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Comment Re:TFS reads of appeasement, and that is good (Score 1) 202

One of the problems with mRNA vaccines was perception. It's new and therefore must be dangerous.

Triple-vaccinated (BioNtech) skeptic who still does not trust mRNA treatments. I got vaccinated anyway, for the greater good of society. But this conventional vaccine assuages all my concerns. So did the Johnson&Johnson vaccine, but it is not available in my country.

Why don't I trust mRNA treatments? Because of the deHavilland Comet, Therac-25, Tacoma Narrows Bridge and a host of other cutting-edge technologies that depended upon at-the-time poorly understood mechanisms. As we gain experience with mRNA technologies and they become more widely adopted, my trust will likely increase. But I'm too old to believe that new is safe anymore.

Comment Re:Artemis is just a public relations/jobs program (Score 1) 34

As exciting a rocket the SLS is, really, it is two expensive, too late. And by expensive, I don't mean "throw taxpayer dollars at it" expensive. I mean "each of the four engines costs $160,000,000 so we're going to empty the museums of RS-25's to save money" expensive.

Understand that just one engine - out of four - on the SLS costs more than a Falcon Heavy flight. Starship will cost an order of magnitude less per flight, and are aiming for _two_ orders of magnitude less.

To be clear: one engine alone for SLS costs ten times more than an entire Starship flight. Both are paper rockets for now, so the comparison is apt. And the SLS has four of those engines, plus everything else: the H2/O2 core, the SRBs, and the Orion capsule, to add to the cost.

Comment Re:1978 indeed (Score 1) 182

I've never had a manually-opened car window stop working.

I've never seen all four handles last more than a decade. And I've seen more vice-grips sacrificed to be used as window handles than actual replacement window handles. Even when the cars are junked to the junkyard the owners rarely recover their vice grips from the pinion.

Comment Re: Disease is part of life. Get over it. (Score 1) 100

People like you should not be permitted the freedom to make choices like defying public health measures designed to save lives. You're too dumb to have your opinion respected.

Sounds like a terrific argument against democracy. The dumb shall not vote. How do we measure dumb?

For what it's worth, I agree with you. It is democracy that I don't agree with.

Comment Which laws need renewing? (Score 2) 34

I actually like the idea that a law needs periodic renewal.

However, I cannot fathom why laws that hurt the populace, i.e. the numerous US spying laws, do not need renewal whereas those which help the populace, i.e. this law regarding accessibility, do.

Seems backwards, no?

Comment Re:Endorsed by those who know the business (Score 1) 45

I thought the whole idea of locating a spaceport as close as possible to the equator (for the going up part at least) was that you needed significantly less fuel to get to space. Alaska is rather not near the equator. Or do they have something else in mind?

Getting to orbit requires speed. Launching from the equator in the direction that the equator is traveling means that you can use the speed of the equator's rotation to your advantage. But this means that your final orbit will be in the same direction that a spot of land on the equator moves: westward.

Sometimes we want to launch satellites in directions other than westward. One specific type of orbit, called a polar orbit because it comes near the poles, has no westward velocity component. Thus, the addition of the equator's westward speed is actually a detriment that must be countered against. However, launching far from the equator - say, in Alaska - means that there is less westward velocity that must be countered out.

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