Vulch

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• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Ah, thanks. Turned out the feed on the SpaceX website can be wound back but that's a bigger view on the YouTube copy. One engine in the middle ring doesn't light, then one of the middle three goes out, the...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Some sources are saying the tank was dented on the first launch, it's not a new dent. Everyday Astronaut panned across the cameras happily sitting on their tripods still. Ooh, SpaceX had a drone up by the pad for the...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  The middle three engines on the booster were supposed to keep going right through separation with the other 30 shut down. That keeps propellant settled so relighting the middle ring of ten engines for the boostback burn doesn't need any...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  SpaceX got their Super Heavy/Starship off the pad more or less on time and all 33 engines stayed lit until their planned shutdown. The hot staging worked as far as the staging occuring, Super Heavy blew up shortly after though....
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I suspect a lot of it is down to individual coaching that the private schools can do more of. I was somewhat surprised when I started working at one of the Colleges how much handholding a lot of the students...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Cambridge interviews these days most definitely deploy the parental crow-bar. Interviewees usually get offered a bed for the night at the interviewing College, parents are told no accommodation is available. If they still insist on tagging along they get separated...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I think they were S-Levels, S for Special or Scholarship. Friend of mine at school was a year younger than the rest of us, she'd been allowed to start secondary school age 10, and hung around the school for an...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  From page 12, "Candidates for Cambridge International AS Level should study topics 1–11. Candidates for Cambridge International A Level should study all topics." so the A-Level includes all of the AS by my reading....
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  This is the A-Level Biology syllabus for one of the UK examination boards, it's the international version but not that different to the home one. It's a two year course but would be building on a previous GCSE biology course....
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Dumping large quantities of fresh water into a fairly small area of salt marsh when the new deluge system runs was part of the reason for the rather late involvement of FWS....
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  You know pretty much right away if the rocket is going to reach orbit or not. Currently looking like the various permits for the second flight of the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy may come through for a Friday launch, NOTAMs and...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  NASA has only one government to please One Federal government and 52 state governments, all who want their slice of the pork. Add the Orion to the mix and there's the 20-odd ESA member governments as well. :-)...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I'm sure it was, but which continent a political project is from makes very little difference to how big a cock-up it becomes. "We'll save money by converting the production line" and "We'll save money by reusing major components from...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  The Ariane 6 project has got to be on a few minds. Compared to that beacon of cost effectiveness and schedule keeping that is the SLS project you mean?...
• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  Move fast and break things people....
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  I keep trying to find that as "1992" for some reason, no wonder I generally don't succeed. Looking at the transmission dates in the Wikipedia entry I suspect I've never see the whole thing, the first series runs in to...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  It has been mentioned that the bulk of the remaining Alfar were shipped to the Syria/Iraq area, supposedly to deal with ISIS and similar groups. Could prove handy to have troops already on the ground in case whatever's under Palmyra...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  With doing the maths your numbers work, 900m radius with 1g at the rim gives a gnats under 1rpm. That's the same calculator I used to get the 8rpm for Mars gravity, and I've just tried some numbers for the...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Quick play with an online calculator, and it looks like with a radius of 4m (so fits inside a 9m diameter Starship) you get Mars gravity at around 8rpm. Probably want it on bearings around the outside and rim drive...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  'fake' 1.000 earth gravity as critically necessary for 3Dprinters after all, the equipment was designed, tested and tweaked to operate at sea level, in gravity, in mixed oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere A powder sintering printer may have problems with the direction of...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Both Starship and Super Heavy are designed with small internal tanks for their landing fuel, it's not sloshing around in the main tanks with only 3 or 4mm of stainless steel keeping it in. This also greatly helps the thermal...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Session expired ate a long screed on number plates, probably for the best. Restrictions on letters were position dependent, eg I learned to drive in "AOD 313 L", first registered in Devon ("OD" was a sequence allocated to Devon County...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Even as an SF exercise I'm coming up short, Start with a couple of thousand Culture (There's bound to be a more interventionist faction than State Of The Art and its inhabitants) Knife Missiles spread along the border, nothing artificial...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  As info for them there furriners... The raising of the state pension age in the UK to 67 didn't happen for everyone. Those almost at 65 kept that age, another group with a few more years to go (which includes...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  The shake out of small satellite launchers is already underway, SpaceX is eating the market for sun-synchonous launches with the Transporter missions from Vandenberg and they've recently announced a similar service will be starting from Florida. All that's really left...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  Didn't the Roman Republic have tenements 3-4 stories tall? Up to 9 stories in pre-imperial times. Assorted Emperors set planning regulations that reduced the maximum allowed height but 6 or 7 floors were common. Penthouses were for the lowest of...
• Commented on Pushing it back
  Not quite on the poor waste management lines, but in "Learning The World" by Ken MacLeod the local chimp/gorilla equivalent species are used for simple heavy labour by the Alien Space Bats. A nanotech infection intended to let the crew...
• Commented on Do my Laundry
  In another timeline finding the local Cthonian equivalents city of Callastheon didn't end well for the surface dwellers....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  From the BBC, an article on the Necropolis Railway to Brrokwood Cemetery....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  As an Ingress player (if you ever need to find a bunch of us in a pub, look for the table where everyone has their phone plugged in) I have various external packs, recommended would be an Anker 10,000mAh of...