StrandedonEarth

Well yes, but no. SpaceX received fixed-price contracts to develop and/or provide services, with some payments dependent on reaching milestones. They used these funds together with their own funds, to develop and launch vehicles. The Starship program has been largely funded by private investments in SpaceX, with the Starlink revenue stream as a more traditional business model to attract and de-risk those investments. SLS was developed and operated on a cost-plus basis (as far as I know) where contractors did not have "skin in the game," but instead billed the gov't for all costs incurred, plus a percentage for profit. They simply couldn't lose money on it, unless they didn't bill for some costs, and it incentivized inefficiency and cost bloating. There was no incentive to keep costs down ($100 million per RS-25) Boeing, a traditional cost-plus contractor, entered the fixed-price Commercial Crew contract contest, and is losing their shirt on it in the process. They apparently don't know how to work without simply billing Uncle Sam for cost overruns. Granted they had unforeseen difficulties and setbacks, but so did SpaceX...

@Spicat, whoop, sorry, rookie mistake...

Also the Israeli Beresheet moon lander. And then there was the Martian Beagle2, from the UK. Space is hard. Getting back down from space even more so, wherever you're trying to land...

I finally bought KSP2 after the 0.2 For Science! release, and here are some of my observations and frustrations. 1. Docking: I'm too used to some of the conveniences of KSP1. Two things that I find missing: In flight view, visible vessels had the range tagged to them. Nice to know One could click (dbl-click?) on visible vessels in flight view to set/unset them as target. I had some difficulties selecting the correct vessel in map view to set it as target. Please, please, please, a simple navball docking alignment indicator. That KSP1 mod was all I ever needed for docking, but I don't know if that exists for KSP2. At this point, I am playing KSP2 unmodded, and would like to stay that way. Yes, I can have the vessels target each other, but having to rotate a large vessel (especially conglomerates!) can be a pain. 2. Vessel information. For the "Land vessel of [x] mass on [body]" missions, once out of the VAB I cannot see what the vessel's mass is. It would be great to know what the mass is when I arrive in Duna orbit, or how much mass I actually landed*. Am I not looking in the right place? If nowhere else, "Vessel Information" (part count, mass, ?) should be another heading on the "Information Panel" when you click on the vessel in the Tracking station, or included under "Flight Situation," since it already includes dV. Or move dV under "Vessel Information" if/when implemented. 3. And yes, I also ran into the bug where parachutes weren't deploying. While I had that happen on an early mission, it worked on a reload. This time, however, on my attempt to land 300 tons on Duna (nope, needed to use too much methalox to complete the mission), out of three main chutes and two drogues, one main and one drogue wouldn't open, and I had to reload many times for other reasons (generally involving lithobraking). All chutes were armed and staged. Quicksave attached 4. As I sit here typing this, the game is paused in the background. Why is my PC still heating up? I would think the load on the PC while paused would be minimal, the only thing moving is the frame rate counter... * - Yes, I can add up the mass of propellants displayed in the staging stack, and note the dry mass of the vessel in the VAB. But I don't care to be that hardcore of a player. Also, one has to be careful adding up the staging stack, since multiple engines can draw from the same tanks, not to mention crossfeed and fuel lines. (quicksave attached for 'chute issue) Overall, I'm enjoying the game. Despite my low-end laptop, using low settings the game is playable enough for me. Launches run about 20fps. Oh right, that's the other issue, is there a quick way to clean up debris? Launch framerate was down to about twelve FPS before I cleaned up the debris, which restored it to 20fps. Included Attachments: quicksave_117.json

Going off on a geometrical tangent here, but back in the 80's I saw a comic captioned "Pythagoras trips over the hypotenuse" showing an ancient Greek tripping over a broomstick leaning against a wall (obviously at a fairly low angle). Google does not appear to have ay record of it, and I don't even remember the name/author of the comic, or even if it was a regular strip. Perhaps one of our more artistically inclined forum-goers here could recreate it?

Oh jeez. One year, over Christmas break, I rebuilt all (well, most) of the Lego kits that my kids had demolished. It took most of the two weeks, between sorting pieces, downloading instructions, and assembly. Never did find a few of the unique pieces.... The pic is on the first page of this thread... E: a bigger X-wing has since been added to the collection...

Not long enough.

*google* Whoops, I already chopped them up before freezing them for future reference. Sounds good!

Yeah, our multi-cooker gets used almost every day. Chili, yogurt, pea soup, sous vide chicken for future use. Wife experimented trying to cook the cabbage in it yesterday, oops, too long, mush. Had to go buy more today... E: Chicken in the bottom, rice on the rack above....

Wife made cabbage rolls for the first time in probably a year. For the ground pork, we ground up some whole pork tenderloin from Costco. It was delicious, much better than last time. Might have been the tenderloin, might have just been because she doesn't follow a recipe, just wings it from what she learned at her mom's side as a kid. Now we just need to decide what to do with the rest of the tenderloin...

Galactic Defender in the background, lol

‘This Has Been Going on for Years.’ Inside Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess. (msn.com) Auditors are not supposed to be liked. It's their job to be hated. If they're not finding anything wrong, then they are not looking hard enough. I once had an auditor flag my work for something that I was sure was fine, but if they dig hard enough, it won't be fine anymore. I get that you don't want them finding a ton of stuff, but as they used to say, "if a shirt's dirty, it's dirty." OTOH, a piece of lint doesn't make it dirty, but it's also no longer perfect. While a piece of lint may not be a critical problem in a fuselage, it could conceivably gum up a precision bearing in an engine, I suppose... Boeing just seems to be in such a tailspin...

not sure how venting LOX would have led to an explosion, since that also requires fuel. Unless they were venting both. Did they not learn enough from that disastrous spin-prime test?

May I propose the nickname "Swordbird?"

I guess they’ll stop pushing the FAA to let them certify themselves. But but but what about the shareholders?!? /s

Whoa, wait, how did this not get noticed, on this of all forums?

A tirre at work had "Who are you" written on it, so I had to add "Who who, who who" and it hasn't left my head since....

Check your ground on the battery. A loose ground wire can cause wonkiness. I had an Aerostar and the screw connecting the ground wire to the frame came loose. Not off, just loose, and the charging gauge needle was bouncing back and forth. Tightened the screw and the needle became steady as a rock.

Not a movie, but a mini-series...

Yup, in fact, I was on that forum up to about noon today, and when I refreshed the page after work at 230, I just got the white screen. But it was working for a good run there, Dec29…

The Navajo are probably happy about that. Perhaps the Moon spirits were offended…

Or safety wire. Lazy git probably center-punched the threads and called it good. But isn’t someone supposed to independently verify it’s done correctly? Oh right, probably got laid off as redundant…

... or be subject to a Vogon poetry reading...

The large 4-segment STS and 5-segment SLS SRBs have had full-duration static fires (can’t make them shorter), but in a horizontal, not vertical position; one at a time (not in pairs), and not mounted to a core stage, firing or not. (I probably read your post wrong; the wording of the first sentence is a touch ambiguous on second reading. )

They got gremlin remains on there too?