Posts by Chris 239 226 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Dec 2010
Don't be daft ,they would never have hit the FTS button for a crewed vehicle! Remember the SRBs actually survived the explosion of the external tank and only got destroyed by Range Safety around 25 seconds later once it was clear the vehicle and crew were lost.
The shuttle and the external tank did not have an FTS and the FTSes on the SRBs were only for use after separation.
But I think it's highly likely that the external tank and even the shuttle itself would have broken up when it started spinning so I think you are probably correct it would not have made much difference had the SRB burn thru happened away from the strut.
"repeat Trump's ridiculous lies or get fired." Yep, that is Trumps MO both to test loyalty and tie the fortunes of people to his own success by a self reinforcing process - the more people support him the more they are dependent on him so the more they support him.
At some point he'll have enough localists in the Federal government, then Democracy in the USA is dead.
The announcement linked says even the pathetic discount offered is only for US residents, apparently the message to the rest of the world is Fcuk You! Maybe adopting the foreign affairs approach of the president elect?
It's also very unclear about the difference between EOL and EOS (end of service) and when they stop support, surely they can't stop security patch support right after they stop selling them? That should be illegal.
May I be the first to upvote your comment. (I was).
Only thing I slightly disagree with is "it must come down", IMO a better option would be to safe it in the same way they do dead satellites (venting or removing anything that could cause it to violently disintegrate, including its air) then boosting it to a safe high parking orbit. that may even be easier technically.
That would avoid depositing a lot of possibly harmful stuff in the atmosphere when it burns up or in the ocean when bits of it survive re-entry, it would also be either a useful source of raw materials or an historic artifact to our future space faring civilization.
I have a colleague that messages in teams "can I call you Chris?" The dumb nuts can see my stus is either green or busy, just call if it's green FFS! He's already disturbed my concentration with the message anyway! Then there's others that call any time without checking if you are down as busy.
I totally agree but the cyber security industry has management twisted round their little finger.
My company sells a solution that includes networks will never be exposed to the internet but the cyber teams insist every little vulnerability has to be patched, they even insist data in transit that will never leave the dedicated isolated network should be encrypted.
Totally agree, touch controls on a hob (what we call stove top in UK) are frustrating.
Recently was forced to use a hob with touch controls where if you had a large fry pan on one of the rings and had the handle toward you it would be over the main on/off control and the handle would turn off the whole hob. Basically the on/off button was too sensitive and to add insult the other buttons not sensitive enough so would only respond after repeated presses and swearing!
This : ""unparalleled end-to-end user data encryption" onboard" seems a bit pointless for an offering to a government military (potential) customer because the government/military would absolutely use their own encryption on government owned equipment at each end, there is no way they would trust SpaceX to encrypt/decrypt secret data.
@Flocke Kroes: Are you confusing this with LAUNCH abort?, the Apollo Lunar Module LANDING abort was abort BACK TO ORBIT. Sorry for shouty caps :-(
I'm sure phuzz is correct, there must be an abort back to orbit on the HLS Lunar landing, same as there was on Apollo. If after landing you have an issue preventing successful launch then yes you're SOOL
But lunar launch is I guess an all or nothing thing with no safe abort possible.
Of course Starship won't have a landing abort when it lands on earth but I don't think it will do that with people on board for a long time (not sure how the guy that is paying for Dear Moon is going to take that!)
Not much good for encryption anymore since you just told everybody the key! :-)
Still could work as a compression algorithm more than an encryption system?
Of course the compression % might be a bit variable and the (de)compression/(en/de)cryption overhead might be a problem.
First place I worked used A4 NCR pads for purchase orders/requests that had 5 copies. You had to write so heavy to get through to the bottom sheet.
The NCRs came in thick pads and you had to remember to put the card in below the set you were filling in or you would waste the next set below. They were specially printed and each had a preprinted serial number, must have cost a fortune!
You were doing so well until the typo in the last sentence, did you mean:
"turns up and doesn't work"
Never mind, this money will achieve it's primary purpose i.e. line the pockets of government friends that the contracts will be given to and lubricate the ministers transition into a cushy job when they finally leave politics.
IIRC back in the days of 3 TV channels in the UK some party political broadcasts were simultaneous on all 3 channels. ! Nightmare!
At least in these days zillions of channels and streaming services they don't/can't do that so you can just go watch something else.
Not that there is often anything actually worth watching on TV anymore.
This line is such crap:
"The coverage of each spacecraft is a narrow band around the whole world, meaning it faces global competition."
Starlink will face competition * because other companies want a slice of the action and nothing to do with the coverage of each of the thousands of satellites in the constellation. The coverage of each individual satellite is only relevant to the number of satellites needed.
* (somewhen - right now it faces none outside of a courtroom).
But, rant over, When Starlink comprised of V2 sats that don't need a local downlink will governments in the "free world" be able to stop customers using Starlink?
Hey, I had the exact same WTF moment on a multithreaded C compiler for DOS * in the 90s
The compiler would bug out with an error along the lines "you shouldn't see this error message", add back exactly 1 comment line and it would compile fine.
IIRC the compiler was from a one man band company, and yes up to a point did somehow give you multithreading on DOS but eventually enough unexplained crashes occurred that I refactored my code to be single threaded and then all was good.
I agree that is good scheme, In fact I used it when I was single.
However I think CookieMonster's 2 dishwashers both have zero storage capacity for crockery or cutlery. They are those old fashioned one at a time dishwashers.
I expect his/her dishwashers both have instead a good capacity for sweets and junk food.
On a fight from Southend to Jersey, before takeoff the Captain came on and said it was dicey they would be able to land at Jersey because it was foggy there and he would have fuel to fly back to Southend.
He also pointed out that while the airplane was a fully equipped with precision approach and autoland so it could land with zero visibility * Jersey airport did not have the required ground systems for that which seemed pretty daft as it seems fog is pretty common at Jersey airport.
The pilots made the landing on the 3rd (and last before fuel meant they would have to give up and fly back!) attempt. I had a window seat and damn we seemed pretty low when the ground became visible. They must have been using ILS until the very last bit.
* jeepers that must be weird/ scary for the pilots !
While I don't know about the 1st two or the 5th of your numbered points and they sound plausible I take issue with 3rd and 4th
3rd - it would not need all operators or planes to be fitted with the system - the airport would maintain all the old systems alongside the new just as they do now with the decades old ILS and the current precision approach systems, also right now not all airports or aircraft have precision landing systems and there are procedures to ensure the pilots know if and when they can use a precision landing system or have to use a Mk1 eyeball.
4th - it would not require the approval of all aircraft manufactures, just one - as above a precision landing system is optional - if there is demand from operators then it is a commercial decision for the manufacturer to make.
But I agree that the EU acted disgracefully over Galileo, but then the whole Brexit was (and still is) a predictable cluster fuck by both sides driven more by posturing, prejudice and hurt feelings than any considered desire for the best outcome. Fucking politicians.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
