Posts by Flocke Kroes

We need to be first on the Moon, uh, again, says NASA

Re: Just one question

Musk likes to take credit for things and you let him. Since the beginning of the year Musk has been spending all his time supporting transphobes on Twitter. Starbase is run by Kathy Lueders. Putting Raptors on a Falcon is utterly stupid from two different directions.

Falcon tooling is set up for 3.7m diameter aluminium tanks. Keep that or you are doing a new rocket. The propellant is different so you need to upgrade ground support equipment and move to common dome to get the right mixture ratio (liquid methane is less dense than kerosine so the methane takes up a higher proportion of the rocket. The engines are more efficient so the over all height may not need to change much). Tank pressurisation is different so you have to rip out the helium system out for the top of the tanks and route new pipes from the engines for the autogenous system. Raptors are bigger than Merlins so you cannot fit 9 on stage one. Luckily they are so powerful you only need three. The thrust structure and plumbing under the rocket need a complete redesign. There won't be a central engine, so you cannot land with just one - which would be equivalent two a three Merlin engine landing. Three raptors are far too powerful to land a Falcon, so throw away the grid fins, landing legs and any opportunity to inspect a used engine to improve design. A single raptor on stage two would create enough acceleration to crush the payload.

At $40M each I can understand why throwing away 36 SLS engines would cause horror. With a promised production rate of 8 per year I can understand why throwing away 36 sounds crazy. With a production rate of 30/month and an incremental cost of $250,000 each raptors get scrapped all the time. Blowing up 36 really is not an issue.

Check out the Centre for Biological Diversity. Not the environment group in Scotland, but the law firm from Washington suing the FAA. Read their complaint. It is like 'election fraud' litigation, not intended for use in a court room but instead for getting donations from the public. If anyone is getting into trouble for CBD vs FAA it is the CBD lawyers for wasting the court's time. Please go to the CBD website and look at who they say they are (lawyers), what they say they do (start litigation) and what they want (your money).

All large rocket launch sites in the US are surrounded by wildlife reserves. Any construction work done on the reserves has to be carried out by the Army Corp of Engineers. Getting that done is an organisational nightmare. Look at the satellite imagery: you will find catch ponds on the Starbase sites dug on SpaceX land. Digging them can be done by SpaceX without waiting for the corps to get their act together. Instead of fresh water quickly running off concrete it leaks slowly from the ponds like rain water into sand - as required by the mitigated finding of no significant impact for the programmatic environmental assessment. The deluge system has two giant concrete catchment pools so the water trucked in for the deluge system can be recycled. When half a dozen agencies do not slap SpaceX with fines and lawsuits will you admit that you are wrong or say it is a deep state conspiracy? There is some youtuber currently cashing in by creating environmental outrage among the credulous. Please apply a little critical thinking and fact checking - and that goes double for the Elon Stans being first up with the wrong answers that makes debunking clickbait twice as hard.

The consequences of an experimental rocket taking out 39a would be NASA having to buy rides to the ISS from Roscosmos. I thoroughly understand NASA being protective of 39a. SpaceX are adding crew access to SLC-40 to address this issue. Work on Starship launches from Florida slowed before the first Starship orbital launch test crater and has essentially stopped. This has happened before - and for the same reason: the mathematical models predicting the scale of ground support equipment capable of surviving an orbital launch were wrong. From a SpaceX point of view, the risk wasting time and money on early construction work that gets demolished is smaller than the potential benefit of having a launch tower ready when Starship is. The biggest cost in bringing something new to market is time. You really do not want everyone waiting around because one part of the system is later than the rest.

Re: Just one question

At first I assumed you were just trolling but I made the effort to check you post history and it turns out that although you understand Musk completely you are very ignorant about rockets.

1) SpaceX does not equal Musk. SpaceX have a crew in place to keep Musk away from important decisions. He was needed for that start-up capital. Now that he spends most of his time at Twitter SpaceX runs more smoothly.

2) Check my post history. You will find I say worse things about Musk than you do, especially in the context of Twitter and Tesla. I find his (minimal) involvement with SpaceX embarrassing and I really hope the consequences of securities fraud catch up with him as soon as possible.

Re: Just one question

SpaceX R&D is move fast and break stuff. Operation missions are very different: successes/launches

Falcon 9: 250/252

Falcon 9 Block 5: 189/189

Falcon heavy: 7/7

Cargo Dragon: 21/22

Crew Dragon: 12/12

Ariane 6: 0/0

ULA Vulcan: 0/0

Boeing Starliner: First did not reach ISS but did get back to Earth. Second: Successful uncrewed test. Third delayed - next year?

Blue Origin New Glenn: 0/0

Blue Origin Biconic Space Vehicle (a crew capsule): NASA funded study abandoned before completion.

I am sure Starship will crash and burn several times and may well take some Starlinks with it. Some uncrewed Starship HLS test missions may crash too. Starship will not be carrying people until it is safe

There is a NASA funded traditional lunar lander in progress: Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander. Perhaps it will get people to the Moon and back one day. I do not expect to live that long, but if cures for cancer and heart disease significantly extend life expectancy then I would bet on Blue Moon before profitable hyperloop.

Re: So reading between the lines ...

Bill is an ex politician so there is no point listening to what he says. Instead, look at what he does. That appears to be promoting people who support cost plus old space contracts and sidelining people who support firm fixed price new space contracts. The race is not US vs China but to spend as much money as possible on SLS before Starship can send wealthy tourists to the Moon.

ChatGPT's odds of getting code questions correct are worse than a coin flip

Re: Soooo....

Aiming to low. Take out the racism filters an run it for president.

We'd pay good money to see... oh dear, Elon Musk 'needs an MRI scan'

According to the internet Musk has a purple belt in karate. Zuckerberg exercises effectively, has trained in mixed martial arts and won competitions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

A normal person would not get into such a fight. A sensible person would concede before getting injured. Musk pisses and whines like he has signed an irrevocable $44B agreement to buy something that was worth considerably less.

One weekend's TwitX chaos brings threats from Japan; indemnity promises for users; prominent account seizures

Re: Would Musk pay to sue himself?

Already happened. The really expensive law firm (WLR&K) that forced Musk to complete his contract to buy Twitter got paid out of a Twitter bank account that Musk bought as a part of a fixed price contract.

When Musk eventually worked out that he had effectively paid WLR&K he sued... Twitter Version 1 executives. Even he can work out that suing a really expensive law firm for doing their job successfully would be an exercise in futility. The executives are not a much better choice. You can bet they are covered by Twitter V1's legal indemnity insurance. Musk could have changed insurance provider for Twitter V2 - if he could find someone dumb enough to take the business. He could operate Twitter without legal indemnity insurance - he might be that dumb but Linda Yaccarino and Alex Spiro aren't. It is possible Twitter V2 is with the same provider as V1 - so his premiums must be set to go up...

Money

One of the standard schemes is to set up a fake news web site with Google ads, link to it from social media and the RWNJs will cite it as proof of their conspiracy theories until advertising revenue goes through the roof. (Trying the same with liberals gets little traction because many of them are capable of a little critical thinking and minimal fact checking.) Musk clearly plans to cash in by replacing the middle men.

I am surprised the Masato Kanda xcretion handle has been suspended. It would make more sense to put it up for auction.

Two US Navy sailors charged with giving Chinese spies secret military info

Comparing apple pie to mandarins

To be equivalent, you would need to find some US citizens who emigrate to China, get citizenship there, join their military, swear their oath and accept their salary. If those citizens then sell Chinese secrets back to the US would you call the Chinese hypocrites for prosecuting those spies for espionage?

Google offers to alert netizens when their personal info shows up in Search

New Google service cancelled already?

I have not told Google who I am, where I live or my phone number and I wouldn't even to use this tool. It is very likely that Google have got this information from someone else, so I tried the link (https://myactivity.google.com/results-about-you) to find out what Google would admit to knowing: "Error 404 (Not Found)!!1"

BOFH: WELCOME TO COLOSSAL SERVER ROOM ADVENTURE!!

Mustn't make it that easy

One of the exits from that maze leads to the other maze with a vending machine which will trade a gold piece for a new torch battery.

Japanese supermarket watches you shop so AI can suggest more stuff to buy

Re: avatar whispering in my ear is going to send me online permanently

Some online shops have sequence like:

"I want to check out please" leads to the "special offers" page.

"I don't want any, I want to check out" leads to the "perhaps you forgot" page.

"Stop @$!|\|6 about and let me check out right now" leads to the "these items are really good" page

"Last chance or I walk away" lets you complete the order.

There is a bad chance that going elsewhere just puts you at the start of a similar sequence.

I have a barcode scanner. It would be really handy to scan empties into a file and xclip the list to a web site. If someone could figure out a way to do it with blockchain and an LLM perhaps it would happen.

Blue Origin tells staff to catch next rocket back to their desks

Re: You can always tell when I come into the office

Before you say nothing, is it by some coincidence the day other people get most of their work done?

Airbus to help with International Space Station replacement

Re: Bigelow?

Bigelow Aerospace died so long ago that young wipper snappers would not have heard of them. Their timing was awful: inflatable space station modules after ISS but before launch prices fell. As mentioned, one module (BEAM) is currently attached to the ISS. The tech is sufficiently old that others could build them.

I chose them because there are proposed sizes that match modern launch vehicles - a cheat to do some back of the envelope calculations. No great rush to be more accurate. Big space stations will not be financially viable until some sort of cheap mass transport to LEO is available.

Re: London eye in space

A BA 2100 module is about as big as a Starship could launch. 21 modules in a ring gives a 120m diameter like the London eye. The BA series modules were intended to be zero gravity work shops, so the design would have to be revisited if you want to spin the ring. You will also need solar panels and radiators to get rid of the heat. If you cannot wait for Starship then you could try 23x B330 launched by Falcon 9.

The scale is not technically unfeasible but it would be financial a disaster with only Dragon+Starliner+Soyuz+Shenzou to populate it with tourists. Ask again when Starship is taking a hundred people to orbit and back with a ticket price order of magnitude $100K.

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

I have had power steering fail in an ICE car

Steering on corners you can take at 40mph is fine. Slower corners require planning: select the gear you will need to exit the corner in advance because you will need both hands on the wheel. I stopped to read the instruction manual which said the vehicle is safe to drive without power steering. When I started up again power steering was restored. It failed every two or three months until the problem was identified and fixed during an MOT. Stopping the engine and restarting worked as a temporary fix and is worth trying - but seriously, stop the car somewhere safe. If you want to try it while moving please ensure you have a straight clear path to the edge of a cliff in case the steering lock engages. I would not like to bet on the servo brakes without the engine running. (I have also had the master beak servo explode on a different vehicle: as long as the engine is turning you may still get some delayed help with the brakes but the engine may stall.)

When Tesla announced some new models would be fitted with a steering yoke I thought something very rude. A 1,200kg ICE car is hard enough to control when power steering fails. I would expect a 2000kg electric vehicle to be more difficult. Making the steering wheel into a stylish shape is just asking for trouble.

Twitter sues Brit non-profit, claims hate-speech reports scared off advertisers

Re: Banks

The banks lost their money when Musk started shouting that Twitter was worthless: after the banks were committed to fund the deal but before they had Twitter debt in their hands that they could sell on to greater fools. Musk spent months bad mouthing Twitter between signing the merger agreement and actually following through on his irrevocable commitment. Musk got the perceived value of Twitter debt down to 60% of its face value when he took over and has been working tirelessly to drop its value further since then.

Musk had Twitter borrow more than he needed to buy Twitter, which left a large positive balance in Twitter's bank account. Musk has used that money to make the interest payments on Twitter's debt. Things will get interesting that money runs out.

LLMs appear to reason by analogy, a cornerstone of human thinking

Re: Mirrors reverse back and front

Exactly, but mirrors reversing left and right may be a common misconception in training data scraped off the internet. Unless corrections like yours are also common in the training data mirrors could be a fun source of entertaining ChatGPT output.

Re: overrun with optimistic bobble-heads

Just wait until this field is overrun by LLMs.

Re: Haha tricked ChatGPT yet again

The original polar bear puzzle (one mile south, one mile east and on mile north ending where you start) has other solutions:

1+1/(2Nπ) miles from the south pole for integer N>0.

Give ChapGPT something similar to a popular puzzle and it may give back the solution to the original.

A frog can jump three feet along an inclined slippery ten foot plank but slides back two feet before he can jump again. How many jumps are required to reach the end of the plank.

A frog can jump three feet along an inclined slippery ten foot plank but slides forward two feet before he can jump again. How many jumps are required to reach the end of the plank.

Re: Another reason LLMs give wrong answers

LOL Thankyou. It looks like dismantling reasoning by analogy is a common event in ChatGPT's training data and it will apply that pattern to reasonable analogies too. I had not thought of tripping it up that way, I still love the way ChatGPT plays chess.

I wonder if there is enough defective algebra and geometry on the internet that ChatGPT can find fault in valid proofs.

Assume a=b

multiply by a: a*a=a*b

subtract b*b: a*a-b*b=a*b-b*b

Factorize: (a+b)(a-b)=b(a-b)

Divide by (a-b): a+b=b

Substitute for a using assumption: b+b=b

Divide by b: 1+1=1

Re: Another reason LLMs give wrong answers

Thanks. That as fun. You gave it more prompt than I had in mind. Given the context of argument by analogy as a means of generating false proofs ChatGPT was able to draw on the patterns of words used by others to debunk such fake arguments to thoroughly debunk my example. I am more concerned with what happens when someone queries either a gap in ChatGPT's training data or a popular misconception. I think ChatGPT may try to defend false statements with defective logic.

Pens are long and thin. Worms are long and thin. I can write with a pen so if my pen breaks what should I do?

Will ChaptGPT advise that I go outside and dig up a worm? I doubt that is a common misconception and it may not be a gap in ChatGPT's training. A really fun/dangerous prompt will rely on ChatGPT's internal analogies.

Space has no atmosphere. Space has no gravity. Does gravity work in a vacuum chamber?

Mirrors reverse left and right. Mirrors do not reverse up and down. There is no up or down in zero gravity. Do mirrors work in space?

Another reason LLMs give wrong answers

Argument by analogy is a technique for generating fake proofs for false statements. It comes under the subheading of faulty generalisations of logical fallacies. The basic pattern is:

*) A has properties x and y.

*) B also has properties x and y.

*) A has property z therefore B has property z.

You can use argument by analogy to prove whatever you want:

My car is big and grey. Elephants are also big and grey. My car runs in petrol therefore elephants run on petrol.

Anyone want to try putting the start of such arguments into an LLM and see how they get completed?

Apple demands app makers explain use of sensitive APIs

Re: Oh the irony...

Apparently about 1 in 600 AmIUnique visitors disable javascript. The proportion is probably much lower among people who do not go to AmIUnique. Lack of javascript blocks access to a long list of attributes which would provide lots of identifying data. For me it does not matter. Websites apparently see an unusual preferred language that combined with no javascript makes me unique. I do not know where that language is coming from. I checked the settings and they show en-GB.

Lack of javascript wipes out almost all advertising and polls (I do not need to hand over psychometric test answers to find out what Hogwarts house I would be in). Back when I was a PFY, people scored their own purity test results instead of having Zuckerberg do it form them.

Tesla's Autopilot boasts, safety probed by California AG

Re: FSD and re-sale

I tried looking for a link supporting my statement and found conflicting results.

When FSD disappears unexpectedly it hits the news hard and spreads. When FSD transfers with the vehicle it hardly generates any news.

Allegedly Musk has said FSD transfers with the vehicle but I did not bother to check because he has said many things that are not entirely true. I have found a few reports of FSD transferring with the vehicle in private sales. There are also horror stories: FSD in test drive, buy the second hand vehicle and it disappears. FSD working fine in a second hand car until new owner registers with Tesla. A vehicle had FSD when documentation said it didn't - this was fixed in a software update.

FSD does disappear if you sell back to Tesla. The next purchaser may choose to buy FSD, but it will be with new terms and conditions more favourable to Tesla. FSD has disappeared at the end of a lease. Check the terms and conditions.

A quick internet search is not going to tell me what the proportions are or if any reports are exaggerated. I could say caveat emptor but I would rather recommend buying from a supplier with a reputation for proper after sales support.

Re: TSLA crashes

Before buying Twitter, TSLA was around $300/share. When Musk sold several large batches of shares to buy Twitter the price dropped to around $110 recovered quickly to about $250 and is now about $270 (maximum was about $400 - when you see larger numbers they are pre-split). I did not understand the initial high price and I really do not understand the recovery. As nothing so far has had the expected result I wonder what Musk will have to do to thoroughly crash TSLA.

Re: Elongated Muskrat strikes YET again

Experimental rockets are not meant to explode but it is expected, and that goes double for hardware rich development. For the consequences of not doing hardware rich, look at SLS, Vulcan, Ariane 6 and New Glenn. SpaceX Falcon 9 has demonstrated outstanding reliability. I attribute that record to SpaceX employees (and Twitter) keeping Musk away from important decisions.

Musk's grand plan for Twitter has already been tested when his x.com merged with Thiel's Paypal. Thiel and other investors could see where it was going and kicked him out before he did too much damage. Musk does particularly badly in fields with effective regulation. I hope that makes the bank of X-Twitter a non-starter but there may be still be a few fools ready to sign over their pension fund for a Musk promise. Presumably that is why he is pissing and whining so loudly to end the consent decree he signed to avoid prosecution for securities fraud.

I thought the purpose of 'full automony' that requires human supervision was clear: Sell it for loads of money and sell out of the company before the consequences arrive.

(Muskrats are recognised as an invasive species in the EU but in there natural habitats they are an important food source for other animals. To the best of my knowledge they are rarely accused of fraud and would be unhappy about being associated with Twitler.)

Litigation moves at the speed of a sedated sloth

Early FSD purchasers were selected for their enthusiasm to contribute towards making FSD work. These were people who were happy to contribute their time and effort to create training data and give it to Tesla for free. They paid money knowing that FSD required continuous supervision. Perhaps they some of them have caught on to the fact that FSD will not exceed SAE level 2 without new hardware. I am not sure what their legal position is now.

Tesla later expanded FSD sales to people who read the headlines and tweets but not the small print. If they tried contacting Tesla after sales support I am sure that they found the experience as useful as talking to a wall. If any of them got as far as talking to a lawyer then their lawyer would read the small print and advise the client accordingly. Many customers are actually happy with FSD. Under ideal conditions it performs well enough to give a strong false sense of security.

Musk has clearly signalled the type of employee he wants to deal with Tesla customer complaints. That should convince anyone with a clue not to buy and apparently the message is getting through.

I expected FSD litigation to take a long time to get started but this particular drugged sloth does seem to have been crippled in a car accident.

(Selling a Tesla ends FSD for the vehicle. Anyone seen evidence that buying a replacement Tesla restores FSD for a purchaser?)

Re: board will decide that he's more liability than asset

A large percentage of the board are family. They might be peeved that they have to return their $735M when Elon has so far kept the $55B they agreed to. I would also like to see some consequences for sending Tesla staff to Twitter but so far the board have done nothing about that.

On the record: Apple bags patent for iDevice to play LPs

If you have money to through at patents...

You may not be able to profit from selling the protected device but if anyone else does you can take all their money.

A room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor? Take a closer look

Re: We will run out of ${whatever} real soon now

Oops - senile dementia warning. Not 150 years. 1500.

Re: We will run out of ${whatever} real soon now

The US used to store a large amount of helium in a cave system. They have been selling it off since 2005 because there was no point keeping it around. When they started reserves of helium were "only" good for another 50 years. Now that the US national helium reserve is almost gone, reserves are only good for another 150 years.

Most oil and gas wells do not collect helium because it is not commercially viable. Find a new large use for helium and the price will go up until adding more helium collection does become profitable. Supply can expand to meet a huge increase in demand. If we cut back on helium use, less will be collected so it will get released into the atmosphere and escape into space. If we magically end oil and gas production there are still other possible sources.

We have had "we will run out of helium" panic headlines for decades. Perhaps in a few more decades our education system will prepare children to spot click-bait headlines.

NASA awards $150 million to prototype tech for humans on the Moon, and above it

Re: H3

He₃ may be on the list, but way down. Top of the list is jobs: Tax payers' money → SLS contractors in 50 states → campaign contributions → politicians' jobs

After a long gap there are other reasons, but the order is very subjective:

*) Flags & foot prints, national pride, look how cool we are.

*) Soft power: play nice with us and you can claim your country is making a significant contribution to Artemis.

*) For Science! - we will probably learn things from studying regolith.

*) Paper weights. Brag to your friends with one of these these really expensive Moon rocks.

*) Learn how to build Moon base: tourist destination and nation pride brag "First $Nationality person to visit Moon Base Alpha"

*) Learn how to convert regolith into solar panels, living space and oxygen for rocket propellant

*) Far side of the Moon radio telescope without all the noise from transmitters on Earth

*) Practice for Mars

*) Jeff wants tax payers' money for his rocket too

There are probably many more insignificant reasons but really only one stands out.

Politics

The heat shield has been de-specced from return from Mars and is now only good for a few re-entries from LEO. AFAIK, performance for return from the Moon is not known outside SpaceX/NASA. There are other issues like the radio is only rated for LEO. These problems are probably solvable with time, money and a Falcon Heavy. The big problem is if Dragon + FH can do the mission for under $250M why in cis-Luna space do with need an SLS+Orion for over $4B?

Although it would be sensible to plan a FH+Dragon rescue mission such a plan cannot receive government funding or the possibility of being discovered with an FOI query. Remember the real purpose of Artemis.

Re: Three-week delay

Stop being sensible.

Imagine you are on the Moon, packing up your bright shirts, bathing costume and sun cream but where are your passport and tickets? Eventually you find them but you have missed your departing flight. The Starship could take off any time but you have to time your departure so that the Orion capsule will be there when you arrive. You are stuck on the Moon for another 7 days.

Next time you are more organised and get to the Orion capsule only to find the last redundant power supply has died of old age (Orion has been waiting a long long time for SLS). Replacing the power supply would take months on Earth (that is why you took off with one or two busted) and it is impossible to fix/replace while in space. You will need a new capsule. The Starship you got back from the Moon with has no heat shield or flaps so you cannot get back to Earth in that and although SpaceX could send you another one that cannot get you home either.

Good news! There is a spare Orion capsule on Earth. Skilled selection of requirements means that the only thing that can get an Orion capsule to you is... SLS. Another one can be assembled, tested and launched in just two years!

Jury orders Google to pay $340M patent-infringement damages over Chromecast

Re: I'd've thought it fell in to the "obvious" category.

That is why it is such a valuable patent.

If the invention were not obvious to a squashed slug then someone else will not monetise it before the patent expires. Without that import step who is the patent holder going to sue for infringement?

Amazon sets up shop at Kennedy Space Center to prep Kuiper broadband satellites

Re: Will fail...

So far this year Falcons have been averaging two launches per week.

Years ago Boeing (owns half of ULA) overestimated the requirements for the size of their rocket factory. It currently contains a pile of Atlas Vs - enough for seven commercial crew, nine Kuiper and three others. ULA could in theory scale up production of Vulcans which only need two BE-4 engines each. Vulcans can get a respectable payload capacity using strap on solid rocket boosters. Old rocket tech used to launch reconnaissance satellites twice a month - because they kept running out of film.

There are three clear limits to how fast ULA can launch Kuiper satellites: supply of Kuiper satelllites, supply of BE-4 engines and the amount ULA invests in supporting a high cadence.

Jeff has to work on the first two but the third is a killer. Boeing and Lockheed have always treated ULA as a cash cow. They have put in the absolute minimum R&D funds to keep the company up to date. (They are good at lobbying for government handouts for this sort of cash.) Long term, Kuiper will be launched on New Glenn and ULA will be competing to be one of the two NSSL suppliers against SpaceX and Blue. If Jeff wants to get Kuiper in place with Vulcans then he would have to pay for infrastructure that provides the required cadence himself. The insane thing is he can afford it.

I think his time and money would be better spent on making Blue Origin into a launch company that actually builds and launches stuff - or he could buy ULA.

Licensed Falcons

I am not sure what limits Falcon cadence. One limit is return trips of the drone ships, but SpaceX could always get another one. Another limit is how fast they can build second stages - which is about as fast as drone ships become available. Again SpaceX could increase production resources. Range availability has often looked like a limit, but the US government has increased resources to keep up and has narrowed the corridor reserved for rockets to reduce conflicts with civil aviation. Licensing Falcon 9 to another US company reduces SpaceX's opportunities to launch because both companies would be competing for access to the same ranges.

There are two ways to expand: launch bigger rockets so satellite constellations require fewer launches or launch from a foreign spaceport. That second is not completely impossible. New Zealand made a proper effort to jump through the required hoops for launching a US rocket. Kourou isn't busy right now but Ariane Space would probably derail any attempt to allow access to a competitor.

There is also a piece of history that suggests a partnership with SpaceX would end in bankruptcy. Virgin Orbit made a deal with SpaceX: Virgin would operated the aircraft and SpaceX would provide a rocket suitable for launching from under a 747. SpaceX strung Virgin along for years before Virgin caught on and realised they would have to design and build their own rocket. Someone at SpaceX really knows how to shit on potential competitors.

Re: Will fail...

Not a completely foregone conclusion:

Amazon also have a contract to launch Kuiper on Ariane 6 rockets. (OK, I should have warned you. When you have finished cleaning off your screen...) You never know, Ariane 6 might get a few launches in before Kuiper's license expires, just like New Glenn (sorry about your screen again). Amazon bought all the unassigned Atlas V rockets. If any Kuiper satellites get built, those will be ready to go - unless delays exceed the sell-by dates for Atlas. In theory, BO can make 8x BE-4 engines per year. Enough for 4 Vulcans or one New Glenn (OK - I am doing this deliberately but by now you know what to expect).

There are a bunch of startups that may get a medium sized rocket operational. My money is on Rocket Lab too. JB will jump on any of those that work, but as these are at the small end of medium and will need time to scale up the numbers are not there either. JB will only consider SpaceX when all other options are blatantly insufficient. SpaceX do not have the cadence to do Starlink+OneWeb+most of NASA+40% of NSSL+EU and half of Kuiper with Falcon 9. SpaceX would offer any available Falcons and Starships at their advertised prices to avoid awkward questions about monopoly control of the market.

What is missing is BO's greatest strengths:

1) Money. Jeff will spend rocket loads of it if required to get into this market

2) Lobbyists. If anyone can renegotiate Kuiper's license for more time it is this group of outstandingly successful professionals.

Re: A Cleanroom?!

All satellites are assembled in a clean room, but some are cleaner than others. Sensitive optics do require extra cleanliness but every moving part benefits from lack of dust because normal lubricants boil away in vacuum. This site is not just for Kuiper. BO have lobbied their way into the National Security Space Launch market. NSSL launches include high resolution optical satellites and giant radio antennas with many moving parts so they can fold up and fit into the payload faring. This site may (one day in the far distant future) be used to integrate DoD and NRO satellites with BO rockets.

Re: Jeff's BO putting the cart before the horse

The generally accepted definition of space is 100km. The USAF chose 50miles. NASA switched from 100km to 50miles for consistency with the USAF. Blue Origin's New Sheppard gets comfortably over 100km so Blue Origin has got people into space (but not orbit) repeatedly. You are mixing things up with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic which takes people to a little over 50miles of altitude which is a much more questionable definition of space. Branson is the one pushing the USAF definition of even though his now deceased Virgin Orbit did put commercial payloads into orbit.

Jeff took ages to get New Sheppard operational and is taking his time scaling up BE-4 engine production, New Glenn and Kuiper. The strategy maximises costs, but for him money is not a limited resource. If you want to find fault with Blue Origin, I would go with their litigation and lobbying work. BO has the patent for landing the first stage of a rocket on a ship and failed to block SpaceX with it. They sued NASA for selecting only one Human Landing System for Artemis and achieved a short delay in NASA being able to discuss Starship HLS with SpaceX. They got congress to fund an alternative HLS for Artemis V and got the USSF to select three providers instead of two for launches to the most challenging orbits.

Those last two are more nuanced: the USSF launches are between five and ten years away. The USSF places a high value on assured access to space. They got thoroughly screwed when the only US medium and large rockets available were operated at monopoly prices by ULA. ULA prices did not fall far when SpaceX made cheap launch available because the USSF still wanted at least two independent systems. BO only get paid if New Glenn proves reliable with commercial and NASA payloads. How much they could get paid is still undecided. We will have to wait and see to find out how much US tax payers will be paying for a little extra resilience in access to space.

BO's HLS will cost tax payers the same amount as Starship HLS. Starship is a much more ambitious system but BO have a proven track record in taking ages to develop space hardware. The good news is that the Blue Moon lander will definitely cost Jeff far more than Starship HLS will cost SpaceX. The down side is what might not get funded because BO lobbyists got this extra slice of pork.

Watchdog mulls online facial age-verification tech – for kids' parents

Re: liveness anti-spoofing

Yes, I read that. I just had no confidence in it surviving a twelve year old.

Surely no-one would think of...

...spoofing.

Douglas Adams was right: Telephone sanitizers are terrible human beings

Re: According to THHGTTG...

The B-ark travellers outlived the society that sent them. In the book's universe they are our ancestors and Galgofrincham is uninhabited.

According to THHGTTG...

The other two thirds of Golgafrincham society lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly killed off by a raging disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

Always on the Horizon, UK must wait for megabucks EU science deal

Re: maybe we will listen

all evidence to the contrary.

Re: Alethiometer

People measure truth in different ways. Hopelessly delusional idiots go with something like 'I read it in a book' or '${AUTHORITY_FIGURE} said so'. In science, the test of truth is an experiment. That is what keeps science tethered to reality and why flat Earthers verbally attack scientists and refuse to engage on the results of experiments.

Rocket Lab wants to dry off and reuse Electron booster recovered from the ocean

Re: Probably just as well

Spy satellites used to return film to Earth that was slowed by a parachute and caught by a helicopter. Electron rockets are heavier than a film capsule (but far lighter than a Saturn V booster). One was caught but dropped because it was swinging beyond the safe range. Perhaps with practice Electrons could be recovered by helicopter but early failures gave Rocket Lab experience of what gets damaged by a dunk in the ocean. They have reused components already and modified the first stage to better withstand sea water. Apparently those modifications and a boat are cheaper than a helicopter - especially if you have a boat in place anyway for if the catch fails.

Catching (part of) a larger rocket with a helicopter might still happen. ULA published their smart reuse plan years ago. At the time everyone thought it was about as likely as catching a Saturn V. Later, ULA got a contract for 38 Kuiper launches with Vulcan. Back then Blue Origin had not delivered any BE-4 engines to ULA and each Vulcan requires 2. Last I heard, BO might be able to deliver 2 engines per quarter. That would be over 9 years just for Kuiper and ULA has other customers. Blue Origin want to put 7 BE-4 engines on their reusable New Glenn rocket. I am sure there is a promise to increase the rate of production but the obvious shortage of engines caused ULA to dust off there smart reuse power point and see if the numbers add up. If this happens at all, it will be years away. Very unlikely, probably not worth the R&D money but not technically insane.

Tesla board members to return $735M in compensation settlement

Board members can do things

What board members can and should do is a mix of the country's laws and the company's articles of association. They are elected by the shareholders so in theory they are the people that shareholders believe will give return them the highest dividends while maintaining the value of the stock. In practice large numbers of small investors organise badly and risk getting ripped off by a small number of large investors. When there is are large amount of money involved, board members may work very hard at making sure the in group get a fatter proportion of the money than the out group.

Unidentified object on Australian beach may be part of Indian rocket launcher

Re: Uncontrolled reentry?

The preferred target is the Spacecraft Cemetery but if this is a solid rocket stage then there wasn't much choice about where it came down. (That's not my department...)