> There's also the Text Size slider under the Accessibility control panel.

There is no text size slider under accessibility on my machine (4k monitor, M1 Studio Ultra.)

What works, sort of, is to select the desktop then right click (or control left click), select "Show View Options" from the context menu, and then in there, select a text size from the drop down. You can also do this in the context of any finder window.

However, maximum selectable text size is 16pts — which is very small on a 4k display. As an "accessibility" setting, it's laughable. Which is perhaps why it's not under accessibility.

I have been using a free app from the Mac app store, "Loupe", which provides a comprehensive zoom capability much more convenient than Apple's "Zoom." It's not as good as actual reasonable control over system fonts would be, but it's better than being stuck with 16pt fonts.

Ok, I see where you are going wrong.

Under newtonian physics, a body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force.

The moment you thrust in a particular direction away from your direction of travel, that is the "acted upon by a force" - your direction changes.

The moment that thrust stops, the change in direction stops, and you revert to "in motion at a constant speed in a straight line".

Your thrust needs to be constant to fully change direction, until you have reached the new direction you want.

There wasn't enough fuel between Columbia and Soyuz to continually thrust enough to both end up going in the same direction.

Its the constant thrust that you are missing - newtonian physics dont help here because thats oriented around continuing in a straight line, whereas for this orbital change you need a curve, and that needs a constant force for the duration of the curve.

Again, no one is saying you cant.

But you consistently seem to avoid the answer being given to you.

Its about the change in energy involved. Which means thrusting in a particular direction for a particular amount of time.

And none of the elements involved in this thread has the energy available to make the change in orbit. If they had more fuel, then they could have thrusted for longer and changed orbits. But they didn't have the fuel available. So they couldn't meet the energy requirements. So they cant match orbits.

It cant come from nowhere.

You cant throw a sail out and catch the wind.

You have a fixed amount of fuel on board, with no way to refuel and no sources from which to refuel from.

Imagine you are on a boat heading toward Niagra Falls - you are in the centre of the river, and need to make it to the bank before you go over the falls. If you have a powerful motor and a lot of fuel, you will probably make it. If you have a feeble motor and a lot of fuel, you might not make it. If you have a powerful motor and a thimble full of fuel, you arent going to make it. If you just have oars, you arent going to make it.

Same deal. You need a certain amount of energy to do these things, and that energy wasnt available.

The "olden times" arent exactly perfect in that regard however.

More than one show has latched on to an idea generated from fandom - hell, in Battle Star Galactica (2003), the concept of the Final Five wasn't even a thing until the show runners cottoned on to the amount of fan speculation around the remaining unnamed human-form Cylons, but they quickly pivoted to it becoming central to the show and ditched their original concepts.

Orbital mechanics is a mind fuck all in its own.

Even if you are in an identical orbit to the ISS, and 500km behind it on the orbital path, how do you catch it up?

Well, you have to slow down.

By slowing down, you put yourself in a lower orbit, which actually is a shorter orbit, which means you orbit faster, which means you catch the ISS up. You then speed back up to slow down to match the ISS orbit.

If you thrust yourself toward the ISS (ie by firing your rockets behind you), you slow down in relation to the ISS because you move yourself into a higher orbit, which is actually a longer orbit, so you take longer doing it, so the ISS speeds off into the distance.

All of that is just assuming you are matching perfect orbits and are trying to catch up with the object in front of you. You burn fuel changing orbits twice.

Changing the direction you are heading takes even more fuel. A lot more.

Neither Soyuz nor the Space Shuttle have that sort of fuel on board. Their manoeuvring systems is for small adjustments to catch up with something as described above - they depend on the big ass rocket or fuel tank they rode to orbit on in order to get them into the right orbit.

Well, the MAX isnt the most popular commercial jet ever. That would be the A320NEO family.

Currently the NEO stands at 10,350 orders and 3,200 deliveries.

The MAX meanwhile stands at 6,200 orders and 1,400 deliveries.

In fact, for an aircraft family that was launched nearly 20 years after the 737 family, the A320 family will this year surpass the 737 family in total number of sales - the NEO is that popular.

Ironically, it did get broken up a long time ago.

In 1934 it was forced by changes in law to split into Boeing Airplane Company, United Airlines, United Aircraft Corporation and Pratt & Whitney.

No, no ones saying that...

ISS is at approx 51 degrees inclination.

Columbia was in an orbit at approx 39 degrees inclination.

That difference doesn't sound like a lot, but it is.

People have asked the same questions as you for the past 21 years, and each and every time the answer has been the same - the math just doesn't work out, there was no way for Columbia to get to the ISS or for something to get from the ISS to Columbia. Those ~12 degrees difference in orbital inclination takes a *lot* to overcome - people just never understand the amount of energy needed to do things in space, its not like Star Wars where you point and go.

Columbia was in an "ideal" orbit for a space shuttle, because it was just carrying out a science mission and not visiting anything.

ISS is in its own orbit.

Sure, a Soyuz from the ISS could have lowered itself to the same height as Columbia (ISS is at 400km, Columbia was at 170km), but they are still going in very different directions.

Its the change in direction that needs the energy here - and neither Columbia nor Soyuz has the required energy available to make that change.

So lets say that you manage to lower the orbit of a Soyuz to the right level, and you are lucky enough that you cross paths with Columbia on your current orbit...

Without changing direction, you are trying to jump on a train which is going through a station at full speed without stopping. And you might get *one* chance at that because on the next orbit your paths wont intersect at all. Theres no prospect of docking or anything, you are going too fast in different directions. And even if you do jump correctly, you are going to go splat against Columbia because of the speed difference.

Columbia wasn't too heavy to reach the ISS, it was just less desirable because of its weight.

In fact, if it hadn't been lost when it did, Columbia would have been fitted out for STS-118, which was intended to deliver a truss and stowage system to the ISS in November 2003.

The *only* reason Columbia couldnt have used the ISS as a refuge was because it didnt have the fuel to change orbits by that much.

Tell what to the FBI? The fact that I said that not everything needs to be treated the same?

Sure, the failure of a door plug a few mere weeks after the aircraft was delivered is *entirely* the same as the failure of a cowling latch on a part which is opened several times a week by airline maintenance personnel on an aircraft which was delivered many years ago...

One falls within Boeings remit, the other likely does not, and even if it did it would result in a minor AWD.

People need to stop over dramatising everything in life. This is one example. The door plug failure is an example of when some things should be treated differently.

I think you forget the amount of publicity that Airbus received for the AF066 uncontained engine failure - it was significant, especially given the fact that this was the second uncontained engine failure of an A380 during the A380s operational life.

But why didnt it reach the epic proportions of scrutiny that Boeing received after the MAX issues and the subsequent Alaska Airlines door blowout?

Because both A380 uncontained engine failures were fully investigated and no evidence of either poor culture, cover ups or a manufacturing decision based on cost alone was uncovered. Each engine failure was from a different engine manufacturer, and in both cases the root cause was identified and rectified, with an appropriate course of action implemented for airlines.

It wasn't because it was an Airbus that it was largely ignored by the public, it was because there was no scandal around it.

The issue with Boeing wasn't that an incident happened, it was the subsequent investigation which lead to the uncovering of systemic issues within the manufacturer that was newsworthy.

Every aircraft has whats called a "Minimum Equipment List" that an aircraft can operate with - which means that things can and do break and so long as it doesn't violate the MEL then operations can continue.

Its perfectly possible that you pointed out something that the pilot was either already aware of or that they could diagnose from the cockpit and a brief visual inspection when next on the ground.

If the issue didn't violate the MEL, then the next flight can go ahead without concern.

Southwest Airlines operates nearly 820 Boeing aircraft and has more than 3000 flights per day. And they *only* operate Boeing aircraft.

I don't at all find it surprising that if you actually looked you could find incidents for Southwest pretty much any day of the year, at that operational tempo - and of course all of them are going to be involving Boeing aircraft....

Engines are the responsibility of the engine manufacturer, but often cowlings (which is what failed here) are not. These are highly optimised coverings for the engine which have a big effect on airflow efficiencies, and are often designed by the aircraft manufacturer rather than the engine manufacturer (the engine manufacturer often designs the intake, as that has a lot of effect on the engine efficiency itself).

But this is a 737NG, been in service for years, so its probably a maintenance issue or failed part rather than a design defect.

People need to stop highlighting every failure of a Boeing aircraft now, the vast majority of the ones we have seen talked about this year have nothing to do with Boeing or its culture, and instead are pretty normal failures that wouldnt have been talked about prior to the MAX issues. There are thousands of flights a day, sometimes shit does happen a few times a year - the last time this type of failure was featured on a prime time news segment it had nothing to do with Boeings culture, and it doesnt this time either

Just because a part failed does not mean there is an inherent culture or cost cutting issue, in either the construction or maintenance.