It's going to be 6 months to a year before they'll launch again. It's going to be a long year for Orbital.

NASA has always used commercial contractors to do the work and build the components. These contracts are structured somewhat differently; but, NASA is still in control of specs and verifying the contractor has met all the requirements.

Challenger wasn't alone. Columbia failed due to NASA overconfidence.

Since you made the suggestion, I thought I'd point out that Orbital used refurbished Soviet AJ-26 (N-33) engines.

OK, so they found hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methanol, formaldehyde, and sulfur dioxide. Why the cute description? lowest common denominator? Trying to put it into perspective of average life experiences?

You're going to have a hard time finding a high spec computer that meets your needs, because of the cooling requirement. If I were you, I'd look to industrial enclosures designed for water proof operation. (there are industrial computer enclosures) Make the system water cooled so that you can run cooling lines outside the enclosure and use an external pump and radiator; this will allow you to minimize the size of the enclosure containing the computer. You'll have to accommodate the VRMs and Southbridge, which are typically passively air cooled (but do require cooling). You might try taping off connectors and spraying the PCB with conformal coating, to reduce the damage should water get into the enclosure. Connectors can be filled with dielectric grease on the pin entry side and epoxy on the wire side to prevent water access there.

I have never tried to do this with a computer; although, the techniques above have been used by me in other applications.

So... if they can get away with doing this for tech labor, that means my company can bring 10-20 engineers from our China site to work in the U.S. We can pay them their current wage (no adjustments necessary) and only risk a trivial slap on the wrist if we get caught. This is a win-win. What a great precedent they've set here.

Tractor is a machine, a traction engine, used to produce tractive force to move objects. -- it is not specifically limited to pulling.

You need improved lighting, you say? I have this light generating device, a photon torpedo.

So, you go to an event in the desert, and you expect to be able to buy ice? Why are you depending on ice in the first place. WTF people? It's hot and it's dry; that's why it's called a desert for fuck's sake. Learn a little independence and self reliance.

I'm not disagreeing with you in principle; but, the driver signing issue isn't Microsoft's. It's the hardware vendor's fault. Microsoft's generic drivers come with the OS they're written for.

6,000 amps at 120VDC could be generated from a 12,5kV feeder found in a typical commercial setting; so, no, you don't really need a "direct connection to a power plant". I was exaggerating a bit. I would expect the utility to pitch a fit if you said you were going to pull that much power... They might have a choice words about your 3/4 megawatt load that switches in for 5 minutes at a time. Words like, "No"

I'm sorry, that's only 17 kWh over an hour, 1.4kWh in 5 minutes. To get 60kWh charge in 5 minutes you have to 60,000Whr / 120V * 60min/hour / 5min = 6,000 Amps.

Fair enough, nearby supernova == bad. Nuclear is often classed as a renewable because so little of the U-235 is used (1% or less in a typical commercial power reactor) -- the fuel can be recycled, reprocessed and re-used. Then there are breeder cycles....

Clearly, they're practicing some sort of black magic if they think they can charge a 60 or 85 kWh battery in 5 minutes. Either that or they have a connection directly to the power plant located just around the corner.