Posts by fishman

SpaceX shows off progress on its lunar Starship

Winning the contract.

Don't forget that the reason SpaceX won the contract was that they were the lowest price bidder by quite a bit - the other bids were quite a bit more than what NASA had to allocate for the lander at the time.

Senators accuse Smithsonian of 'illegal lobbying' over Discovery squabbles

Re: Long past time to remove

Plenty of room in Gitmo for Trump, his family, and hundreds of his cronies.

Thousands of NASA senior staffers expected to quit after budget slashed

Brain Drain

The US is experiencing a significant brain drain. Many highly educated people with work visas or dual citizenship are leaving. And places like the EU are setting aside money to bring those people to them - they know their value.

Nuclear reactors smaller than a semi truck to be tested in Idaho

Cool - I can just imagine the reactor loaded on a truck and heading down the highway.

What could possible go wrong?

'Cyber security' behind decision to end defense satellite sharing of hurricane data

Re: SimEarth

Even by a Sharpie pen.

Aussie rocket foiled by premature fairing pop

War?

Would space aliens take launching Vegemite into orbit a declaration of war?

Musk’s DOGE probed by top watchdog after poking around Uncle Sam's systems

Fake numbers

Considering previous numbers given by DOGE were rife with errors and falsehoods any claim they make on savings probably should be divided by a factor somewhere between 10 and 100.

The IRS estimates that the disruptions in that agency by DOGE will cost $500B/year. So even using DOGE numbers DOGE is costing the US $350B/year.

Pentagon celebrates snipping 0.58% from defense budget in IT, DEI cuts

Re: Actually

He's replacing the swamp with a sewer.

Congress takes another swing at Uncle Sam's software licensing mess

Somewhat similar

About 15-20 years ago the US Navy tried to do something about the shear number of different software packages the Navy had. So they came up with a list of permissible software packages that could be purchased. This included the version number. Unfortunately the list seemed to be made up of software used in the Navy offices. I worked at a Navy R&D lab so we used many software packages not on the list so we had to write a justification and have it pass up the chain. Weeks later we would get permission to get it.

And if the software on the list came out with a new version than that shown on the list we had to get a waiver for that, too.

Dems ask federal agencies for reassurance DOGE isn't feeding data into AI willy-nilly

Musk and Trump

Musk is just doing to the Federal Government what Trump is doing to the US's traditional allies.

Satnav systems built for Earth used by Blue Ghost lander as it approached the Moon

Accuracy?

GPS satellites orbit about 20.000 km above the earth (12,500 mi). That works out to a maximum range of 12 degrees as seen from the moon. On earth the angle between satellites (as seen by the observer) can be much larger. Does the smaller angle from the moon result in less accurate measurements?

Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

Pencil and paper.

Trump eyes up to 100% tariffs on foreign semiconductors, TSMC in crosshairs

The big winner is China

How do you drive your allies away and into the arms of your adversary? Treat them like sht and threaten them constantly.

US freezes foreign aid, halting cybersecurity defense and policy funds for allies

Re: "Soft" Power

Nah, they'll just be more willing to talk with the Chinese.

Re: Everything is lies now

And aid to Ukraine is mainly in weapons - produced in US factories. It's allowed some weapon manufacturers to modernize factories - a win for the Department of Defence.

Robots in schools, care homes next? This UK biz hopes to make that happen

Some of this was presented in Terminator 2, when Sarah Conner realizes that the terminator was an ideal companion for John - patient, loyal, etc.

Intel, AMD engineers rush to save Linux 6.13 after dodgy Microsoft code change

Few people use the raw Kernel.

Few people use the raw Linux kernel - they get them from their kernel distribution and which has undergone more testing and is not bleeding edge.

Of course, I'm the sort that downloads the kernel sources and compiles them myself - something that I've been doing for 20+ years and never a problem. I get the near bleeding edge kernels - ones that have been out a few weeks and have several revisions done to it.

Blue Origin's New Glenn will launch any day now – but it better hurry up

They don't design a new rocket for every mission. Probably 95% of the Falcon 9 non starlink missions use the standard reusable booster / standard nozzle second stage. Light energy requirements they use a smaller nozzle on the second stage engine - nozzles are expensive. Heavy energy requirements mean you aren't recovering the booster so you leave the landing equipment off (landing legs, grid fins).

It's not uncommon for an older Falcon 9 booster to have done manned missions, cargo to ISS missions, starlink missions, GEO missions, and other LEO missions over it's lifetime.

And the Falcon 9 has done GEO and interplanetary launches and recovered the booster.

SpaceX charges what the market will bear. Even before they were reusing boosters they were the lowest cost launcher.

The internal costs for launch a Falcon 9 for SpaceX is estimated to be $20M (Eric Berger) and some estimate that it is between $15M and $20M.

"SpaceX charges about $85m per seat. "

No. It's $55M per seat. And Boeing is charging $90M per seat.

"Ariane quickly spotted a huge flaw in re-usability: If a rocket can fly ten times then Ariane would have to fire 90% of their manufacturing workforce."

Ironically SpaceX builds more new boosters each year than Ariane. And then there is those 135+ second stages they will have built this year. Lotsa manufacturing going on there.......

SpaceX claims another Starship success, but fumbles the catch

Re: Huge progress?

I'm using a number of $20M taken from Eric Berger (Senior space editor for Ars Technica and author of two books on SpaceX).

Re: Huge progress?

"The $40m, or whatever it costs a Falcon second stage, will not need to be paid any more."

There have been some estimates that the internal cost for a starlink launch is around $20M. And that includes a new second stage.

When you are launching as often as SpaceX the second stage production line becomes "mass production" driving down costs per unit. They are probably building 8-10 new boosters a year between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy - that's more than most non reusable rockets. Driving down costs. Launch and test facilities have high usage which require more maintenance but spread over so many launches drives down costs per launch.

And since SpaceX hasn't reduced the price of launches for customers they are raking in massive profits. They don't need to because they are still the cheapest launch provider, have an amazing reliability record getting the payload to space (which drives down the cost of launch insurance, too) and have the excess capacity to add launches.

It's going to take more than a reusable rocket to compete with SpaceX - it will take having a large launch cadence to drive down all of the costs. Maybe Blue Origin with Kuiper or a Chinese launch provider with China's internet satellite constellation.

Scientists demand FCC test environmental impacts of satellites

Others

Starlink has shown the value of a constellation of satellites for internet access. More will follow that are based in other countries such as China so will be immune to any new rules the US or the FCC make.

Ex-Intel board members make an ill-conceived case for spinning off Foundry

China

China keeps making noises about invading Taiwan. Even if China is unsuccessful, Taiwan based TSMC could take quite a hit which would be a massive disaster for the semiconductor industry even if its outside of Taiwan foundries are untouched.

China launches plan to lead the world in space exploration

Re: Supply and demand.

We've had fusion since at least 2015 - I saw it in a documentary "Back To The Future 2".

NASA's Europa Clipper leaves for Jupiter's moon atop Falcon Heavy

Re: Gravity assist

If I recall correctly, If they could have used an SLS to launch the Europa Clipper it would have cut the transit time significantly since it is a more powerful rocket. But there aren't any spare SLS rockets right now so the time advantage is lost in waiting, and a Falcon Heavy expended is far, far cheaper than an SLS.

First time's the charm: SpaceX catches a descending Super Heavy Booster

Re: To the Moon and Mars

" It's worth noting that this was a suborbital launch, so won't have been trying to get anything to escape velocity, either which is a mite over 11 kilometres per second."

This was an "almost orbital" launch - the speed achieved by the booster was the same as for a true orbital launch, but starship itself stopped *just* short of orbital speeds to ensure that it would reenter the atmosphere without having to restart the engines. Just a few more seconds of thrust and they would have reached it.

SpaceX accuses 'meme-stock' rival of 'misinformation' over Starlink signals waiver

Trump will just fire the non partisan FCC/FAA bureaucrats and replace them with partisan appointees that will do Musk's bidding.

US govt hiding top hurricane forecast model sparks outrage after deadly Helene

Re: Yet another way Trump admin fucked the public

The contract was signed in 2020. Trump was president until January 21, 2021.

FCC boss starts bringing up Musk's Starlink dominance, antitrust concerns

While NASA did fund the development of Falcon 9 / Cargo dragon, NASA made out quite well since SpaceX charged $100M less per launch than the other commercial cargo winner Orbital ATK.

India delays planned space station and moon base by five years

JFK

Makes you appreciate JFK's pledge to send men to the moon and back in this decade (1960's). Mission accomplished with 5 months to spare.

Would you rather buy space broadband from a billionaire, or Communist China?

Billionaires vs China vs ....

Don't forget that a third choice for many of us are megacorporation ISPs like Verizon or Comcast.

A pox on all of their houses.

Facebook prank sent techie straight to Excel hell

Timeouts

Back in the early 1980's we had a PDP-11/73 as the office computer, running TSX+ (a multiuser version of RT-11). I was put in charge of the computer. The editor program would timeout after a certain period of inactivity, printing a message when it would exit. I had written a program that would allow me to replace a string with another string in any type of file including an executable. So I replaced the timeout message with the message "CPU meltdown - program aborted". One user ran into my office scared that he had broken our computer......

The X Window System is still hanging on at 40

Both are ancient

Wayland - Swapping out one ancient window system for a different less ancient window system.

Additional hatch operations on a Boeing vehicle – but this time it's Starliner

Re: Rescue mission

No - just use Boeing-style pricing.

(At one point it was estimated that SpaceX charged the government $55M per seat, and Boeing charged $90M per seat).

Return-to-office mandates had senior employees jumping ship

Joseph Stilwell.

Relax, Google's drop in search market share in April was just an illusion

Tired of targeted ads.

I got tired of getting targeted ads based on my search history. Sometimes it got..... creepy.

So I've switched to Duck Duck Go. Problem solved.

NASA taps trio of companies to build the next generation of lunar rover

Used are far cheaper

There are a couple of lightly used lunar rovers already on the moon - just bring a set of new batteries, a replacement fender, and you are set to go.

Judge demands social media sites prove they didn't help radicalize mass shooter

Re: Or you could fix ...

Bombs. If you don't know about them until they go off, it's too late to run.

Varda capsule proves you don't need astronauts for gravity-defying science

Re: How did they develop the capsule and heat shield?

When something is "Human Rated" far more testing is required.

Firefly software snafu sends Lockheed satellite on short-lived space safari

Re: Exactly this...

"Earlier space efforts were built on rigor, lengthy and specific and detailed checklists that were themselves built on checklists, and everyone involved was focused on getting as close to perfection as humanly possible. It didn't hurt that governments and the populace were both literally and figuratively invested in the work and the outcomes."

This is the type of arguement Boeing used to try to cut SpaceX out of the commercial crew program. We all know how well that worked out.

"I does seem that SpaceX manages a little better than most, somehow."

SpaceX has over 200 consecutive successful booster *landings* with the Falcon 9. One can argue that the the Falcon 9 is the safest rocket ever - the current version of the Falcon 9, Block 5, has 245 consecutive launch successes.

I'd imagine that the cost to insure a satellite is going to be quite a bit cheaper if it is being launched on a Falcon 9.

NASA's VIPER is half-built, with launch plans for this year

Vulcan

Since this is being launched on an untested rocket NASA must be getting a fantastic deal on the launch costs.

Amazon hitches a ride with SpaceX for Project Kuiper launches

tight schedule

Even if all three of the other rockets (Ariane 6, Vulcan and Glenn) make their initial launches "on time", there is a big difference between that and having the sort of launch cadence needed for Kuiper. Heck, can BO put out enough BE-4 engines for both New Glenn and Vulcan to meet their schedules (which also include non-Kuiper launches)? While NG's booster is to be reusable it's going to take a number of launches before they will be reflying boosters - more BE-4 engines.

I would be pleasantly surprised if all three launch providers could meet their schedules. But I expect SpaceX will get at least a dozen extra Kuiper launches to cover it.

Ariane 5 to take final flight, leaving Europe without its own heavy-lift rocket

Driving costs down.

The way to drive costs down is through reusability and a high launch cadence.

The high launch cadence means that the costs of the rocket development and the costs of the launch, landing, and test facilities can be spread over more launches. The problem for an "Ariane 7" is that they will be competing not only with the Falcon 9 but also New Glenn, Neutron, Terran R, reusable rockets from China and India, and ..... Starship. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a market for an Ariane 7, but unless someone wants to use it to deploy a massive satellite array like Starlink it will have trouble getting a high launch cadence.

Wind tunnels for fluid dynamics boffins among UKRI's £72M funding

Re: Wind Tunnels. 11 of them?

10 years ago I used a large eddy simulation code to analyze a simple cylinder in a flow - basically a 3D version of a 2D problem. It took 4 days using 128 cores to run it.

NASA to tear the wings off plane in the name of sustainability

Limits to size

Airports are designed for a maximum wing span for a plane. The MD90 is a small plane, but scaling this up to a much bigger plane might not be possible or at least limit the number of airports it could fly to/from.

Of course Russia's ex-space boss doubts US set foot on the Moon

Trampoline

Rogozin probably was using his trampoline and ended up landing on his head too many times.

Cisco Moscow trashed offices as it quit Putin's putrid pariah state

Re: "Where were you when the USA murdered 1 million Iraqis?"

The Reg was around in the early 90's before the web - it was an emailed newsletter sent every two weeks.

India flies – and lands – reusable autonomous spaceplane

Launch costs

"ISRO hopes the vehicle one day makes it possible to launch payloads to orbit for just $4,000/kg – well below the cost of competing launch services."

I'd assume that their launch cost estimates are for a rocket with a reusable first stage. By the time they have the full stack flying SpaceX will have Starship/Superheavy, RocketLab will have Neutron, etc - all fully reusable. But currently the Falcon 9 costs $67M and can take as much as 17,400kg to LEO in reusable mode which works out to $3850/kg.