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A fan of Gordon R. Dickson? I love the novels, very funny.

The right to arm bears.

The ISS is getting an upgrade for their solar arrays. They have been deteriorating over time. The new arrays are flexible. They are sent up in rolls in the trunk of Dragon supply capsules and are...

I like one fact on WD-40. It was initially developed specifically for protecting the Atlas rocket with a steel body. Only when employees starting taking the stuff home for private use the...

Tesla is probably overpriced. There was a rise after Tesla was included in the NASDAQ index and it was expected after index funds had bought their share prices would drop somewhat. But even Tesla...

They are on track, but it is still a long way to go. The Raptor engines keep getting better. They have built ~60 of them by now, most of them destroyed in tests. A second test flight up to 12.5km...

Yes. But it is mostly the share value of Tesla, though SpaceX is also highly valued. Tesla with a higher share value than General Motors, VW, BMW and Daimler combined, is a bit over the top, given...

You must be the last optimist. I expect nothing will come from it beyond a few friendly word of warning.

I do expect the cop will be charged who shot that woman. Lucky if he gets away with a stern...

Seems to make a lot of sense and is likely to be an effective solution to the shortage of vaccine. The companies who developed and tested the vaccines naturally cover their asses by pointing out that...

By the way. Happy new year to all of you.

I am in the process of making the traditional Berliner Pfannkuchen.

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Whenever we think Elons ideas can not get any more outlandish, he proves us wrong.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1344327757916868608



This is about landing the huge booster rocket of...

Immigration gets a lot of data by scanning your passport. Covid vaccination should be in there. But that's too easy. I guess the experts can come up with a multitude of reasons why that is not...

We know we can live in 1g, Earth gravity. We do not know if it is necessary to live. We know that 0g is a problem, we can not reproduce under that condition, producing healthy offspring. I expect...

I have a very different opinion on terraforming. Actually one point I disagree with Elon Musk. :)

Mars is the place where we need to learn how to build and operate closed circuit ecosystems. That...

The great filter. Have we passed it or is it ahead?

Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter - YouTube

Will take it as soon as I can get it. I am above 70 so should not bee too long, in the second wave. My wife is just short of 70 and may have to wait a little longer.

Priority here seems...

Do you seriously anticipate the state can run this or any business better than the private owners? Bring all those businesses back under direct state control and the economy will tank.

Which is a good thing, I believe. It undermines the chinese power rise.

I really do not understand your baseless ranting against China. I don't like them any better than you. But try to be realistic.

That's not how it works. The US bought the full construction plans for the Russian RD-180 engines including the license to build them. They have a stock of flightworthy engines to look at. Yet when...

Simon43 is right as far as NASA is concerned. NASA, micro managed by Congress, is structurally incapable of achieving anything. Especially in human spaceflght but the blight is spreading to science...

Humans are still vastly superior to robots in most tasks. Especially when flexibility is required. A human can pick up a hammer and hit deficient equipment, often an adequate method of fixing things....

Yeah, but only when Biden is president. Or Trump would pardon them again.

A recap of the latest Starship flight. A surprising success, just at landing it blew up. Elon Musk was happy like a little child at christmas. He received a lot of congratulations. Including private...

Starship in Boca Chica, Texas, near the mexican border at the gulf coast. From a YouTube live stream view of the Starship launch site at early dawn.

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Same view a few minutes later
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Just over $20 billion a year for NASA is a quite small part of the US budget. Much of it goes to exciting science projects. We can do a lot of things in parallel.

A real problem is Congress...

Read "The Three Body Problem"

The Three-Body Problem (novel) - Wikipedia

My first chinese novel, well worth reading IMO.

Not a central theme of the novel but an interesting perspective....

I would hope he tried. We would be rid of him permanently as a result. But I agree, he would probably be not that stupid. But somebody did suggest it.

https://teakdoor.com/images/TD/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by Looper https://teakdoor.com/images/TD/buttons/viewpost-right.png
^Elegant orchid




I thought it is a Calla lily. They...

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1341088596598525952



Only 5 years and they already have launched as many reused rocket boosters as they have new ones over the whole existence of the company....

US spy agency is also weird. SpaceX launched NROL-109 national security payload. Always very secretive. No pictures of the sat, understandable. But they tried to hide the satellite orbit data....

Conflicting infos about the ISS leak out of Roskosmos. Smacks of deliberate obfuscation to me.

There is no new leak.

Leak to be fixed before end of the year.

Materials to be delivered by...

I had the link to the archive bookmarked after a method of access first came up. But the bookmark no longer works. Maybe it is gone. Maybe the mods can help.

BFR was the name in 2016. Names change, Starship is the successor. Starship is also smaller. Only 9m diameter and 120m high. 100-150t to LEO, 100t to the Moon and to Mars with LEO refueling. Limited...

A nice new graphic on the status of coming Starship prototype builds.

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SN9 seems to be ready after a slight accident that left one flap damaged. It is now replaced, with a flap from SN10....

A transparent attempt to break Germany out of its western links, making it vulnerable to Soviet pressure. It would have been a total disaster.

You may remember that there was a leak at the ISS and there was a slow loss of atmosphere. It was found after a long search and fixed. But now there is a fresh leak. Replacing the losses is now...

They have landed before. Lots of data received from landers and rovers, even by amateurs.

They will make samples available to foreign scientists. Fakes would be detected quickly.

Is this just trolling or are you serious? That's on the level of the ancient moon hoax conspiracy theories. A lot of nations today and even a lot of private amateurs have the means of tracking the...

They have crashed the ascender on the Moon, which is good practice compared to leaving it in Moon orbit. The orbiter is the return vehicle that pushed the lander back to Earth. So, being on the same...

A short video of the full mission. Beginning with the launch and ending with the return capsule landing and recovery.

A few comments. The rocket is a chinese development, no more copy of early...

The return capsule has landed.

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Infrared, the capsule is still warm. Obvious Soyuz heritage, but much smaller.

The wildly successful flight of Starship SN8 let SpaceX double their value to now $92 billion and sell new stock to increase their financial buffer. Raise money not when it is needed but when there...

The Chang'e 5 return capsule landing will be tomorrow, Dec. 17.

ESA ground station Maspalomas had contact. All seems good so far.

China has a few stations around the world, they have a tracking...

A picture tweeted by japanese NASA astronaut NOGUCHI, Soichi 野口　聡－（のぐち　そういち）@Astro_Soichi

He is one of the first crew that flew to the ISS in a Crew Dragon and is presently at the ISS.

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We don't have exact numbers for the weight. They aim for initially 120t dry mass, hopefully less later. But that's with 6 engines, heat shield and stronger legs. The prototype may have 120t as it is...

It is weird, but necessary. Not necessary for this flight but later when it comes back from orbit. It needs to distribute the braking forces and the heat over a large area. For this flight the...

Responsible people at NASA are beginning to understand what Starship is going to be.

A great video of Scott Manley, with the full flight and detailed explanations of what happened. Not too long to watch.

SpaceX's Biggest Starship Flight Is A Spectacular Success Even After Crash...

An awesome video of the last few seconds of the flight. Starshipcoming down horizontally then flipping around, right until the fireball. View from right below, at the landing pad.

The view from a...

Elon Musk on twitter


Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity...