Posts by Spherical Cow

Microsoft touts far-off high-temperature superconducting tech for datacenter efficiency

Solving the wrong problem

Transmission losses on the way to the data centre are tiny compared to the power consumption within the data centre.

SpaceX back to Falcon 9 launches as Musk blathers about Moon city

Re: Moon

Australia's age of consent laws apply both within Australia and outside Australia. It doesn't matter where in the world (or off world!) the crime is committed, Australians can still be prosecuted. Even if local laws were not broken.

Stash or splash? Lawmakers ask NASA to find alternatives for International Space Station

Getting empty Starships to the ISS will be easy in due course. Adding large cargo doors should be possible. The ISS modules will fit inside Starhips with room to spare. A de-orbit burn is easy. The big question is whether a Starship can handle re-entry and landing while it has a heavy ISS module inside.

SpaceX halts Falcon 9 flights after second stage anomaly

Re: Coincidence?

They launched 165 Falcons in 2025 so the success rate is very high.

Voyager 2's close encounter with Uranus wasn't in the original plan

A sticky issue

How on earth, no wait, how in space do you fix a hardware lubrication problem remotely?

Congress throws NASA a lifeline, leaves Mars sample mission to die in the dust

Touring the facility

in a short skirt and a looooong

jacket

New carbon capture tech could save us from datacenter doom

Re: I don't see how this can ever be viable

A forest does store CO2. Individual trees die and release CO2, new trees grow in their place and absorb CO2. So long as the forest continues to be a forest its overall CO2 continues to be stored. Deforestation adds to overall atmospheric CO2, planting new forests has the opposite effect.

Historic NASA test towers face their final countdown

Is there any legal protection from being designated as National Historic Landmarks, or is it just some words?

BOFH: If another meeting is scheduled, someone is going to have a scheduled accident

I feel lucky to be old, given the alternative.

NASA loses contact with MAVEN Mars orbiter

10 bits per second!

I can blow a raspberry* with a faster bit rate.

*not the Pi kind.

Space-power startup claims it can beam energy to solar farms

Re: energy beaming

Perhaps you missed the bit about it being safe for humans and animals due to low intensity. Nothing is getting incinerated.

Re: Daft question?

Incinerated, or fragmented? Donald Kessler would like a word...

We'll beat China to the Moon, NASA nominee declares

Re: "radio astronomy from the back side"

https://spaceaustralia.com.au/

Google and Apple ordered to stop fake government TXTs

Re: Guide Rail

I think it was a 360° camera, which makes it easy to set the pan later.

NASA pares back Boeing's Starliner deal after 2024 calamity

Father Ted would be proud

Okay, one last time. These goalposts are small, but the goalposts out there are far away.

Lifeboat docks with Tiangong after cracked capsule triggers emergency rendezvous

No Littering Allowed

Sometimes shit happens and you have to deal with it, shit happened and they are dealing with it.

What I *REALLY* hope is now the Chinese will start to take space debris seriously, and implement their own rules for things like de-orbiting spent stages and not blowing stuff up on purpose.

Aside from that, I'm really impressed with their progress, space is hard and they are going places.

Amazon-backed X-energy sweet talks investors into another $700M for small modular reactor dream

Re: Fuel Shortage

Sounds like a good reason for them to set up their own fuel factory.

Re: Decisions, decisions

Helium is also good at leaking out of things... I expect hot helium even more so.

DARPA making low-hanging satellites that use air to move

Re: Wonderful

If they are switched off or if they malfunction they will de-orbit in just days/weeks due to atmospheric drag. Not really a problem.

UK unveils roadmap for replacing animal testing

Re: Testing on people

Thalidomide is still used to treat a range of diseases.

25 years of meatbags permanently in space on the ISS

Re: "Spot the station" app

I use the "ISS Live Now" app. It is excellent, free, and has heaps of features.

UK space sector 'lacks strategic direction,' Lords warn

Re: Space sector?

If Sky becomes terrestrial only will they change their name to Land?

China uses Mars orbiter to snap interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

You rang?

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

Semi-serious?

It can be lifted by 4 big helicopters. Let's use 6 to be on the safe side. Lift it the 5 miles to the river and set it down on a barge. Use the helicopters again at the destination.

SpaceX is behind schedule, so NASA will open Artemis III contract to competition

Re: "can't put a Starship in orbit after 11 tries"

"Yes but the issue is the de-oorbit. SpaceX needs to demonstrate a reliable re-light of the engines on StarShip (really, really hate that name) to de-orbit it so it comes down where they need it to."

They have already demonstrated that, on both the most recent test flights. It landed on target both times, next to the bouy with the cameras. The last one even used its fins to curve around and completely change direction during the descent.

SpaceX limbers up for Starship flight 11 as launch pad faces retirement

Almost flawless

That all went very well indeed!

I'm really looking forward to the 3rd generation testing, after one or two initial test flights they'll start catching things again and they'll go properly orbital.

Weird ideas welcome: VC fund looking to make science fiction factual

Mosquito laser zapper

We do have a mosquito laser zapper now. The claims are impressive but it's still very new so I'll wait a few months for some independent reviews before getting one. https://newatlas.com/around-the-home/photon-matrix-laser-mosquitoes/

SpaceX rockets toward next Starship launch, set for October 13

Re: Another holiday working

"That can take a lot of orbits for the cycle to line up that way."

Extra orbits are free, and don't change the risk.

Re: Another holiday working

"Landing in Florida would mean a decent across the whole of the 48 contiguous States."

Or across the Gulf. Arriving in Florida can be done while travelling south-east, it can also be done while travelling north-east.

Space Shuttle war of words takes off as senator blasts 'woke Smithsonian'

Re: Take an angle grinder to it...

For that to satisfy the requirements you'd need to move the White House to Houston first.

Texas senators cry foul over Smithsonian's pricey Space Shuttle shuffle

Pick it up

What is the airspeed velocity of a Mil Mi-26 carrying a space shuttle? Obviously a helicopter couldn't lift a shuttle, even if gripping it by the husk. You'd actually need FOUR of those helicopters to lift it, and a bit of twine strung between them. At least they don't have to carry it far: the river is only about 5 miles to the north.

BOFH: These office thefts really take the biscuit

Yes of course Jaffa Cakes are cakes... the clue is in the name!

Re: VAT

which is a nice demonstration of "there's no such thing as a fish".

NASA finds best evidence of life on Mars so far

Re: Where astronomy meets gastronomy

Does Amanfrommars1 have a new account?

Re: as we don't know it

"Earth has also cycled the surface so many times that any signs from a billions years ago would have been wiped out."

The oldest intact rocks found so far on Earth's surface are more than 4 billion years old. And we've found plenty of rocks older than 3 billion years.

Re: as we don't know it

"That it might happen twice seems overwhelmingly unlikely"

It happened early in Earth's history which suggests that it is actually likely, here and elsewhere.

BOFH: The auditor is asking too many questions. We have just the laptop for that

yes, but is it suitable for ducks?

IBM, NASA cook up AI model to predict solar tantrums

Re: That poses various questions

I've yet to see any electrical substation powered via glass fibres.

NASA starts bolting together Artemis III rocket for 2027 Moon shot

Re: Should SpaceX test far more than putting a Starship in orbit?

It occurred to me that a landing-from-orbit could be done at Vandenberg, because the approach is over water. If it breaks up during re-entry the pieces end up in the Pacific, not all over Mexico or Florida.

Everybody needs good neighbors – especially ones who sell you solar energy

Re: Racket

I had solar panels before smart meters. They put in *two* dumb meters: one in, one out. So even back then they were using different rates for import and export.

SpaceX prepares itself for a tenth Starship flight test

Fingers crossed

I, for one, hope this test goes well. Simply because I really like rockety stuff.

Snotty astronauts should skip spacewalks, suggests study

Click the link in the comment by Dizzy Dwarf above yours.

COVID-19 pandemic accelerated brain aging – even if you didn’t catch the virus

Re: Meanwhile, us introverts...

It's pretty bad parenting to name your daughter Aaaa.

;-)

The real reason why Trump is killing the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai'i

Put it somewhere else?

Maybe France can measure CO2 in French Polynesia. Or Chile could do it on Easter Island. Or someone could give a grant to Micronesia to take the measurements.

Large Hadron Collider data hints at explanation for why everything exists

Antimatter? It's way over there!

I always assumed the big bang flung matter and antimatter in opposite directions. The matter came this way and the antimatter went that way. The antimatter side of the universe would be equally as large as the matter side: symmetry. Pity we can never see far enough to see the antimatter side. I am not an astrophysicist, obviously!

Former reality TV star appointed NASA interim administrator

"Time to take over space."

Hmm.

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson backs plan to do a Jurassic Park on extinct birds

You will be delighted to hear Colossal Bioscience has already made a start on the Thylacine.

Antarctica still has 0 residents. Lots of visitors, yes, some even visiting for a year or two. But nobody has ever lived there as an Antarctican.

China successfully tests hypersonic aircraft, maybe at Mach 12

Re: Fake

The black cowling around the air intake is clearly visible in the photo. It's near the top on the right side as we look at it. I suspect that's actually the underside of the ramjet when in flight.