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.

I dunno, macOS has a pretty extensive Accessibility control panel. Have you checked it out? There's a Text Size slider in there, among many other things.

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.

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

No. Not easily, anyway. And that has the same effect as the feature I described. Lower DPI = less screen real estate, not just larger system fonts.

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.

Maybe you want fine-grained control over all your fonts, which could be tricky. But if all you want is larger text, the Displays control panel is your friend. There's even an icon labeled that.

It honestly never even occurred to me that you could get severance pay from a job like the Geek Squad.

In movies, when the mob takes over a business, they replace the top leader(s), suck all the profits out it, run up the credit cards, and eventually leave a worthless, indebted carcass in their wake. They'll even burn it down to collect the insurance.

Watching Boeing spiral downwards for the last 20 years has been like watching that mob movie. MBA's took over leadership, drove out the knowledgeable, and hoovered up every dime possible hand over to shareholders, and bonus themselves all the way to the Caymans and back. Is it now a worthless carcass, or worth saving?

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.