StrandedonEarth

I had read somewhere that the capsule was designed to operate with 5 psi pure oxygen. For the test, they pumped up the capsule to 5 psi positive pressure (on top of sea level pressure, 14.7 psi). So the capsule was full of pure oxygen at almost 20 psi. The oxygen was almost four times as dense as designed. At that pressure/density, things were just looking for an excuse to burn, and burned four times as fast as they would have during normal operation. The atmosphere is 21% O2, so the partial pressure of oxygen is normally 3 psi. So there was more than 6 times as much oxygen available compared to a normal outdoor fire. It was a blast furnace in there.

No match for the shade of Allanon.

From the thread title I thought it was going to be a rip on Boeing...

I'm assuming most customers would crack the bitumen into lighter fractions for fuel and oils anyways. Rail should be sufficient for customers that actually want the bitumen itself for tarry products like asphalt or roofing tar. Neither would I, but at least if it floats it would be much easier to clean up. If it sinks it would be very difficult to clean up, and if it's out of sight the oil companies could get away with ignoring it while it continues to poison the environment. The biggest fear of environmental groups is a tanker spill, where it would destroy the sea floor. Most of this stuff is destined to be shipped across the Pacific to Asia. And one has to assume that spills are a matter of when, not if. Murphy's Law insists on it. Which is another point in my argument. Customers need to be able to handle bitumen anyways, and then they separate out the diluent and ship it back. A lighter product would have more customers, and I'm sure Alberta has plenty of cracking facilities already. Out of time for now, more arguments later...

I'm not against pipelines. Despite the effort to transition away from fossil fuels, they're not going away anytime soon, and oil is needed not just for energy, but as feedstock for industry to make a myriad of products. I recognize the economic need for pipelines. I know that a lot of the "oil" that Alberta produces is bitumen mined from the tar sands. And they want to get that to the markets. But do they have to pump diluted bitumen ("dilbit"; to make it pumpable) through the pipes? If dilbit spills, the diluent (natural-gas condensates such as naphtha) will quickly evaporate, causing health effects to anyone exposed to the vapors. The toxic bitumen, being heavier than water, will sink out of sight (and out of mind) and be pretty much impossible to clean up. Affected environments will take ages to recover. Can't they crack bitumen into something lighter, that will float on water and make it possible to recover and clean up spills? These pipeline companies say they will do everything possible to protect the environment. If that's the case, why won't they crack the bitumen into something that is, in my view, somewhat more environmentally friendly? I can only think it depends on what the end customer wants to do with it. Bitumen is the main ingredient in asphalt, IIRC. I assume it's easier to crack a big molecule into smaller ones than it is to build up a longer chain, but is it that much of a showstopper? They don't want to build a plant to crack bitumen for the pipeline? But that would create more jobs (always touted as a reason to build the pipeline) and presumably create a value-added product. I ask this question here hoping to get some answers before I (attempt to) bring this question to the attention of the powers that be. There are a lot of scientific minds here, so I'm hoping one of them can answer this question. If Kinder Morgan switched to pumping a lighter oil through their expanded Trans Mountain pipeline, it may mollify at least some of the environmental and native groups dead set against the project. I'm not against expanding the pipeline that currently pumps crude less than 500m from my house. I just don't understand why they have to pump dilbit, aside from the fact that that's what they're extracting in Alberta. If customers specifically want bitumen, they can ship it by rail.

Heads are gong to roll for that. Since it's Russia, maybe literally!

@p1t1o Thanks for explaining it much better than I could. OP: The bottom line is that your concept violates the law of conservation of energy. Never mind the engineering hurdles of building such a thing, it would soon stop as you extract energy from it. The energy has to come from somewhere, and magnetism and/or gravity won't provide it, they just facilitates the conversion.

Oh look, another Eve thread... Sorry, I can't resist posting this when someone mentions ascending from Eve

Q: What's green and red and goes a hundred miles an hour?

Your TV should have a setting where you can change the picture display size. In fact my remote has a button specifically for pic size.

The energy has to come from somewhere. Your magnet-studded ring would quickly stop as its kinetic energy is converted to electrical energy

Cool. Nice Falcon 9!

You can hold alt to force it to node-attach instead of surface attach, then click while still holding alt when it's in the right spot. Assuming you have available nodes to attach.

Well, they could always open IX with a disfiguring event, allowing them to put in a new actress without fussing too much over a different appearance (mind transference!). Just like how Luke met the wampa at the beginning of ESB, which explained away Luke's changed appearance after Mark Hamill's motorbike accident after ANH. Of course, that was easier to pull off since it was still the same actor instead of replacing an actor.

Well done!

When all the major glaciers melt and the rivers become seasonal, then the cities will be screaming for water and something drastic will need to be done: Nuclear powered desalination plants pumping vast amounts of water inland. That could also be done for the deserts, with the water being used for irrigating crops. Of course, the evaporation would have to go somewhere, but could be mitigated with greenhouses, or even just downwind moisture traps. I would think a well-irrigated farm in a hot desert climate should produce like crazy, and less crop pests too (until they find it).

Carrie had already finished filming for VIII before her heart attack and death, so they'll have to write her out for IX if they haven't already, like Harrison. Or did Solo maybe earn his blue glowie for 8/9?

Always two there are, the master and the apprentice. Until the master gets himself (or herself) killed and the clueless apprentice assumes the title of master... It makes me want to mash it with a line from another love-it-or-hate-it movie: "Yeah, I'll be your Jedi Master, until I die or you find someone better..."

I would imagine they hope to start flying expendable missions on used boosters soon

I'm not so much interested in the history of war, but I am fascinated by the machinery, big booms, and wreckage of war, from early to modern. My family can't figure out why I like to watch boring weapons of war documentaries. I think trying to capture populated land in the modern world is a fool's game, as between internal resistance and international condemnation it would be quite expensive to hold onto. What seems to be the popular movement these days is for ethnic groups to think they don't get a fair shake from the ruling party, and try to secede their own turf.

I played Chuck Yeager's Flight Sim on my IBM clone way back in the early 90's. Shooting for the moon in an SR-71 in amber monochrome, woohoo! I think I may have even landed it once. Other than that I played quite a bit of Combat Flight Simulator 3 on PC, but never played FSX or anything else in that series. I got fairly proficient in that, and flying was much easier than in KSP. Lots of fun with infinite ammo, chaining a string of 1000lb bombs across the countryside. Even with my joystick, I find that KSP flight is too twitchy.

Actually, they sell used balls to the hackers as a cheaper alternative to losing brand new balls. I think I've bought my own ball back a time or two.

"Experienced" booster is my choice of words, not SpaceX'. Kind of like the "experienced"golf balls you can buy at the golf course. Except these have already scored a hole-in-one.

SES 10 is in Florida, getting ready to ride an experienced booster NET Feb 22 http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/17/ses-10-telecom-satellite-in-florida-for-launch-on-reused-spacex-rocket/