Posts by Vulch 598 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2008
Similar tale told about a Cattle Market back home. Customs and Excise turn up near the end of the day to dip Land Rover tanks looking for red diesel. First farmer comes out and starts a long argument with the C&E officers about how they don't need to test his tank. In the mean time everyone else hops into their Landie and depart, the parking area being a triangle of open space between a couple of roads with no fences or hedges there's no hope of delaying them. Finally exasperated C&E get an answer to their repeated question of why they don't need to dip the tank, "This one runs on petrol".
[In the UK fuel for agricultural machinery isn't taxed but mustn't be used in road vehicles, there's a red dye added to trace it]
I'm ambidextrous with mice and tend to use them right handed at home and left handed at work. For a while in a previous job the other two developers were both left handed but one used a right hand mouse with standard buttons, the other used a left hand mouse with reversed buttons and I used left handed mouse with standard buttons. The mouse on servers was hardly ever in the right place when you needed to fiddle, but it was easy to tell who had been fiddling last.
The 1970s version of Ark Royal had similar clearance on its way out of Devonport dockyard. They always had to set out with just enough fuel and supplies to get clear of the breakwater, then load the rest of the fuel, food and so forth with the aircraft arriving as they headed out into the Atlantic.
Note this is just a write-up of the presentation Elon Musk gave at IAC in September last year. He has recently announced a follow-up is imminent and will focus more on paying for the project.
Progress has been made, the carbon fibre tank featured in the presentation has since been tested to destruction. It's not clear if the destruction was intended, but that's why you test such things.
When I were an engineer working at a regional ITV station (back in the days when they actually existed) adverts did get vetted but the regulators only got to see the shooting script, not the finished product. This got us such items as the two apparently identical shower gel ads featuring the rear view of a young lady taking a shower outside a tent on the African Veldt. Turned out the difference was that in the first version run she twisted sideways enough to reveal a nipple, in the second version which got its first airing after the complaint was upheld she didn't. Both versions had been delivered to us at the same time...
The Soyuz has done its re-entry burn and is on the way down before it dumps the orbital and service modules so nothing gets to stay in orbit.
You're conflating two incidents in your last paragraph, the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon which resulted in a bunch of debris, and the Americans launched a load of copper needles in the 60s to see if they could create a reflective layer for long distance radio comms.
From discussion elsewhere... They guy is ex-military and his background had him expecting every component, no matter how small and trivial, to have its own serial number and detailed record of testing and use. SpaceX in common with a lot of similar industry only tracks to batch level and does appropriate representative testing. Interpreting, it seems like a statement along the lines of "This box of bolts has been tested" in SpaceX terms means "We've taken half a dozen at random and checked they meet spec" whereas in his terms anything other than "We have checked every single bolt in this box meets spec" is forgery.
No currently flying helicopter has the range to do a mid-air recovery of an engine pack from a Cape Canaveral launch if setting off from land. That means a support ship is going to be required on station, and it's going to need a big helicopter to carry the engine pack so it's going to be a big ship. Probably doesn't need to be quite as big as HMS Albion or HMS Bulwark, but that sort of sized flight deck will be needed to hold the helicopter and recovered engine pack.
SpaceX has a Falcon 9 due to launch on Sunday, it's due for its static fire tonight after two postponements. Recycle the pad and SES-10 is up next. There's a ULA launch due, currently targetting the 14th, and if that slips again (should have launched last week) then it may affect the SES-10 launch.
If only someone was planning on putting up a 4000+ high speed internet satellite fleet to provide global connectivity...
All nine engines on the first stage can gimbal, the centre engine is mounted slightly lower than the outer ones and has a larger range of movement. Steering by differential throttling has been tried by various organisations in the past but is generally too slow for the level of control needed.
At the moment only the three engines intended for landing are capable of being restarted in the air, the other six need ground support to light. Adding restart capability to all of them would be possible but heavy.
Turns out there's not much gained by adding extra boosters. The second stage becomes the limiting factor even if you start going disposable on the first stage cores, and if you do that the cost goes up rapidly. And if you're going to redesign the second stage you might as well also build a bigger first stage to match it that doesn't need boosters.
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