Jump to content

CatastrophicFailure

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    7,163

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by CatastrophicFailure

    The Saga of Emiko Station - Complete

    in KSP1 Mission Reports

    Posted

    1 hour ago, The Dunatian said:

    That would be rather obvious and probably what everyone would be expecting. Which is a good reason why he likely won't by my reckoning.

    Unless @Just Jim‘s playing the reverse psychology card and running the trope straight. :o Doing exactly what everyone expects because everyone’s expecting him to not do the thing we all expect him to do except the expectation of the expected thing is actually entirely unexpected!

    Or... something like that.  

    Theres always the possibility that Thompberry is playing for his own team from the Get go, anyway. 

    And then... one might argue there’s reason to question his sanity in the first place...

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

    Why did they not catch the fairings though?

    Because they were waiting around in case they had to tow a booster back... <_<

    Given that we’ve heard zero about fairing recovery from SpaceX, I’m guessing it’s not quite ready for prime time. 

    What did you do in KSP1 today?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, Atkara said:

    I was under the impression that stars are visible in orbit and the reason we don't see them in photos & videos, is the exposure setting on the cameras...

    Not quite, you can’t see the stars in space for the same reason on Earth: cuz the sun is really, really, really bright.  :D 

    But you can see them if you’re in orbit on the night side, or a really deep shadow like on the moon (But sunlight reflected off the surface still tends to wash them out).

    What did you do in KSP1 today?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Delay said:

    Heck, use one with film and develop the pictures it if you have to!

    Sounds like how my parents still share photos... <_<

    ——————

    You’ve made some bold claims here today, young @Kebab Kerman. Strong with the Force you may be, but you are not a Kerbal Jedi yet. You must confront your lack of documentation. :)

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by CatastrophicFailure
    Wow, that thing is REALLY cooked...

    latest?cb=20130315115546

    Forget flamethrowers, if Musk wants to drum up some funds for BFR development, he should start selling old used rocket bits!

    And I know just where he could get some... might be a bit salty tho...

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

    I bought boat tickets to watch the launch from just south of the port.

    tumblr_n4nftdUOs31qeyjvxo2_500.gif

    Youre braver than I. I’d never risk actual money on SpaceX doing stuff on time like that. I know, I know, oh me of little faith... :P

    4 minutes ago, Canopus said:

    He's trying way too hard if you ask me. The people seem to love it, the question is if potential costumers appreciate this attitude.

    Well, given their backlog... <_<

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    56 minutes ago, Jaff said:

    I suppose it is impressive but if it had blown up wouldn’t the bits and pieces just be junk in the sea? Now they have to recover this one?

    Pretty much. They were expecting the booster to be lost, mostly because it’s an old model that would never fly again anyway. They were, essentially, attempting to throw it away. Now they’re obligated by numerous laws to retrieve it. Might glean some data from further analysis, but it’s still heading to be scrapped. 

    Unless they think up some other “creative” way to dispose of it.

    Spoiler

    Opening to divers next spring, just off the Florida coast: new SpaceX Artificial Reef!

     

    Revelations of the Kraken (Chapter 44: Falling Down)

    in KSP Fan Works

    Posted · Edited by CatastrophicFailure

    One night in Bangkong makes a hard man humble,
    Not much between despair and ecstasy.
    One night in Bangkong and the tough guys tumble,
    Can't be too careful with your company.
    I can feel the devil walking next to me. 



    Chapter 16: One Night in Bangkong



    Bangkong, Oriental setting. But the city doesn’t know what the city is getting. A sprawling metropolis at the tropical tip of the long Ponpín Peninsula, where fifty-five million souls live in a space that was cramped when it was only ten million. It a place of contrasts and contradictions, where one can never be sure if what one sees... is what one gets. Indeed, this very curiosity is what has drawn many of the denizens here. 

    It is a place that was ancient even when the first Roamin’ legions arrived, already battered and bloodied from their long string of conquests. Yet the city welcomed them with open arms... and questing hands. Some time later they left it as they had found it, their wounds salved... and purses lightened, and so it remained the only independent city on the Great Tethys Sea. Centuries later, as the mighty Ussari Empire waxed and waned across the region, the city would rebuff the armies of Boris the Bloodaxe, the flirtations of Elizaveta the Chaste, and the tendrils of Ivaylo the Cabbage. 

    Contrasts... and contradictions, where one hand reaches to the future, while the other braces in the past. It is a place of astounding wealth, and abject poverty, where cutting edge medicine shares the same clinics as traditional healers, and the patients are perhaps not whom one might expect. A place of ancient temples and massive data centers, of quiet libraries and thumping dance clubs, of martial arts... and chess tournaments. Yes, in this place can be found every imaginable delight and succor for the mind, the spirit, and the body. A little flesh, a little history. 

    Centuries ago, a royal decree quite literally set the city’s boundaries in stone, to perhaps cease its growth, and yet grow it did. Ever higher the buildings stretched, until the physical city became as terraced and divided as its people. Rising from the center of the city, looking down on everyone else, is the realm of the elite and the powerful. Soaring crystal spires and ivory towers glory in the tropical sun, and curse the daily monsoon rains. Five hundred meters, a thousand, two thousand, each one straining to outdo the other... and yet each is bound to the other, surrounded in a nascent but ever-growing net of graphene and nanotube strands, each gaining strength from its neighbor against the unceasing threat of earthquakes. Zipping along these gossamer filaments are enclosed trams, interspersed with sleek VTOLs, moving the residents about in utter luxury, so that they need not sully themselves by descending to the streets below and mixing with the proletariat, for labor is ever beneath them. Even that glorious and life-giving sun is kept in check as the residents calmly stroll, if they so choose, down covered walkways and glassed-in corridors where the windows let in only just enough light. Occasionally, they may pass a bit of wall that briefly becomes a screen, where some figure of otherworldly beauty and grace might politely suggest this product or that may be of benefit to the honored client, or learnéd and composed correspondents may pass on the news of the day.

    “The Prime Minister expresses his regret that the Honored President of Kleptogart will not be attending the upcoming summit of the Southern Free Trade Federation, and will, of course, extend every courtesy and hospitality to Vice President Kerman in his place. The Prime Minister understands that the Honored President must be with his people, if these troubling roomers of an infectious outbreak bear even a grain of truth.”

    Below the dominating spires and graceful towers are buildings somewhat more stout, if only slightly less beautiful. Marble and glass are the architecture of choice, here, covering strong steel skeletons holding up the city above. The best locations get a few hours of brilliant sun a day, while the higher structures channel away the worst of the rains. Roads ring these buildings, passing between them on airy trestles made of ornate wrought iron or titanium mesh, while here and there near-silent electric kars slip past. This level is popular with tourists and expatriates, eager to experience the “real” Bangkong, or perhaps its dazzling nightlife, where enormous billboards and gigantic screens cover the entire sides of buildings. 

    “Try all new1Tas-T-Mush™️, space-age superfood!2” urge fair, beauteous people so carefully rendered they nearly look real, or “Brain-O™️-brand brain cleaner, for those stubborn mental stains!3”

    1surplus.
    2Not an actual food product, do not consume.
    3For external use only.

    Occasionally the ephemeral hawkers relent, giving the screens over to principled reporters, whose reports are, of course, free of any measure of bias or subjectivity, “shock and concern from the Prime Minister’s office today, when it was revealed that the President of Kleptogart would not be attending the G-12 Trade Summit after reports of a mystery illness in that country began to surface.” Or perhaps they pause as they go about their business (for their business is business, and business is good), “in financial news, national asteroid processing profits are up fifteen percent in the last quarter following the commissioning of three new gigaton-class retrieval tugs constructed by the Layland Wutani corporation. This expansion of the Royal Mandate has no doubt led to...”

    They move about with their eyes cast ever skyward, for here ‘upward mobility’ is quite a literal term, when it is to be found. Never do their eyes dip down, toward the hazy smog of the place they’d all rather forget, for it is far too near. They would rather forget who washes their windows, cleans their streets, removes their trash and prepares their food, and all other work they see ever as beneath them. 

    Below that ever-present layer of smog, glass and marble quickly give way to simple, solid concrete. These structures are stouter still, for like the people who live here, they must support everything above. Whining turbines and clattering pistons belch out noxious fumes from which the rest of the world has largely moved on, as trundles and tuk-tuks in every imaginable shade of rust putter back and forth on streets that appear as solid as the buildings. For a few lucky souls here, who live in just the right places, if the wind is just so to part the brownish clouds overhead, a glimpse of sun or a dash of Münlight may be had, if one knows where to look. 

    And not many look at this place at all, making it a favored respite for those... who do not wish to be found. The lost and the seeking slink about in dark corners and shadowed alleyways, content with their humble level of comfort in this oft-forgotten place, for of course, it could be worse. Much worse. 

    Festooning the sidewalks and alleyways are neon signs standing in stark negative to the dismal greyscale surroundings. They advertise wares and trades in dozens of languages, but always in simple words, for the laboring souls here do not have time to pause and stare. Yet as they bustle about, cobbled together radios in storefronts and high windows call down the events of the day, as irrelevant as it is in this hive of desperation. 

    “The Prime Minister is patently insulted at the honorless foreign leader’s rejection of his invitation! Such a breech of sacred etiquette has not only offended His Excellency, but the Honored leaders of a dozen other neighbors across the region! Such a slight by this outlander dog will not go unanswered, and furthermore...”

    Such things are expected to be known, it is only proper. Yet such things have no bearing on these beleaguered toilers. Life here is harsh, and often brief, yet like the dark shadows in the alleys and corners, the dwellers here rejoice for what comforts they do have. 

    Yes, it could be much worse. 

    For there is another layer to this place of layers, a realm where neither sun nor rain ever reach. Buzzing sodium lights cast it forever in pallid yellow; a haphazard conglomeration of tilting shacks, crumbling alleys, and piled stone that gives the impression that at any moment the entire blighted complex will collapse under the weight above... and yet this haunted place is, in every regard, the very foundation of the city itself. There are no screens here, no hawkers, no news of the higher world, for such things are as immaterial here as this place is to those above. Or at least, as those above would like to think it is. 

    Everything is dirty, although there is no dirt. That lies lower still, in dark reaches even these lost souls fear to tread. There are no kars, or trundles, or even wagons. The spaces between the towering huts belong only to the sure of foot, and there are many, many feet here. They clog every alley and passage, moving back and forth going about the motions of utter insignificance. They pass by each other in an unbroken mass, their travel chaotic, like molecules in a liquid. Yet their surroundings belie efficiency; there are no collisions, no shoving, no cross words. To do so would be wasteful, as such action requires fuel, and fuel of every sort is a scarcity here. 

    Yet they move on, insects in a hive, each one trivial and pointless. The whole is the beating heart of the city, pumping its lifesblood throughout the body, sustaining it. These are antibodies and corpuscles, each one without value, yet without them the body withers and dies. There are many words for them in as many languages as are spoken in the city, and always with a curse or a spit, for they all mean the same. 

    Kowloon.

    The Unseen.

    One is passing now, as unremarkable as all the rest, making his way down another clogged, nameless lane. With one hand he reaches out, a gentle touch on the shoulder is all that is needed to move through the mass, such is only proper. He moves, and he touches, snaking his way to his destination clutching a dingy yellow Icefort™️ cooler. He moves, pausing every so often to cough into his hand. An uncovered cough in this breathless place would be a breach of protocol, such is only proper. He moves, his eyes perhaps a touch duller than all the others, his long, greasy hair shading the blotches on his face from the glow of the buzzing lamps, wearing a hungry, snaggletoothed smile.  

    He floats to a dark side way, out of the crowd, and takes a moment to compose himself. He wipes at his grimy face with a grubby rag, the filth coming out even either way. Out of habit he looks up at the hanging sign over the door, although of course he cannot read. The carved outline of a fish is what he seeks. This one is called Khang, a common name in this place, which means... absolutely nothing. His grotesque smile creeping a spot wider, he opens the door...

    ...And immediately bows his face to the ground, “a thousand blessings upon you, O—“

    “Khang!” the proprietor calls out from a counter across the small room, eyeing him suspiciously, “you look like crap.” And then, “wipe your feet.” This one is called... by a much longer name, which roughly means, ‘a thing proven useful if one needs fish,’ so for brevity’s sake, let us call him... Bob.

    No, not that one. 

    Bob the Fishmonger is an anomaly in this vast city, a specter, one who is able to move freely about the many facets and layers. His meager status never leaves him, and yet there must be some in this enormous place like him, and likely many, for someone must move commodities around. 

    “A thousand apologies, O my Better,” Khang says, wiping his feet on the mat, which somehow come out dirtier, “honor and blessings upon you and upon your ancestors for dispensing such hospitality on one such as I. May your toenails be ever free of fungus!”

    Bob lets out a belabored grunt, and rolls his bloodshot eyes. Then those eyes fall on the cooler Khang is carrying, and his face blooms into his own horrid smile, hungry for much different reasons, “what did you bring me?” 

    “Delicacies, O corpulent one!” Khang practically squeals as he approaches, “indulgent delights unknown in this land!” He makes his way forward, kowtowing, past crooked shelves scattered with dented, rusty cans.

    “Eh? Is that so?” Bob’s grotesque smile widens. 

    “Yes, O odiferousness!” Khang proffers the cooler forward, plopping it on the grimy counter, “such rarities that have never been savored here, not even by your greatest Upward clients!”

    Bob pulls the cooler close with both hands, nearly embracing it. Then he opens the lid... and his smile vanishes. 

    “What’s this?” he reaches in and pokes at something, “what even are these?” he draws something floppy out, turning it over in the meager fluorescent light.

    “Treasures from a far off land, O my Better! Flavors to excite the tongue and lift the spirit!”

    Bob sniffs, recoils, “where did you get them?”

    “From a trader, in the market, O your nasalliness!”

    “And where did he get them?”

    “I did not ask, and he did not say.”

    Bob pokes the thing again, “teeth. It has buck-teeth. What sort of fish has buck-teeth?”

    “The better to garnish with, O unlaundered one!”

    “And it has ears...”

    “The better to glean your Most Honored clients’ secrets with, O your oleaginousness!”

    “And this tail... what sort of thing even has a tail like this? It looks like vermin...”

    “The better to, ah... brush one’s teeth with after the meal, O my Better!” Khang smiles a big smile, possibly not brushed in ever. 

    Bob releases the... thing, then grimaces as it slowly slides from his hand with a loud schluck sound, plopping back into the cooler. He grimaces more at the blackish slime covering his hand, sniffs at it, then wipes it on his stained apron. 

    “They look sick. I cannot sell these! It’s probably illegal for me to even have them. Do you have any idea what the Inspector would do if he caught me with these? Well, do you?”

    Khang looks at Bob. 

    Bob looks at Khang. 

    A pile of coins patters onto the counter, “half your usual rate.”

    Khang’s eyes and toothless grin swell for just an instant, he pauses... then he slams his face down onto the money in a quick bow, rattling the change. 

    “A thousand apologies, O my Better,” he mumbles and coughs from the crusty surface, then his face comes up... and he appears to be swallowing something quite large and unpleasant, “for your most benevolent generosity, may the hair upon your chest be ever sweet smelling, and shame be upon me and my ancestors for stretching it, but I must ask that you bestow my full rate, for you see, my beloved wife has taken ill, and I must call the healer to her bedside.”

    He adds, “also, one of the coins has clearly fallen on your side of the counter.”

    Bob looks at Khang. 

    Khang looks at Bob.

    Bob rolls his red-rimmed eyes, “Khang, your wife is dead. You sold her death-shroud to the healer to pay your debt at the Red House.”

    For a moment, Khang’s eyes dart back and forth, before his face slams down onto the coins again, rattling the shelf behind Bob. 

    “Ten thousand apologies, O my Better!” he comes up struggling a bit harder to swallow, “for my spirit is much troubled, and it seems that in my haste, I have misspoken! You see, it is in fact my Honored mother who has taken ill, and if you do not grant me my full rate, I shall not be able to call the healer to her, and she will suffer greatly.” He adds a few coughs for emphasis. 

    “Also, it would seem two more coins have fallen on your side of the counter.”

    Bob looks at Khang. 

    Khang looks at Bob. 

    Bob rolls his tired eyes, “Khang, your mother is dead. You sold her hair to the healer to pay your fine after the Inspector caught you in the Red House.”

    Nearly without delay Khang’s face once more slams down on the counter, making the coins jump and knocking something off a distant shelf with a metallic clatter. 

    “A thousand, thousand apologies, O my Better!” Khang’s face comes up. For a long minute, his gullet just sort of... twitches, bouncing up and down until it finally drops away with a loud gulp, leaving him hacking and dry heaving, his face going rather green... Er. 

    He presses on, “my spirit is much belabored, O grandiloquent one! Great is my distress in this, my time of tribulation, for once again I have misspoken! You see, it is my Most Esteemed grandmother is who is deathly ill, and unless you relinquish unto me my full fare so that I may call the healer to her side...” he leans in and blinks until tears drip down his cheeks, “surely she shall not live through the night!” He nods soberly. 

    “Also, more coins have fallen on your side of the counter...”

    Bob lets out a long sigh, and squeezes shut his own eyes, aching from all the rolling, “Khang... your grandmother is dead. You sold her toenail clippings to the healer to bribe the Inspector to let you into the Red House.”

    Bob looks at Khang.

    Khang looks at Bob. 

    Bob looks at Khang.

    Khang looks at Bob. 

    More coins clatter to the countertop, “three quarters...”

    Khang lets out a squeal, and greedily reaches for the money. 

    Thock!

    A fillet knife lodges into the wooden surface, its razor-sharp edge a bare hair’s breadth from the tender skin between his fingers. The squeal becomes a soft whine. 

    Bob’s face stretches into a grin that makes Khang shrink back a step, “...and you will bring me more.”

    “Yes, O splendiferous one!” Khang begins sweeping the coins into his pockets, flailing about and knocking many to the floor, “of course, O most piscatory culinarian!” he gathers them up, backing away, his long greasy hair trailing on the floor... possibly the first sweeping it’s had in, well, ever, “blessings upon you, O my Better! May the bunions on your feet be ever cushioned! May that growth upon your chin grow no more hairs!” As he kowtows out, passing the shelves, here and there there is a whoosh, and a dented, rusting can disappears, “may the flakes of your scalp be never as the snows atop sacred Mt. Wanahakalugi! May the boil upon your posterior not drain in the night! And may that most unfortunate rash clear up with all haste!” Khang’s own posterior, which needs no descriptor, reaches the door, and he turns to leave when—

    “Khang!”

    He looks back, confused at the breach of protocol. 

    Ting.

    A single coin tumbles through the air, seemingly in slow motion. Khang reaches out and catches it with both hands, his face a mask of unbridled joy. 

    “Go and see the healer. You look... unwell. Can’t have you dying on me before you deliver.”

    “Thank you, O supercilious one!” he bleats, “may the blowflies pass over you in the night without pause, and may you not live in interesting times!” The door creaks, and he is gone. 

    May you not live in interesting times.

    To declare otherwise is a curse so vile it burns bridges and kicks down doors. 

    In this crowded, polluted, stinking town, times were about to become... most interesting, indeed. 
     

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted · Edited by CatastrophicFailure

    13 minutes ago, YNM said:

    mean, how did they respond for debris of failed rockets ? They have to somehow collect and clean them from the area right ? Or is it just left scattered under the sea (that doesn't sound healthy)...

    Yes, the sea bed off the coast is quite littered with the remains of old rockets. It’s a veritable graveyard, the fish & corals love it (once the toxic fuels finally wash away). Most rockets don’t come down so... intact, so it’s right to Davey Jones’ locker with ‘em. 

     

    ETA: they’ve actually pulled up some bits. There’s a real recovered F1 from a Saturn Launch at the Boeing Museum of Flight right now.  

     

    But in this case... doesn’t maritime salvage law kick in at some point? Could Jeff Bezos just pop up next to it in a submarine and be all, “dis mine now!”? 

    2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

    Contract: Test LT-2 landing strut splashed down at Earth

    Oh, what a time to have run out of likes... :rolleyes:

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

    This is the worst satelite video ever made.  What's with the cliche vague words?  No actual description of the sat?  Why do they have a fake hologram with random numbers showing for half the video?  Why are they pretending to have a hologram?  Why are there random people walking montages?  

    Ahem...

    GOVsat... <_<

     

    Sigh, well this is another one I’ve missed. Glad for a successful launch, now let’s light that Triple Skinny! :D

    SpaceX Discussion Thread

    in Science & Spaceflight

    Posted

    3 hours ago, .50calBMG said:

    I really hope so, but all the animations have showed it horizontally aligned on its way up. Not really too surprising, not with how tough SpaceX builds their rockets.

    Right,  but if you look at the pad (I hadn’t before), the flame trench and TEL are aligned north-south... so if the FH is going to fly horizontally aligned, it’ll have to do a 90°-ish roll. Maybe the F9 does this already, but it’s a lot harder to spot on a single stick. 

×
×
  • Create New...