StrandedonEarth

I’m assuming to get the blue flame with kerolox (although that tweet doesn’t specify lox), they must be running lean (oxy-rich). I believe the usual glowy orange of kerolox exhaust is from glowing soot (unburnt carbon) particles

Obligatory Tintin tax...

It's workiiiing! Well, after not working for a month, as of a few minutes ago I can properly access the S&SF subforum on mobile again. This, after I thought I was running into a new bug: "Hey, where'd the "Next Unread Topic" button go? I was just getting ready to post about it before I realized I had run out of unread topics; I must have hit the "mark all as read" button sometime in 2022... I even went so far as trying to convince Dall-E to create something like a kraken wielding a banhammer....

Well, I won't be catching this one. I'll have to head for Alberta in 2044. Alaska in 2033 is a possibility. I don't think I have until 2099...

"The right push at the right time" can be applied to so many things, from sales to psychology to space travel...

Good opinion piece. True stuff. Things Used to Work in This Country — The New Atlantis Sorry, no actual question here, figured this thread was a good enough place...

For Aiur! Hopefully they can at least clear the wreckage soon, and can modify an existing bridge design to have a plan ready ASAP. Cable-stayed seems to be the favorite these days.

Yeah, I saw that. About time, really, that someone found a way to recover all the low-grade waste heat getting dumped into the environment. Although I admit, I was waterskiing near a thermal power plant and finding the warm water plume was quite nice, compared to the rest of the inlet. But I digress.... A while back I was wondering if this sort of tech could be used to concentrate the waste heat going to radiators in space vessels, like the ISS. Radiators can shed heat faster the hotter they are; while it would take some power to run the heat pumps, it would allow more heat to be dumped per unit area. Perhaps the waste heat could even be pumped up enough to generate some electricity. Not enough to run the pumps, I know, but at least recover some energy...

That'll happen when it becomes infamous...

Every harbor city is taking a close look at their bridge piers today. The consensus seems to be rock barriers a distance away from the bridge towers.

I’m guessing the main issue that even a laser beam will diverge, losing power intensity as it does. A larger beam will still diverge, but power intensity will not drop off as fast with distance as a narrow beam of the same total power. As long as the power intensity (W/m2) is still enough to achieve what it is intended to do

As far as fusion power goes, there’s also General Fusion, but I don’t think that’s easily convertible to a direct Fusion Drive…

Definitely not "all." One Soviet nuclear sat (Kosmos 954) crashed in the Canadian Arctic in 1978

Needs an extra +1 for referencing Professor Calculus’ nuclear hybrid rocket. Hopefully Starship-HLS can land the tank-style rover!

SpX: “Not enough control authority, adding more, with heaters to prevent clogs” FAA: “Ok”

Launch was a hit in San Diego, it's all over imgur... E: Video clip: https://i.imgur.com/abb2NnA.mp4 E2: I have to wonder if those white dots are stars or fairing halves...

Yeah, I was thining it would make more sense as combined cycle, since spacecraft need power. But would it not be more efficient to just keep heating the plasma with microwaves, like VASIMR?

Falcon 9 wows the crowd (and the announcers) at a spring training baseball game in Pt St Lucie, Fl: https://x.com/awfulannouncing/status/1768804502390358102?s=20

Methagox RCS makes the most sense, if reliable ignition isn’t an issue. The last thing they want is more complexity, especially hazardous chemicals like hypergolics. Although if that’s what they need for HLS, all bets are off…

Well, if government would up their budget, but *politics*

I had to watch the flight while also trying to work, and doing neither particularly well. Now I can catch up on the thread and post… What I did notice doing during reentry, after plasma started up, was “wait, now it’s moving sideways? …. Now it’s upside down?” Whoops, back to work, break was longer than it should have been…

I’m pretty sure those types of defects are found with xray or ultrasound testing

@Kerwood Floyd They also lost the first three Falcon 1 rockets (but they didn’t “blow up” unless you count the first one crashing) before succeeding on the fourth and final attempt. That story is detailed in the book “Liftoff!” by Eric Berger, which is worth the read IMO

Does the F-15 even have any decent attachment point for the arresting hook. How much re-design would that have taken?