Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Socialism (Score 1) 80

A lot of people have a lot of trouble understanding

There is nothing about such a mission that mandates obsolete, 2x order of magnitude money torching. Please stop it with your commie shilling.

It doesn't really matter in the long run. Sooner or later the US with elect another (D) president and the teacher's union and/or some other pressure group will once again cut NASA's space program and take the money. After than, NASA or whomever will be forced to adopt cost effective solutions.

All you do is show your level of ignorance. I've posted nought but facts, and you act like the special child screaming "Neener neener, neener I can't hear youuuuuu!" While holding his hands over his ears. If you cannot understand a launch envelope, and why Spacex even has expendable missions, well there ya go!

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 23

>"What a shit show Microsoft has become."

I don't remember it NOT being. Although I guess it depends on comparisons to which point in the show.

And I thought I heard they were 'listening to their users' and trying to undo some of their "mistakes". Hmm. Any word yet of removing forced cloud logins? Ads in the menus? Changing browser choice/settings without permission? Removing artificial hardware requirements? Opting out of "AI"?

Here's my recent W11 story.

For my Digital radio classes, I picked up a Lenovo Laptop. A decent one. I wanted to have something similar to the class member's computers. So after a couple weeks of dealing with the update problems of class members, I had my first. Despite my disabling OneDrive The update re-activated it, but I didn't know until the next class, when I found out that they moved all of the non-program files with program settings and multiple instance settings and other program related folders to OneDrive. And the programs stopped working. And somehow nuked my local account, which made for an unholy mess. I also needed to create a new way to run multiple instances of a program for people, and had to publish one for W10, and another for W11.

I had to uninstall OneDrive. My first classes were during Windows 7 times. Only took 2 sessions to get everyone running. The last W-11 class ended up taking the entire course devoted to figuring out why the student's computers worked last week, but not this week.I ended up switching to my Mac because the instructor should have a working system.

The whole point is that W11 is degenerating and falling apart. Updates are more malware than malware is. At least the bad guys let your computer function, while Microsoft can leave your computer non functional.

I call it security through bricking.

The next class that recently started is me teaching Linux first, then we'll move on to the digital radio matters. This is what was requested by my students.

Comment Re:"Force-updating" (Score 1) 23

>"Your experience is not an indication of a good practice."

My experience is normally updating frequently. But it is still on my schedule, when I choose to do it. I wouldn't say it is bad practice, especially since I am aware when the rare high-priority update is released. The few that are not updated that I mentioned are those that are intentionally isolated (and are safe regardless).

>"Linux is somewhat sheltered because of its low adoption as a desktop operating system."

That is true. But it is also generally more secure, outside of its obscurity. And updates usually come out much faster. And most do not require rebooting.

I've never bought into poster's security through obscurity claims. There are plenty enough Linux machiners out there, as well as all the Apache servers - and let's not forget all those Raspberry Pis - to make a decent "attack force" for whatever the bad guys want to do.

As for the update process, here is a reason Windows forces their updates, and Linux and MacOS allow you to install them at your leisure. People don't avoid Linux and MacOS updates because the computer works afterwards. Windows? Well this article is all about yet another Windows update trainwreck

Comment Shouldn't need to be said. (Score 4, Interesting) 23

... update "was to bring 'production-ready improvements' ...

As opposed to half-assed improvements? Obviously updates/patches pushed to end-users should be "production ready". It's sad that it had to be specifically stated that Microsoft actually worked on these. I imagine people will remain dubious anyway.

... and generally ensure system stability by optimizing different Windows services."

So much better than those updates designed to do the opposite. /s

So it's ironic that some (but not all) users reported instead that the update "blocks users at the door, refusing to install or crashing midway through the process."

Ironic? Yes. Surprising? No.

Comment Re:"have left Earth orbit" ?! (Score 1) 80

Pardon? Have you not seen the barge landings?

There are many aspects of a flight profile. Some are based on where you put the payload when it is in orbit. Others are the weight of the payload. As an example, 9's Payload for a GTO orbit is 5.5t when recovered on barge, and 8.3t for an expended mission. LEO orbit, 17.5 t if recovered, 22.8t expendable.

Just because some flight profiles can land at a pad or on a barge, does not mean that this happens in all cases.

References from paper :

A Survey of Launch Vehicle Recovery Techniques

Shraddha C.

Pankaj Priyadarshia

and Devendra Prakash Ghate

Institutes:

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, 695022, Kerala, India

Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, 695547, Kerala, India

A pretty good read if you have the academic credentials to access it. Clear, at a reasonably high level so not too deep in the weeds, with all manner of different flight profiles for many rockets - including StarShip. And a lot more. Otherwise, I think it is a little premature to claim the success of Starship. The Falcon's are good reliable Rockets. Starship might end up a tad problematic.

Comment Re:Reusable rockets-- (Score 2) 80

Your assignment: Find out why reusable rockets are only useable for very specific launch envelopes. If you use them out of that launch envelope, there are just as disposable as the rockets you think are some sort of complete waste.

Interesting. I've never seen this claim made before; do you have a reference?

https://www.teslarati.com/spac... Forgive the link, it is a real rah-rah piece.

CEO Elon Musk says SpaceX has successfully expanded the envelope of orbital-class rocket recovery with its 50th booster landing, meaning that all Falcon boosters will have a better chance of safely returning to Earth from now on.

https://space-offshore.com/boo... "Falcon 9 missions may need to land on a droneship instead of RTLS due to the weight of the payload or the overall mission profile." I think you have academic access. Here is a good technical report on a lot of rockets that land after use. https://www.sciencedirect.com/.... You'll need academic credentials to download it. But it has a lot more info - and as part of the launch envelopes, there is constraint based on payload as well as direction. If you are going to land, there is a significant reduction in payload.

All of this is why I find it a little amusing that many among us find the most important aspect of launching these candles is the recovery.

tl,dr - where the rocket is going, what it is carrying has a big effect on recoverability. You can force things, reducing payload, or only sending the profiles to places where the first stage can make it back to the launch site, otherwise small extensions to allow it to make it back to a barge.

Comment Re:"have left Earth orbit" ?! (Score 1) 80

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am so, so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit," NASA's Dr Lori Glaze

I can expect some random science reporter to make this mistake, but bugger me, a senior NASA executive? It shows politics are far more important than any knowledge of science at NASA today.

Not only is Orion not leaving Earth Orbit (where the fuck do they think the moon is?) , it is not even entering lunar orbit. Orion's apogee has been pushed up for one orbit, but it's perigee is right down here.

Because Orbital mechanics is pretty difficult for most to grok. She does have bona fides, Doctorate in Environmental Science and Masters in Physics.

So I'm pretty certain that she well knows that Orion is still in orbit around the earth.

But just think about it. We have people in here who think that not re-using a rocket is some sort of crime, not thinking how that first stage can only return if it is close enough to the launch site. That if you want to go to the moon or a planet, you just point your Rocket at it and it's balls to the wall time. Among other misguided notions.

All said, She is an administrator, and I believe her excitement when she said that, so I'm not quite so willing to call her a political appointee. I'd call it an audio typo.

If it was me, I might say it was the first time humans have left Low Earth Orbit since 1972. And since it is a matter of providing soundbites, I would save the Perigee and Apogee part for later. Perigee and apogee are the more interesting parts from my perspective.

Comment Re:Is the bottle half full or half empty? (Score 2, Insightful) 80

But, There is absolutely nothing exceptional here: This has been already achieved almost 60 years ago, with much, much less technology available.

This gets brought up fairly often. And yes, we did it before. Why do it all again?

The learning curve is why. I can't imagine there is anyone from the Apollo project left at NASA. So a whole new group of people have to learn how to make things work. All those people sitting at their consoles are learning, re-learning after a fashion, what the Engineers learned in the 1960's.

It's all good!

Comment Re:Socialism (Score 2) 80

Yeah, it was cool watching those four $146,000,000/each RS-25 engines return to the landing pad. Stupid capitalists.

A lot of people have a lot of trouble understanding that returning a first stage to the launch site puts a huge constraint on where in orbit you can place that rocket's payload.

You can add a bit of flexibility if you return a rocket to a barge in the ocean - but not much. And when you use a barge, you are eating hard into whatever savings there are in capture and refurb.

The first stage has to have enough fuel to make it back to the landing pad or barge. If the launch envelope takes it out of that range, it's just another disposable rocket. As an indicator, people will notice I only mentioned the first stage. Because there's no good way to recover the second. The rocket is way too far downrange, the earth is rotating. There aren't many landing sites at that point.

Comment Re:Socialism (Score 1, Flamebait) 80

The government wimped out and pulled funding repeatedly on re-usable launch systems even ones that were showing success.

Your assignment: Find out why reusable rockets are only useable for very specific launch envelopes. If you use them out of that launch envelope, there are just as disposable as the rockets you think are some sort of complete waste. You are a really smart guy seems like you could teach us all about this stuff.

Comment Re:Five years old (Score 1) 183

That's what I call DEI. Lesser qualified people hired or promoted in preference to merit because of identity politics. In irony, two of the best employees I ever worked with were women, hired using this metric. But that was accidental meritocracy. They would also have been hired for their ability in a non-checkbox world, not because of their sex.

The problem with many here is the automatic assumption that anyone not a white male was unqualified most likely because they are white males.

I understand completely. Many who are orgasming about a Woman and a "Black man because it checks off a box do not like White males, and want less of them doing things. Racism is in no way restricted to the dreaded white male. The people who would call themselves inclusive aer every bit as racist and sexist.

After all, when people say we need more women and people of color in a profession, they are exactly saying they want less White men.

P.S. Race is exactly the biggest social construct ever invented. I'll believe that human races exist when speciation happens, when a human from one group cannot mate and produce offspring.

Comment Re:We need to increase the penalties. (Score 2, Funny) 46

From TFS:

"Whatever the generative AI tool gives you ... you have to read those cases.
You have to read the cases to make sure what you are citing is accurate."

Since the issue seems to be attorneys not reviewing/checking their sources, I suggest the punishment be along those lines. Perhaps a week of extensively fact-checking *everything* the President says, for each offense.

Slashdot Top Deals

Earth is a beta site.

Working...