StrandedonEarth
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Posts posted by StrandedonEarth
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Had to do the screen cap...
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Perhaps the simplest, most foolproof way is to simply have the entire unit rotate, so no seals between moving parts are required. Docking would be at the axis, of course. Water would flow "down" to tanks in the outer circumference where it would be filtered, cleaned, and purified, and could be pumped around to maintain balance, along with sleds loaded with other stores. Moving such a station could be problematic, however, especially re-orienting it. Perhaps it could be despun to make maneuvers easier, but that would require more features, valves, etc, to keep everything where it should be during weightless operations.
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Oh geez, read the whole article, yeah, not flying Boing (deliberate sic) again, not that I plan to fly anytime soon. Dang bean-counters gut everything. The comments are equally damning about MBA "leadership" culture. Another excerpt from the article:
QuoteBecause there are so many problems with the Spirit build in the 737, Spirit has teams on site in Renton performing warranty work for all of their shoddy quality, and this SAT promptly gets shunted into their queue as a warranty item. Lots of bickering ensues in the SAT messages, and it takes a bit for Spirit to get to the work package. Once they have finished, they send it back to a Boeing QA for final acceptance, but then Malicious Stupid Happens! The Boeing QA writes another record in CMES (again, the correct venue) stating (with pictures) that Spirit has not actually reworked the discrepant rivets, they *just painted over the defects*. In Boeing production speak, this is a “process failure”. For an A&P mechanic at an airline, this would be called “federal crime”.
Painted over defective rivets? Seriously? There needs to be jail time.
Edit: speaking of bean-counters, and I apologize for going off-topic on a tangent, but a franchise I worked for got bought by a group with no experience in the industry, with a shady CFO who misled the group about the seasonal nature of the industry and ran it into bankruptcy. The intention was to sell off the pieces at an overall profit. Luckily the original owner bought the plant back, although the franchiser was also prepared to buy the plant rather than let it close, because at the time we were just that good. To sum up, bean counters should have little authority in operations in any industry, let alone one where quality is a life-or-death issue.
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That whirring sound you're hearing are all the shareholders selling off their Boeing stocks before all the penalties and lawsuit settlements hit...
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As I think I posted last year, I started making custom mugs using a sublimation printer and a Cricut mug press. Is it okay if I do a little market research / design feedback on these forums? Not to sell on these forums, of course, I'm sure it's not allowed here and besides, shipping is expensive so I only intend to sell locally at markets or Marketplace. I just want feedback on designs, whether people would consider buying them if they saw them for sale somewhere or suggestions for improvement, and naturally I would limit it to one thread for that purpose.
@Dakota, Deddly is suggesting I should ask a Community Manager. So can I, please huh huh pleeeease?
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6 minutes ago, cubinator said:
Good observation. See how the dark patch in the sand stretches outward away from Ingenuity? I think that's likely where the blade hit the dirt and scooped it up.
I wonder if Perseverance's microphone would have been able to pick that up...
Good point, I didn't think it through that far. Ingenuity can control itself without comms to Percy, right? Perhaps the comm blackout was a complete, albeit temporary, loss of power resulting in the crash / hard landing. Amazing it came to rest apparently upright in that case.
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RIP Ingenuity. It's not actually dead, just crippled by a broken wing
From NASA Ingenuity helicopter mission on Mars ends after three years | CNN
Hmm, was that divot carved out by a hard landing (or the blade itself?), or was it pre-existing? And what is that blue speck in the middle of the divot?
E: It's so easy to imagine the comm dropping out as the equivalent of "Can't talk, trying to land in one piece!"
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4 hours ago, monophonic said:
It is starting to look like Boeing's management has been making some very big mistakes, in my eyes. And the system is catching up to them finally, I hope. The MCAS issue certainly wasn't caught before catastrophe. It may have been the "keep your seat belt on at all times" rule that was the last line of defence that prevented fatalities in this case. A bit too close for comfort for me.
Luckily, in this instance, the last slice of swiss cheese held....
(Original in spoiler, which I couldn't resist modifying into the above image)
SpoilerNot that I changed much
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1 hour ago, tater said:
say life support systems that can function without any repairs for years can just as well be tested in LEO.
For the transfer vehicle, sure. For testing in a gravity well, there may be a bit of a difference in operation. Oops, lunar gravity is half that of Mars, so your point still stands…
I suppose the best bet is a test system landed with the propellant synthesis plant two years before any crew…
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Update: Kraken ban is still in effect. Nothing to see here, please move along...
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I get the feeling this was inspired by Boeing...
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Presumably at least some of that data is being gathered from the BEAM module currently attached to the ISS. I know, different companies, but same tech, I think (Is Sierra using Bigelow tech?)
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2 hours ago, tater said:
Weather matters 3 places, pad, landing site, and fairing recovery site.
Makes me wonder if there will ever be a situation where the customer (presumably DoD) says “We need this bird up yesterday! If the pad is go, launch it, and we’ll pay for the
expendedlost booster!” -
1 hour ago, grawl said:
That does sound bad...
Fingers crossed !
Well, when you consider that it was intended to make 5 flights and has made 72, it's done pretty good.
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Just now, tater said:
It was not directed to you at all.
Yeah, didn't think so, just acknowledging the principle.
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8 minutes ago, tater said:
Wonder if instead of sticking to subject matter of interest I should post statements as facts with zero evidential support
Guilty as charged; too lazy and/or time-constrained to research the sources I read it in, although generally the sources were previously linked upthread somewhere. But I’m certainly open to rebuttals.
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1 minute ago, Pthigrivi said:
I mean, SpaceX is also a government contractor. The dragon program, HLS, numerous government funded satellite launches are also 'spending other people's money.' The difference here is economy of scale and vertical integration. I think we can leave the politics out of it.
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...
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@Spicat, whoop, sorry, rookie mistake...
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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...
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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:
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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?
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On 1/16/2024 at 11:58 AM, AstroWolfie said:
I've been trying to rebuild my old lego sets from when I was younger, they all are currently in my parent's garage, but I do have the 501st battlepack and the new AT-TE. I'll try to get pics of it when i'm over there.
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...
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Not long enough.
Boeing 737 Max: the saga continues…
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted · Edited by StrandedonEarth
@PakledHostage, @darthgently, did you read the linked article? Boeing Whistleblower: Production Line Has "Enormous Volume Of Defects" Bolts On MAX 9 Weren't Installed - View from the Wing . It explains exactly how the bolts went uninstalled (they were installed, then removed, but never recorded as removed, so QA didn't re-inspect). It's a great article on the internal workings of Boeing, and the comments below the article are especially critical of replacing engineers in top positions with MBA's (and hiring the former CEO from McDonnell-Douglas) whose only concern is profit, not quality.
But yeah, any factory (in any industry) with as many defects as Spirit was putting out should/would be shut down for intense retraining, along with heads rolling. That's what would have happened to us if we failed audits that badly.