StrandedonEarth

Not to mention that an autonomous ship could have a remote kill switch separate from a potentially hacked control system. Proper system security/encryption would reduce the chance of hacking, or prevent unauthorized boarders from taking control.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/nasa-logo-worm-spacex.html

Tough one. I know during reentry the Shuttle would do a series of S-turns to bleed off speed. Perhaps, after calculations to adjust the deorbit point to end up in range of a runway, they could have done a long, sweeping turn to port to protect that wing. There was also discussion about the possibility of packing the hole in the wing with water bags that would freeze to ice before reentry, temporarily plugging the hole. But I don’t think they could have reached the hole with the RMS (Canadarm), If it was even installed for that mission. Similarly, I don’t know if they even had EVA suits aboard, since IIRC rescue mission discussions involved having to first bring EVA suits to Columbia. Actually, I don’t think any scenarios involving getting the bird through reentry were meant to actually land; the idea was to get low enough to allow bailing out. Since the handling characteristics would have likely changed unpredictably due to the damage

Putting weather delays in perspective....

Seen in person? Jet dragsters. That I've ever heard of? How about a twin supercharged, twin turbo'd, NOS'd, Pontiac J2000? With rear axles that fit in a shoebox? http://dobbertinhydrocar.com/J2000/J-2000_BROCHURE_2.pdf

I recently went for a "hike" (all 15 minutes of it, from the parking lot)) with the dog up Mt Thom (all 475m of it; more of a foothill, really). Here's some Canon pics of the view from the top: The wide view across the valley. Mt Sumas (910m) is on the left. Across the valley with some zoom (lens, not the app). The green lump in front of the blue-ish looking 1221m Nicomen mountain range is Chilliwack Mountain (all 353m of it). Unless it just rained, the mountains always look a bit hazy here. My home is somewhere in this pic... Turn less than 90 degrees and there's Cultus Lake: The ravens were up to some aerobatics... (pics cropped) An eagle wanted to join the party... ... and was escorted away... As one probably noticed, I found a map showing the height of the peaks in the area. So I can add heights to the peaks I've posted previously: Mt Cheam (2112m, Rush's favorite peak maybe?) and Mt Slesse (2429m). My wife gave me grief for not taking any pics of the dog. It didn't even cross my mind. Besides, hard to get a decent dog pic while holding the leash. No good backdrop for her on that hike anyways: all bushes. As if we don't have enough pics of her already. At least I brought water for her...

Oops, I jinxed it... Horus was not appeased. At least on Saturday I won’t be trying to follow this thread while working

Apparently Horus has been appeased

Kerman??? McKenzie For those about to launch, we salute you! (Need a headbanger emoji)

WHOA WHOa WHoa Whoa whoa! I just noticed this in a NASA tweet. I guess I never paid close enough attention to the astronauts' names..... tomorrow SpaceX is sending Bob and Doug to the Space Station?!?!?

Sounds like a stinker of a situation

No idea where it Originally came from, my friends came up with it decades ago

Ya know, considering what a capable beast it was, the dev cost for the Shuttle Orbiter was quite reasonable. And we got a lot of use out of those birds. I won't get into operational cost or design flaws.... As for the whole SLS pro/con/capability debate, All I have to say is that huge rockets are nice to watch. But there likely won't be many huge rockets if the price tag is equally huge, because it makes such a juicy target for budget cuts if used by gov't, and commercial entities will balk at too high a price (looking at you, Saturn V, you big beautiful beast you). Talking about all these huge rockets and massively powerful engines brings out the Tim Taylor in me...

Wow. But could it have been a mistake that had nothing to do with the HLS selections or D2 (hard to imagine a mistake with his D2 work)? Maybe for being too lenient with Boeing? There's no solid indication of what are he made the mistake in.... I think Boeing has too much on its plate right now as it is...

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: (I was so sure they misspelled "Rebecca Romjin" in the credits... Then I double-checked and discovered that it actually is spelled Romijn)

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.

So as the Covid weight piles on, we decided to buy an elliptical trainer . Used, of course; I have no idea when it was made aside from being in that curious technological overlap area when the manual I downloaded mentions both ifit.com and videocassettes. The control console is a typical old-style with black-on-grey LCD display, some blister buttons, and some colored workout-intensity LEDs. So I started pondering the how relatively simple it would be to just sell upgraded consoles for these things. After all, the only wires coming from it would be for a speed sensor, a heartbeat sensor, and the little motor that controls resistance. Aside from power, which can be supplied by 4 D cells or the wall AC adapter (presumably 6v, haven't botherer to look). But why make a new console in this day and age? I soon realized that it could be as "easy" as rigging a dongle (to connect those two I/O's to an iPad, then writing an app to interface with the machine. My main roadblock here is that while I get the concept of using Arduino's and Raspberry Pi's to interface between computers and hardware, I know pretty much nothing about them. Ditto for writing apps. Not to mention no fine soldering skills. This is probably more of a mental exercise than actually intending to replace the control console with an iPad. But how hard would it actually be? A microcontroller to feed data to the iPad (via dongle or Bluetooth) and control the resistance motor on command from the iPad is probably the easy part, but I don't even know if I'd use a Pi or an Arduino for that. After that, it's writing the app, which could be as simple as overlaying performance data over YouTube videos, up to a more virtual "walk" So, any ideas on how I would go about this? Or suggestions for a website/forum that specializes in this sort of thing? It would be nice if it had a generator to charge a battery bank....

Snowbird down an hour ago, latest reports have a pilot dead and one injured. My wife is saying now that when she heard the Snowbirds were doing a cross-country fly-by tour, she had a feeling there would be a crash. F

Tankers. IIRC it takes at least three or four tanker launches to refill a Starship. Then boost to high elliptic and refill again. It can take quite a few tanker launches to refill a heavily laden Starship bound for BLEO

I said it before and I’ll say it again....

Because... Then a moderator comes along: Followed by rejoining the main line: I must say I like this design.It would be nice if the drop tanks could be replaced and the the craft be at least partially re-used. Bonus points if they could make the crew compartment into a detachable or at least modular pod, so that the propulsion segment could function as a reusable cargo lander dropping cargo pods.