StrandedonEarth

Not unexpected, that's why I gassed up this morning. I was surprised they hadn't jacked the prices, TBH. But I didn't expect them to run dry this soon... :jawdrop:

Yeah, we still have some leftover lol

Okay, I’ll bite: how much propellant would be needed to raise the relevant part of the ISS’ orbit above the worst of the debris stream? Smooth move, Russia. A way to weasel out of ISS participation ASAP?

Yeah, I just decided to pay the premium and buy milk at the gas station while filling up, which was also a zoo. Other than that we’re reasonably well stocked. Also made sure to stop At the Jolly MilLer to stoCk up on Other houseHOLd supplies before there’s a run on that.

In case you haven;t seen this in this thread's early pages...

Oh crud, I was just thinking I should go to Save-on too, down on promontory. The new one is probably facing zombie hordes

I got home to Chilliwack from work about half an hour before they closed the highway. Thank Kod I left work early… I hope you found a room…

Aerial view of the overpass that last pic was taken from (not by me). Circled is Castle Fun Park. Mini-golf is one big water hazard now... Like, wow.... Roads and rail are cut off. How long until the supermarkets are empty? And I wonder how much damage has been done to the highway....

Two-day total of rain in the Fraser Valley: 220mm. The rain has stopped, but the the border-crossing Sumas River and the Nooksack River in Washington State are overflowing into Sumas Prairie. Which now resembles its former name from 100 years ago, Sumas Lake This is the highway that I usually take to work, this morning: Needless to say, no work today, because I don't drive a hovercraft.

Call!

Because it's been raining the last two days. A LOT

We've had over 200mm rain in the last 24 hrs (definitely not 'normal')and it's still raining. Roads are getting flooded or mudded by landslides all over the place. Vancouver is now officially cut off from the rest of Canada; all highways have been cut by slides and/or floods. The only way out is through Washington state, which is suffering the same flooding issues.

Easy, dude! You just exploded my sarcasm detector!

I find that to be a common problem with TV and especially movies these days. Turn it up to hear the dialog and get blasted when music and explosions kick in

All that at green gives me flashbacks...

Grammatical puzzle: add the necessary punctuation so the sentence makes grammatical sense!

If Larry Niven's "Known Universe" literary universe (which encompasses dozens of novels, novellas, and short stories by Niven) set in the near and not-so-near future) has ever intrigued you, then I also suggest the "Tales from the Man-Kzin Wars." It is at least a dozen of anthologies containing short stories and novellas by other writers (and occasionally Niven) set in that same Universe and explores many different corners of Human-Kzinti relations.

Pretty much. They may be able to replace the three SL engines with a single gimballed RVac, but they’d like to limit variants, especially complicated ones. But I think differential thrust should be enough control, except for roll. That could be achieved with steering vanes, I suppose; but again, that’s more complexity.

Okay, time for my nickel.... I also get hung up on hitting ludicrous speed deep in the soup, The logistics of a mountaintop launch/shot for marginal gains seems dubious. One workaround would be lofting the cannon first then firing it, but that's also impractical, and the recoil.... Hey, wait, the recoil...! Let's see, the typical second stage engine is sleeved, aside from some Russian hot-staged ones. But what if the F9 hot-staged before separation (rework required, obviously; maybe sleeve some of the second stage as a longer "barrel"). The second stage pops free like a cork, while the booster gets some impulse to help slow it down for re-entry and recovery. Of course, any gains are not worth protecting stuff from that blast, so it's a pointless idea aside from being a thought exercise.

Tesla opened a factory in Markham, Ontario, for making battery production equipment. With a factory dedicated to making battery manufacturing machinery, that (hopefully) means a LOT of battery production lines. Reuters Building the machine that builds the machines that build the machines....

Probably one of those USSF FH expendable cores, given the lack of legs… *marching rhythm * “FALCON BOOSTER ON THE TAXIWAY! FALCON HEAVY GETTING BUILT TODAY!”

I'll admit I don't follow Bezos on twitter, but I do remember the snarky "Welcome to the club" when the first F9 booster landed. And the "Sue Origin" lawsuits were getting excessive. Sure, SpaceX has launched its share of lawuits, but nothing as egregious as holding up Artemis. And Bezos' recent public appearances haven't done him any favors. As for Musk, he shoots from the lip far too often with frat-house humor. 'Nuff said. Tory Bruno of ULA has always been a class act, always dignified, positive and encouraging. Deep respect for him even though I didn't care much for ULA before. So that latest tweet from Bezos struck me as a refreshing change.

Someone finally drank a glass of class (or Tory Bruno was ghost writing for him). Now if only Musk would do the same…

Galactica 1980!