StrandedonEarth

How long until we see a morning launch from LC40 and an afternoon launch from 39A?

An easy way to say "We landed on Deimos!"

After all, at one point ULA was getting IIRC $800M or more per year from the government just to keep the lights on at two rocket production lines (Atlas V and Delta IV), to ensure access to space if one rocket had a failure. The government was the only customer for these rockets because the cost was so high. While SpaceX did receive government help to get up and running, i don’t think it received such caretaker funding. In fact, it gave the government another option so that Boeing’s DIV can be retired, eliminating the need for such funding. It seems SLS did not learn the lesson that the hassle of LH2 boosters is not worth the ISP, but I digress. I certwiuldnt consider ULA a commercial launch provider if only because they don’t do commercial launches, just government.

Awesome job VO!!!

Not for long though Maybe nominal shutdown, but the plan was for at least 250 seconds, and hopefully the full 8 minutes

T minus 1 minute

The radio just came up with a blast from the past that I hadn't heard in ages, probably decades. I'm kinda surprised it didn't generate more staying power as a classic rock anthem, but then I remember it was a Canadian one-hit-wonder, so that probably explains it. It must have got lost in the hair-band explosion of the day (Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Motley Crue. Van Halen, and the like)

Not necessarily. In the dry conditions of the desert, water will still evaporate a little, even at low temperatures. Since temperature is an average of molecular motion, the warmer molecules are the ones that break free and evaporate, carrying away more heat and leaving the ever-colder water behind (if there's even less heat input). No, you're not going to make ice cubes this way, but getting some thin rimes of ice on a cold desert night I could see, when conditions are right.

Love SLS or hate SLS, that would be a heckuva show!

Ooof yeah. The gritty salty spray during winter driving here can cause quite the buildup. Gotta make sure the blinker washer fluid is topped up regularly during winter.

Yeah, I live just over the 49th from you and we caught that blast too, knocked out power at work halfway through my shift, after the wind warning had been lifted. At least after I got sent home power was still on there.

Hmm, interesting design problems. Some ideas off the top of my head which may or may not be useful: Envelope: Can you find some old nylons, if your frame can keep it stretched? Fuel: How are you burning the paper? I'm thinking it should burn well if rolled into tubes and banded together in a honeycomb-ish fashion to get that chimney effect going. Not sure how many tubes you need.

Gotta love those names

Are you sure? If IKEA gets into the flat-packed space hab business, all bets are off. Or not: ”Dangit, I dropped that goshdarned hex key and its floating just out of reach. Maybe if I unclip my safety tether....” ”JEB! Just what do you think you’re doing...?!”

Or the barn *ducks and runs* But seriously, welcome to the KSP forums. As Snark says, ... we have cookies

So, it’s opera now? Those were some of my favourites!

The grid fins are what, 7 meters long I heard? Nine meter core... All they need is two parallel bars thirteen meters apart, with a small dip in the center. That gives two meters clearance wiggle room on each side and much more on the open sides. I think they have much accuracy already Mounted to an arm/shock absorber assembly similar to an engine lift at a vastly larger scale. Or maybe some other mounting arrangement supporting both ends would be better. Still sounds fairly simple. The more complicated part would be allowing the bars to move closer to each other as needed, if needed, which I suppose would be easier to do supporting both ends of the bars...

This. What’s the point of even designing legs that they know will be obsolete? Probably the leg engineer was having trouble coming up with a workable arrangement and did an end run around the problem. Besides, the plan was always to land on the mount anyways. Not to mention that just because we don’t see any sign of a catching support tower at the SH launch mount, doesn’t mean it’s not under construction in the tents and can be cranes into positions in weeks or less. Look at how fast the high bays go up... I wouldn’t be surprised to ultimately see service towers on rails to be rolled to and from the mount, allowing the launch tower to get out of the way of the hazard zone and the landing arms move in....

At a guess, doing more testing for water landings. Also, only need one ship this way, assuming one ship can carry both halves

Put your head between your knees so you’re ready in case you need to kiss your S goodbye. Jokes aside, it’s a delight to see the astounding production pace at Boca Chica

A reflight would also be good for durability testing.