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StrandedonEarth

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Everything posted by StrandedonEarth

  1. Near in mind Atlas has also had in-flight issues such as an H2 leak that resulted in MECO 8 seconds early. The only reason it was not LOM was because Centaur had enough margin to make up the shortfall. Nobody is perfect. But Atlas hasn’t had an LOM for quite some time.At least they don’t have a record like Proton
  2. I didn’t think orthodontists did fillings, my kids got shuffled to the dentist for that. I’d definitely go back and say something isn’t right there
  3. Exactly what I was thinking. I’ll be surprised if they do more than Grasshopper style tests next year, in a freighter configuration (if not just a bare shell). Maybe a suborbital test if all goes well.
  4. “As early as...” Yeah, okay, I’ll believe it when... Pigs fly... (oh yeah, there was that Pink Floyd concert...) Okay, when Winnipeg wins the Stanley Cup *checks playoff standings* Fine then, when an expansion team wins the Cup *checks standing again* Ummmm, er.... They might actually make that happen!
  5. There was an X-Files episode like that, without the mad scientist.... Animal Hose: About a guy who specializes in making snakeskin hoses
  6. (Paraphrasing from a book I read long ago:) ”But teaching was such a respected profession!” ”Yeah, once they were allowed to start using stunguns in class...”
  7. ... evidenced by some of the human drivers on the road . If autonomous vehicles didn’t have to be concerned about unpredictable meatbags, they would be easy to develop with modern tech, especially if the roads were built for them (electronic lane markers embedded in the road surface).
  8. I remember that. Basically one of the most benign failures that could happen. The center engine was automatically shut down due to a sensor reading. It was late enough in the ascent that it could simply continue to orbit, although it may not have gone as high as originally planned. I'm typing this from my memory of watching that launch, without reading the link tater posted. If the engine had shut down earlier, things would have gotten "interesting." I suspect the gimbal could have compensated if one of the other engines had shut down that late instead. Now excuse me while I read that link... Edit: Yup, pretty close to what I remembered, forgot that it was the sensors failing, although I did seem to recall it was a temp sensor. Of course, that link also gave more info than what the news reported at that time
  9. Airplan 2!: A docucomedy showing just how easily Leslie Nielsen can mess up aircraft navigation, when he ends up in New York after trying to fly from Las Vegas to San Francisco Plane of the Apes: A bunch of apes take over a 747.
  10. A Quit Place: About a large employer whom nobody can tolerate working for, so they all quit
  11. Difficult to say. In the absence of large solid rockets, the only way to get a conflagration would be to have a structural failure, or a huge leak. It’s conceivable that a small fuel leak could start a fire that, if uncontrolled, would still take awhile to cause a failure that would lead to a fireball. Still, much less pucker factor to simply “pop the cork” in that situation than have everyone racing for the zip lines
  12. Carface: A dude who had his face tattooed to look like the front of a car...
  13. And I thought it was about a black Labrador Retreiver stuck outside on a hot day (Black Panter is what I call my black Labernese after she's been running around for awhile....)
  14. (in case you get the "video not available" message like I did, try... for whom the bell tolls and one) Edit: Bonus: One: StarCraft Remix
  15. Are you sure you don't have that backwards? One thing for sure, today is the first day of the rest of my life!
  16. Or just to get a full BFS into orbit, instead of having to refuel it before it can leave LEO.
  17. Quite intentionally. After the Cylons took over New Caprica, the humans took it back with a move analogous to a HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) maneuver, where the Galactica did an FTL into the high atmosphere with no horizontal velocity and dropped (with cool shock heating effects) into the lower atmosphere, where it launched its Vipers for ground attack before doing another FTL jump back into space to battle the Cylon Base Stars. Which resulted in... But back to the topic at hand.... Yeah, standard EULA, all our secrets are belong to them, as if they're really interested. After the Facebook scandal, this is pretty minor in comparison to what they were doing. They're just covering their assets.
  18. For my current career, I've mostly eschewed nukes except using a single LV-N for interplanetary probes or 1-seater ships. For everything else, I'm using Rhino-powered transfer stages, often refueling them in orbit after using some of their propellants for the orbit injection stage. Then my departure from LKO (about 240km orbit) is in the 2-3 minute range. One option would be to use a Rhino for the LKO ejection stage, and then nukes for the Jool system maneuvers
  19. Hard to say at this point. It’s supposed to generate 10 kW, but the mass of it won’t be known until they build a flight article, and even then, the mass will likely change on future versions depending on lessons learned. The Voyager RTGs: Future RTG's were expected to use a Stirling cycle generator instead of thermocouples, while there was development work done I'm not sure if any SC-RTGs are currently under development. The more modern RTG for Curiosity:
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