CatastrophicFailure

...and so it begins... ...again. Anybody got a flashlight?

seems SpaceX has also ditched the “conical blunt-body” design for the easier to produce monolithic rectangular Block sort...

I tell you, I... canard-ly wait for them to finish!

Funny, isn’t it, how at times like this your body decides your fingers are the most expendable bits?

So like... are they gonna stack and finish it first or test fire as is? There’s a certain logic to that, actually... they’ve never lit off three Raptors at once AFIAK...

I hypnotized the rooster today. It was actually Incredibly easy once I caught the little crap. Apparently this is totally a well-documented thing and even Adam Savage has done it.

Looks like we've got another month or more...

I was referring to Boeing’s CST-100 capsule... which they call the Starliner...

I was thinking more like the Dragon crew thumbing their noses thru the window at the empty Starliner... Soyuz did that, too...

Interesting indeed... Is there any reason why they couldn’t be there together? IIRC the second IDA has already been installed. If nothing else, it would make for one BadS photo op.

As I’m fond of saying, it’s the end of the world, never know who might be coming back from the dead. Bigger question is, how is Cal immune? What could an otherwise unremarkable reserve soldier possibly have been exposed to to develop immunity to something that no one else is?

The monkey’s face says it all... So... they’re not remounting the forward canards before restacking?

All Things Serve the Beam. Glorp.

How many acres?

Those other guys have been trying to rekajigger Shuttle hardware into a disposable heavy lift rocket for decades now. This most recent attempt started in the early 2000’s, around the time SpaceX had their inaugural mariachi photo. Those other guys are using an engine with a very long and established history, boosters with fairly minor upgrades, an existing upper stage and tankage based on existing designs build by contractors well experienced with such. They haven’t even settled on a lander design yet. SpaceX had to design a new engine from scratch, using an uncommon fuel in a tricky combustion cycle, made numerous major design revisions, plan on an untried reentry method, and want to rapidly reuse the whole mess. Serious design work has been going on since what, 2015 or so? They’ve flown one lander proof-of-concept with the new engine, have two prototypes nearly complete, started work on the third prototype, and all of that has only been within the last year. And the beauty is, the lander is the Rocket is the lander. The other guys just plod along but SpaceX is actually accelerating. I’ll cheer on those other guys and do hope to see them on the moon in 2024 (tho I find that unlikely), but I still say whenever they do get there a Starship will be waiting to welcome them. They should send a cheese wheel again on the first landing.

We interrupt this broadcast for a paid announcement from The Layland-Wutani Corporation... [The screen flickers for a moment, and we see an unassuming kerb we have seen before. His hair is combed, but hastily so. His shirt is clean and pressed, but his tie is loose and collar rumpled. His hands, folded before him, been washed, but not quite enough to get the last stubborn grease smears off. Behind him, people in dark uniforms and bright safety vests bustle back and forth...] Chapter 41: Shadow and Flicker My friends, he says, my brothers, and my sisters... these are the times that try our souls. The news coming from the Strait of Kerfrica, and Kleptogart, and elsewhere in the world has left me greatly troubled. My friends, my brothers and sisters, if we turn upon one another in this, our time of tribulation, then we shall indeed perish from this world, and thus rightly. And so I call upon all the leaders of this world, upon every principality and power: let us not take the step which cannot be untaken. Let us, instead, step back from this dread precipice upon which we find ourselves cast. A house divided against itself surely cannot stand, and not a one of us is absolved from the obligation to our fellow kerman beings below that roof. To that end, I now say to all the leaders of this world: if you are burdened by the teeming masses upon your lands, if you are torn between your obligation to country and kermanity, if you cannot see a way forward without sacrificing those upon the distant shore, then in the name of peace for all kermankind, I now offer the following pledge to those very homeless and tempest-tossed souls. Come to me, you who are burdened, and I shall give you rest. Indeed, I say to the leaders of this world, if you will not, or cannot see to them, then give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. This morning I directed the heads of every division and subsidiary of the Layland-Wutani Corporation to immediately retool all possible infrastructure to the production of rapidly-deployable prefabricated housing, KHO-list essential medicines, and emergency food rations. All corporate campuses still under our direct control will be converted into relief centers for refugees, displaced persons, and anyone else wishing to add their labor to a solution for this crisis which knows no border. There will be work for anyone who wants it, a warm bed for anyone who needs it, and a hot meal for anyone at all. My friends, my brothers and sisters I cannot make the journey for you, but if you come unto my door and knock, it shall be opened. It is my most sincere hope that by, in some small measure, relieving the leaders of the world of this perceived burden, that they may each move forward with a mind toward self-reflection; that we all as citizens of the world may move forward with minds toward understanding and greater unity; and that we may all, each, every one of us, put aside self-serving desires, and instead move forward together, with minds not merely toward peace in our time, but for peace in all time. For it is only together, undivided, that we may truly build a better world. Thank you, my friends, and good night. [Fade to black...] *** A frigid wind howls through canyons of brick and stone, past blackened, groaning skeletal hulks, and past doorways and windows that now stand empty, looking down like ghostly specters keeping vigil over a world that is moving on. A moment ago, an Age ago, fire like the very bowels of all the Nine Hells raged down streets where once children played and shopkeepers hawked their goods, and the people fleeing before this tempest prayed for rain. And indeed, the rain did come, as if all the denied showers of years of drought were payed back at once. It came in raging, screaming torrents down city streets and over manicured gardens. With no one left to turn the valves or open the sluice gates, the water pulled down fire-ravaged hills and distributed them as mud across those very streets and gardens, as if trying to erase that they had ever existed. In time, if there were anyone left to see, there would be nothing to see here at all. Yet today, the solemn silence is broken by the sound of rapid, squelching foot-falls. A kerbelle rounds a corner, sliding in the thick mud, her own breath loud in her ears. She darts between windows and half-buried doorways, skitters, her head moving frantically as if seeking something. She looks back, gasps, and takes off down the entombed street. More sodden footsteps echo in the stillness. The kerbelle spares one last glance, finally loses her footing and goes sprawling face-first into the muck. Coughing, groaning, she forces herself back up, pausing only a moment before turning down an alleyway. Right away, she realizes her mistake, but she cannot go back now. At the far end there is a door, half-hidden in a pile of garbage. She grabs the knob and twists, knowing it will not turn. And yet it does. She flings the door open... but only a few centimeters. Mud or debris or something else blocks the way. She tries but cannot squeeze through, slams her shoulder against it again and again, reaches a desperate, flailing arm into the dim safety beyond. “That’s about far enough.” Shoulders heaving, she sinks into the pile of trash. “You’re a spunky one, alright,” says a figure as he squelches into the alley, panting, tapping a steel pipe against one palm, “you really think you can outrun me?” Indifferent, dull clouds scud by overhead. Yet still his shadow draws over her. “Just gimme the backpack and I won’t hurt you,” he grins, “...much.” Defeated, the kerbelle slips one strap off her shoulder... then spins around, driving her other hand up and out. “AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” he stumbles backwards, the pipe and his hands dropping. She does not miss her chance. In an instant, the kerbelle is charging toward the open street beyond... only to have her way blocked by another figure. He ambles forward as if out for an afternoon stroll, whistling a jaunty tune. One hand rests a spiked wooden club on his shoulder, the other sits on the butt of a pistol at his hip. Two more join him from either side. “Just brain her, already, Kergan!” the first one comes limping forward, one hand pressed to his thigh, “little wench up and stabbed me! Ugh, I’m bleeding like a stuck pig, here...” “Now is that any way to treat our guest, Camlie?” Kergan says, smiling a broad, dashing smile far more chilling than the icy wind. “Get back!” the Kerbelle shrieks, brandishing a blood-stained hunk of jagged metal, “I’ll cut you!” Kergan’s shoulders rock as he chuckles, “y’know, I really hate explaining this twice, don’t I, boys?” “You sure do, Kergan,” says the one to his right, hefting a crowbar. “Hate it a whole lot,” says the other, with his pitchfork. “Hey... hey I’m really bleeding here,” says Camlie. A thoughtful cast comes over Kergan, “but hey, I’m a patient guy. I get it. Things are a little...” he turns back and forth, taking in the ruined buildings, “confusing right now. Tensions are running high, tempers are running short... maybe not eating for a week is making our blood sugar crash, so we’re not thinking quite right... so, just for you, I’ll make this one exception and explain this again...” The smile falls away from his face, “give us all your stuff.” And returns, cold as ever and twice as hungry, “...and we’ll let you go.” “You stay back!” the hunk of rusted metal in the kerbelle’s hand begins to tremble. “Kergan... hey Kergan... I think I’m really hurt, here,” says Camlie, “I’m getting light headed...” “Back!” the bit of metal whips back and forth between the three. Kergan lets out a tired sigh, “now, darlin’, we can do this the easy way or the hard way...” “Get back!!” “Ok,” he shrugs, raising the club over his head, “the easy way—“ Then Kergan gasps, his eyes growing wide as his smile evaporates. He seems to hang there a moment, frozen in time, before falling face-down in the mud with a loud splurch. His comrades, to their detriment, look down at him instead of behind. Cold steel slashes through the air, bites through cloth, and they, too, join him face first in the muck. The kerb remains, a smeared machete in one hand, raising a rifle toward Camlie with the other. “Now is the part where you run away,” he says plainly. Camlie just looks at him dully, before toppling forward and taking his own place in the mud. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, the kerb bent down and wiped his machete on Kergan’s jacket, then received the latter of his pistol. “Hmph,” he grunted, throwing it away with a spluch, “movie prop.” He looked up, “you okay? They hurt you?” “You get back! I’ll cut you!” the kerbelle’s shriek was close to breaking. “Ooooookaaay,” he stood, slowly returning the machete to its sheath before holding his empty hands up, “not gonna hurt you... kinda just saved your life, here...” “Get back!” a drop of blood fell from her hand. Another soon followed. “Look, you were right not to trust these punks,” he gave one of them a kick, “I’ve been tailing them on and off for a few days. They never let anyone go.” “Back! I mean it!” the trembling in her hand rose to shaking. The kerb watched her with patient eyes for a time, “that hunk of metal is really doing a number on your bare hand. Might want to snag a glove next time. You’re probably working on a nice tetanus infection.” “Back!” “You know tetanus, right?” he took a cautious step forward, his open palms raised high, “you’ll make it a few days, maybe a week. Then your jaw will lock up like this,” he said through clenched teeth, “fever and profuse sweating will follow, that alone is enough to kill you in this weather. Then the muscle cramps come, your limbs will seize up so hard you might break a bone or two. But there’s no delirium, so you’ll still be perfectly conscious when garbage like this—“ another kick— “find you helpless.” “I mean it!” she shrunk back, now swaying a bit. He shrugged, “or maybe it’ll just be good ol’ fashioned staph. You’ll know when the red streaks start to work their way from your hand up your arm, towards your heart. You may or may not be with it when the gangrene follows, the smell is something else....” Another cautious step, “and then there’s the maggots. Even with cold like this, somehow, maggots always find a way.” The hunk of metal dipped, “wait, maggots?” He nodded soberly, “maggots.” The kerbelle’s face looked on the edge of panic for a moment, but the ferocity returned twice as strong and she took a quick, shaky swipe at him, “I’m not kidding around! Do I look like I’m flarping kidding around?!” “You look like you’re exhausted and about to pass out,” the kerb said, unfazed, “now, I’ll help you but I am not gonna carry you, got it?” Slowly, very slowly, he swung his own pack around, and produced a smaller one from within, emblazoned with a white cross, “I’ve got medical supplies... antibiotics... clean water and food back at my camp.” Another cautious step, “so... why don’t you put the rusty stabby thing down and let me take a look, ‘kay?” The rusty stabby thing shot back up just before his face, one hand now clasping the other, making wobbly, drunken arcs in the air like tracing some sort of abstract art, “you get back!” “Okay,” he threw his hands up in defeat, “I tried. But I’ll just leave you to your maggots.” He turned away, took a step, half-turned back, “oh, well, it might help if you just lop your own hand off. Tourniquet right about here,” he gestured, “clean it up real good first, have plenty of strong liquor and a nice, hot fire to cauterize. Make sure the axe is really sharp and whatever you do, don’t miss...” a shake of his head, “...you don’t wanna have to take a second swing.” The kerbelle’s resolve seemed to crumble like the buildings around her. One hand fell, and then her shoulders followed. She stared down at the makeshift weapon as it unsure what it was. “Take it from me, lady, infection is a really lousy way to die,” the kerb approached again, pulling up one pant leg to reveal a bandage stained with... unpleasant colors, “trust me, I know...” With that, the hunk fell from her fingers, drawing a hiss and a claret of blood as it did. The kerb stripped his gloves off, held up his clean, pale hands, “may I?” She gave a hesitant nod, not meeting his eyes, rocking as she lifted her hand again. The kerb took it, as gently as he could, looking over the gashes on her fingers and palm as she is winced. “You’ve got spirit, alright,” he peered a bit closer, then looked up, “this one’s down the bone.” He reached into the smaller back and produced a tiny can. As he sprayed it back and forth across the wounds, she tensed, expecting the astringent sting of alcohol, but finding only blissful numbness. “That’ll stop the bleeding and help with the pain,” he said, “these will need stitches and you will have scars, I’m a pretty lousy seamstress.” She finally looked up, trying to blink him into focus, “are you a doctor?” “Medic,” he shrugged, “sort of. I’ve had some training.” “Oh,” she nodded, the numbness in her hand seeming to drift up her arm until it was carrying her away to weightless, floating sl— “GAAAH!” she stumbled backwards, both hands to her face, suddenly very much awake, “what the hells, that’s not smelling salts!” The kerb tucked the vial away, “yeah, but it has the same effect, right? I told you, I am not gonna carry you.” “Guh, I think I’m gonna be sick,” she wasn’t, but she wiped a grimy sleeve across her mouth anyway, which only seemed to make her mud-caked face even dirtier. “Here,” the kerb gave an embarrassed little sigh, and handed her a clean cloth. The kerbelle wiped her mouth, stared at the cloth a moment, then flipped it over and began wiping her face, too, sending little globs of mud falling to the ground. Once there was finally more filth on the rag than her face, she tucked it into a pocket and tried with only fleeting success to pull some of her matted hair back into line. “Hey...” the kerb bent down, peering at her, “heeeeeeey...” he jumped up and clapped his hands, “it really is you! You’re Lolli Kerman, right? The singer?” She glanced at him, sighed, “I was. I guess.” “I’ve got, like, all your albums,” he chuckled, “I know you don’t remember, but we actually met once, at Tower of Power records. You signed my CD of ‘Derrty.’” She looked at him. He looked at her. He suddenly found the back of his head rather itchy, “er, sorry...” She handed the rather, well, derrty cloth back to him, “you got a name?” “Calford,” he said, “Calford Kerman. But everyone just calls me Cal,” he gestured to her hand, “I should probably bandage that up.” She let him, hissing and wincing as he wrapped strips of gauze over the wounds. After one particularly loud yelp Cal scolded, “hey, no fainting now! Almost done and I am seriously not carrying you.” Lolli scowled at him, then noted his tattered green shirt, “are you a soldier?” “I was,” he said plainly, still wrapping. “But... I thought all the soldiers were dead,” she jerked and swayed as pain and exhaustion competed for her mind’s attention, “you must not have been deployed to that city where... you know...” “Oh, I was there, alright,” he huffed, “my unit was one of the last in, when they were still trying to evacuate people. A bunch of infected fell on us... literally... and tried to drag me away and—“ Lolli screamed, suddenly finding herself once more very much alert and jerking her hand back so quickly she fell down in the mud with a schplorch, “gaaaaaah! You’re one of those-those-those things!” One hand pawed frantically at her face. He stared down at her. Slowly, some sense retuned, “you’re... not one of those things...” “They’re not things, they’re people,” he said softly, “sick people.” “But...” Lolli stopped feeling for non-existent sores, “how are you not one of those... people? I thought everyone who even looked at them got all...” “Because,” he said with a tired look, “I’m immune.” Cal offered a hand, “now, can we get going, please? I’d like to get inside before sunset, feels like it’s going to freeze overnight.” “Yeah,” she blinked at it with heavy eyes, “that sounds good.” And promptly fainted. Splat.

If you wanna make an omelette, gotta break some eggs... ...from about 20 klicks up... Continuing the poultry metaphor, cuz it’s tired and I’m late, SpaceX has a nice basket full of little eggs, they can afford to have a few not hatch, or even break a few In the process, thereby raising their overall odds of having something hatch, even if it’s a bit... fuzzy. OTOH, those other guys have a single great big expensive goose egg, too many roosters have been sitting on it for far too long, it may be all runny and stinky inside, and no one’s even bothered to candle it. And it may be a dinosaur, not a chicken.

And in case one hasn’t been keeping up, there’re still racing for a giant skydiver by year’s end, despite Mk 2’s rather, er, split personality of late... So, maybe fireworks for New Years! One way or another...

That stuff is fire, yo.

eat your heart out, SLS... Also, BREAKING NEWS! This just in! Totally serious. Not satirical at all, no sir. Heard it straight from ol’ Jimmy’s mouth, so he did... And while I’m at it.... C’mom, guys, just launch something already! I don’t care if it’s the new intern out of a giant potato gun, let’s see something fly, dangit!

I’m just that talented.

And they will be glorious... ...aaaaaaaand completely misrepresented by the mainstream media who still have only the vaguest idea which end needs to point to space at all...

Shut up and take my money already! Apparenrly Musk has a prototype terminal at his house, how he sent the tweet last night.

IIRC, way back before their first launch they were supposed to be paired with Moon Express, with the latter’s lunar lander as Electron’s first payload. Glad to see Rocket Lab hasn’t given up on this, at least to some extent.