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Space

Blue Origin Rocket Exploded Thursday Night During Hot-Fire Test (cbsnews.com) 73

Spaceflight Now shared their video of the explosion, which the Orlando Sentinel describes as showing Blue Origin's rocket "become engulfed in flames. The fireball expands out and covers the entire launch pad as the fuselage of the rocket can be seen crumbling into the flames."

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said on X.com "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." (SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted "Sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.")

It's unclear how this will impact future launches. "The rocket was destroyed," reports CBS News, "and as the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the erector-gantry used to move the New Glenn from its hangar to the pad and to raise it from horizontal to vertical. Likewise, one of two tall lightning towers was no longer visible." It was the first such on-pad explosion at the Cape since a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on nearby pad 40 on Sept. 1, 2016... Blue Origin only has one New Glenn pad, the one that was damaged in the Thursday test. The New Glenn, which has launched three times, is a heavy lift rocket designed to compete head-to-head with SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. During New Glenn's most recent flight in April, an upper stage malfunction prevented a commercial internet satellite from reaching its planned orbit...

The New Glenn destroyed Thursday was to send 48 Leo internet satellites owned by Amazon into space [which were not on board for the hot-fire test]

Blue Origin posted on X.com that "Debris from our recent hotfire anomaly may wash ashore in the coming days/weeks. If you encounter any debris, do not touch or approach it for your safety."

"Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult..." NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X.com. "âWe will provide information on any impacts to the Artemis and Moon Base programs as it becomes available."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader symbolset for sharing the news.

Comment Re:I don't live in California but... (Score 1) 244

"chase kids on ebikes across parks and playgrounds."

The problem is they aren't in parks and playgrounds riding their "e-bikes" (they're more electric motorcycle than bicycle). They're on the road with cars and major traffic. I see it, particularly, in more affluent neighborhoods (Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica).

And we're not talking about a few... They're everywhere -- particularly after school hours and weekends.

Comment Re:Polymarket, Kalshi whitewashing (Score 1) 71

The real problem is that given his rank, he would be in a position to hear things sooner than others further down the food chain. Anyone paying attention to who is doing any betting could have (or should have) asked what they might now that would cause them to place the bet they did. In this case, it boils down to an OPSEC violation, and that's illegal under any circumstance, punishable by UCMJ if not actual civilian law. The fact that the FBI are involved tells me that this guy will probably be facing UCMJ violations too (if he's lucky, court martial if he's not), and may not be a Sergeant Major any longer when the dust settles.

Comment Re:Guilty of not being rich already (Score 0) 71

Curious, then, that if such a law was already passed that recently that the likes of Pelosi (and surely other members of both parties) still managed to get around it.
Congress (as a whole) acts as if their shit doesn't stink. It's high time they get reminded that it most certainly does.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Well, That's been a thing. 2

Worked at a company for 15 years. Company was bought and sold a couple times. Most recent owner decided my position (and that of several others) was to be eliminated. Such is life in the world of Mergers and Acquisitions.

Now I'm looking for another job. The tools at my disposal are better, the resources are better, and the personal networks I have built over the years is better. Hopefully I'll be back to work soon.

Comment The real reasons viewership has dropped (Score 1) 152

I can think of four reasons ticket sales have dropped.
  1. Much of what Hollywood has been putting out is crap.
  2. Politicians increase taxes constantly, resulting in less disposable income for potential movie-goers.
  3. Ticket costs increasing - Not much can be done there, theaters do it to compensate for the loss in sales.
  4. Streaming is a thing. Why go to a theater to sit in a sticky, uncomfortable seat when one can wait a little while for the movie to hit $STREAMING_SERVICE and watch it from the comfort of one's own home?
Science

Scientists Found a Way To Cool Quantum Computers Using Noise (sciencedaily.com) 7

Slashdot reader alternative_right writes: Quantum computers need extreme cold to work, but the very systems that keep them cold also create noise that can destroy fragile quantum information. Scientists in Sweden have now flipped that problem on its head by building a tiny quantum refrigerator that actually uses noise to drive cooling instead of fighting it. By carefully steering heat at unimaginably small scales, the device can act as a refrigerator, heat engine, or energy amplifier inside quantum circuits.

Comment Re:Addiction specialists should be next (Score 1) 39

"The one size fits all model of education is broken. "

It was broken the moment this method was being pushed. What worked was "One size fits MOST". You direct your resources on educating those who can benefit from the "Most" of the "one size". The ones that this doesn't work with is now a much smaller subset and can be managed with smaller class sizes (in the case of hands on need), special campuses (for behavior issues that would otherwise affect the "fits all" of the hated "one size fits all") and a much smaller pool of administrators necessary to make it all work.

Oh... less administrators. Never mind. Unions will hate it. Just shut up and give them more money.

Comment Re:Why does US care what EU censors? (Score 1) 169

Test321 said: "It's their right to call "hate speech" or "fake news" whatever they don't like."

Totally agree with this statement of yours.

From the article:

"...organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose".

Calling something "hate speech" is quite different from actually calling on platforms to punish stuff for "whatever they don't like". So, your statement, while I agree with it as it stands doesn't really apply to this article.

Comment Re:Move fast, break (crash) things (Score 2) 91

"It's not like SpaceX did not have any missteps on their path to creating reusable boosters."

They weren't really missteps. It was part of their design philosophy. Build it enough to get past a "goal" (say, get past the launch tower) and test. If it doesn't meet the goal, ID the failure, redesign and test again. Once it reaches that "goal", create a new "goal" (sat, reach 20,000 ft). Repeat until it's reliable.

While this involves a lot of explosions, the actual time it takes to get a workable and reliable rocket was dramatically reduced.

Looks less like a failure on China's program and more like China learning from Musk.

Comment Re:Surprising! (Score 1) 59

Telescreen monitoring would have required a crazy amount of manpower.

Probably the closest real-world analog was the East German Stasi, which may have accounted for nearly 1 in 6:

The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. When the regular informers are added, these ratios become much higher: In the Stasi's case, there would have been at least one spy watching every 66 citizens! When one adds in the estimated numbers of part-time snoops, the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens. It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests. Like a giant octopus, the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life.

— John O. Koehler, German-born American journalist, quoted from Wikipedia

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