn't turned yet and we're still in something of an "[almost] anything can happen" phase.

I feel for the folks on the Gulf coast, but it (currently) looks like KSC/CCAFS (the theoretical subject of this thread) is going to dodge a bullet.

Oh, a B-girl in a storm. That must have been fun. They are not large boats.

Depends on how deep they're submerged and the size of the storm (and the size of the boat). I've felt 'em (very light but noticeable motion) down to a hundred feet or so. (640 class SSBN.) We had to be shallow-ish under a North Atlantic winter storm once - not at all fun. We were very glad when we could get down to our normal depths.

I don't know much about the aviation side of things, I was a bubblehead. But if I have to guess, I'd say they probably fly them out under the same theory that sends ships to sea - the storm can't damage what's not there. Yup, my guess was correct: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/key-west-navy-evacuation-hurricane-irma/index.html

Your location is irrelevant G'th. It doesn't give you any especial meteorological qualifications. That's the source of the perceived 'hostility' - you keep setting yourself as some kind of expert and then trying to shut down the discussion the rest of us are having. When we persist in having said discussions (against your wishes), you pop up again and the cycle repeats. At any rate, KSC is now at Condition II, everyone nonessential has been sent home and they're making the final preparations. Looks like they're planning on setting Condition I (everyone out of the pool except the rideout crew) sometime Saturday. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/8/16266282/hurricane-irma-nasa-kennedy-space-center-hurcon-preparation Looking up the coast, I'm glad I'm not in the Navy anymore. Stopping work in mid-stream and busting butt to get ready to haul tail out of port is Not Fun. (And the time we could neither get underway nor submerge at the pier because we'd flood - even more Not Fun. Glad that one zigged out to sea...)

I'm just addressing the "we're too cool to worry about hurricanes, it'll be nothing" attitude of some posters. WRT NASA all I'm doing is reporting the facts. They can't afford to be blase. That being said, no new news this morning out of KSC, which is to be expected - they won't go into full shutdown and lockdown for at least another 24 hours. Got an email this morning from a friend who works at CCAFS, they've been directed to finish all work that can't be deferred and finish their hurricane preps NLT noon and then head home. Monday, the base is currently scheduled to be closed and from Tues onwards on an on call basis. (I.E. go home, we'll call you when we need you or full access is restored.) He didn't get much sleep last night as he spent it getting his house and 'go' kit prepped. My 73 year old mother... Lived in Jax all her life, and the only time she's bailed was when she "went to visit" my brothers in NC for Matthew. She refuses to make any preparations whatsoever. I always get antsy during hurricane season. Throw a dart at the coastline from Miami to the the VA Capes... and the odds are it'll land within a hundred miles of family or friends.

Futzed about with airships, took several tries before I found the right way to install the engines that had been added since I last played with them.

In other words, you don't actually have any qualifications to be making meteorological predictions. (I grew up in FL, I know full well that living in FL gives you no especial meteorological qualifications.) NASA and the USAF, actually being responsible for lives and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure can't afford to play the "I'm from Florida and too cool to be worried" game.

No offense, but how is your address relevant to your qualifications to judge what a storm will be like? Especially since Matthew didn't live up to it's potential only because it veered ever-so-slightly. Had it hit the Cape area as predicted things would have been much different. That depends on which projection you choose to believe. Setting aside the fact that we're at least 24-36 hours out from a reasonable projection of it's track on Sunday - the day of reckoning. (And even then everything depends on the exact details turn expected to occur 36-48 hours from now, on Saturday.)

Interesting link, KSC's hurricane plan summary from 2008... https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/153728main_hurricane-plan.pdf At any rate, they're now in Condition III.

Isn't that the point?

See my post above about the unimaginably huge difference in energy. Five hundred supersonic aircraft at once are practically less than nothing compared to energy being expended by the hurricane.

One way around that is to turn down science return in the setting menu.