Bimfred

joined 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Right now, the Earth is losing mass at about 55 000 tons per year. Yes, losing. About 100 000 tons of hydrogen and helium escapes the upper atmosphere, partially offset by roughly 45 000 tons of dust and meteorites getting scooped up along our orbit.

Considering this has been happening for millions of years, I think we're quite safe from affecting the Earth's mass and orbit within the span of even centuries.

But it's much more likely that the majority of material mined and processed in space will not be coming down to Earth. It's much better put to use in orbital construction, or shallower gravity wells like the Moon and Mars.

You're entirely right that getting to the rocks, and getting the mined stuff to where it's actually useful, are gonna be a problem. Maybe we'll finally get some nuclear thermal engines, cause the shite ISP of chemical rockets is really insufficient for these trips and ain't no one wanna wait on the gravity assists.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Fingers crossed this woman doesn't end up with a Zydrate addiction. It comes in a little glass vial, you know.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 weeks ago

NASA has the measurements of all their astronauts and Dragon flight suits for Butch and Suni are already made.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Crew Dragon has been solely responsible for the US side of ISS rotations for four years, without incident. 8 successful missions, not counting the privately funded trips. Cargo Dragon has been doing resupply missions since 2012.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

Yep. And if they fail to deliver on the lofty expectations they've created here, the backlash is going to be epic. I don't want to root for their downfall, but.... Imma stock up on popcorn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

A lot of that time, if not the vast majority, is likely performance testing. That's trivial to automate and can be run across 100+ systems simultaneously.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because now it's practically a necessity. Before that, you could easily not put a case on your phone, exercise some basic care with it and you would've been fine. None of my previous phones had a case on them. Not a one. Because I don't drop them, I don't throw them and I don't use them for hammering in bolts or whatever. But the camera bump finally got me to put a case on my phone, because the damn thing not sitting flat on a flat surface annoyed me too much.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The show made a fair few changes from the books, mostly for the better. Off the top of my head, Avasarala and Draper are introduced earlier in the show, Drummer got the consolidated stories of several other side characters and Elvi Okoye's and Ashford's personalities were significantly changed. IMO, Show Ashford is a much more interesting character than Book Ashford. In addition, the season 6 side plot with the kids is told much later in the books.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Thunderfoot's psychotic obsession with Musk and the complete denial of reality happening before his eyes it necessitates has destroyed any credibility as a scientist he ever had. The authority of a food chemist on matters of rocket science is questionable in the first place. Your blind, unquestioning acceptance of whatever drivel escapes his frothing mouth is no less pathetic.

And with that, I'm going to toast to the memory of the brain cells I've lost over the course of this "conversation". Hoping for anything even resembling a reasoned argument from you is clearly a fool's errand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Yeah, you got nothing.

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