StrandedonEarth

Such good boi! Much wow! Much mourn!

Alright it’s Game 6 time to send some oily butts packing! GO CANUCKS GO!

My laptop is experiencing a catastrophic display issue. I thought I saw some faint ghosts on the black screen at first, but after restarting I can’t even see that, so I think the backlight is toast. On a Friday afternoon going into a long weekend. Good luck getting it even looked at before Tuesday. Ah well, the power jack needs replacing/resoldering too. And probably a cleaning. I know what to ask the kids for Father’s Day (everything tends to come early around here)…

They said that the header tanks will hold enough propellants for landing on Mars. Seeing as the header tanks act as a thermos, they figure boil off should be acceptable

Refrigeration requires power. It also requires somewhere to dump waste heat. Those systems also add mass. It may be easier to and less massy to add enough insulation and sunshielding to reduce boiloff acceptable levels. ULA was looking into it with their ACES system, which would have burned propellant for power. It’s currently shelved, however.

If it works autonomously, not needing human control…

$11M worth of fibre, nice!

"Chance of winning the battle: 95%" - loses "Chance of winning the battle: 95%" - loses "Chance of winning the battle: 95%" - loses *ragequit*

Oh hey, as long as there's a Factorio thread, I made this years ago:

Prolific producer Roger Corman died on May 9, at age 98. Roger Corman - Biography - IMDb Interestingly, he outlived his obituary writer by a decade...

Four Superheavies stuffed in a Superhighbay? Starting to look like a gun magazine in there.

Clear skies here, but also light pollution. At best, after ten minutes outside as hidden from the plentiful ambient light as I could get, I could see a haze that could easily be mistaken for high, thin clouds, except it didn’t block the stars. But my iPhone 12 camera saw this ;

A robot doesn’t care what the mess is in the bathroom that needs to be cleaned up. It won’t gag or puke at the sight, or need a gas mask, etc. I think the janitor at my wife’s school would be happy to be replaced by a robot, considering the messes that get deliberately made in the boys room. And no, they’re not smoking in there… Although the bot itself might need decontaminating after…

PV can be co-located with crops, which benefits certain crops, and adds habitat for pollinators and animal. Win-win-win. Search “Agrivoltaics”

Isn't Centaur a balloon tank of hydrogen? No pressure, no strength; not an issue until the hydrogen boils off. Oh yeah, oops. Add on all the other systems to make it work. You want people on it? That thin skin will need MMOD protection, at least that could double as insulation. It also sounds like a one-way trip, and it has to get to lunar space first! I don't see a Centaur-based lander working very easily (of course it can work, by applying sufficient funding). SLS is what we got trying to re-use Shuttle hardware, remember?

Yeah, it's getting to the point where data/AI centers will need to secure their own power supply. Maybe that'll drive investment in a new generation of nuclear power plants! Yeah, I know, wishful thinking, too many hurdles. But that's part of why Microsoft is invested in fusion.

Well, probably not a cure-all, but localized storage (buffer batteries) and PV-covered parking lots (and/or wind where suitable) can go a long way towards slowing down the need for grid upgrades

Battery-as-a-service. You don't own the (swappable) battery, you lease/rent it. Depreciation is built into the battery owner's business model; besides, LFP battery cells are much more durable and much less prone to thermal runaway issues. Refueling a rentable ICE generator or fuel cell module (for recharging the permanent battery) would be no different than changing a propane-type cylinder or filling a jerry-can. Battery-swap systems are already operating in China. China's Nio Lets EV Drivers Swap Battery Quick and Hit the Road (caranddriver.com).

I still think the optimal concept would build off of battery-swap tech. Have a smaller built-in commuter-range battery coupled with a flexible, standardized swap bay that can hold a swappable module that can be a cargo tote, another battery, or some sort of generator or fuel cell, as needed.

There was an article, either in this thread or the Science News thread, about tickling, but I was unable to search it up. Basically, it’s known we can’t tickle ourselves (the soles of the feet may be an exception, imo), but it was also noted that tickling yourself also makes you resistant to someone else tickling you at the same time. This info has been very useful, since my wife enjoys tickling me, which drives me nuts and not in a good way. Now I can tolerate it once I can set up my defence, much to her disappointment and my relief

Another routine launch, first one I've had the opportunity to watch in a while. I just put it on while watching the Make-Me-Laffs force Game 7. The game ended as the booster was coming in to land.

What a plumbing nightmare. Dev version, I hope...

Ouch!

I suppose the most amazing part is that these last two twentieth launches were for customer payloads, not starlinks…

Or model rocket, possibly. My brother had one back in the 80’s…