Van Rijn
Order of Kilopi

That’s one reason for companies to get into the business for their own purposes. SLS will never be used for commercial purposes even if it gets used...

I think that without additional qualifications, saying the planet is terraformed makes the question unanswerable since there are too many...

That would make a lot of sense, it would certainly help on cost and complexity, but who knows if it will happen. It could introduce other development...

Okay. I see your argument but I made different assumptions. I’ve thought a bit about possible terraforming techniques, and for a planet too close...

That’s the claim. So what do you think about the article? For sure, Mars is better than Jupiter’s moons or Titan or other outer worlds in terms of...

I expect something like them will be built too.

Only that? I would have thought to have sufficient light to be equivalent to what the Earth receives in optical (for terraforming) that the UV would...

If it’s terraformed - that is, modified to support Earth life - there would need to be an optical filter between the surface and the sunlight, or the...

As I mentioned earlier, I would go up to $10,000 for that type of short suborbital hop. Mind you, I doubt they could make money with the SS2 on...

Yes, cost aside, before I’d be willing to fly in one, I would want to see a good number of successful flights without any worrying anomalies. I’m...

Sorry, but if I *had* a ticket, I wouldn’t give it away. But I am not interested in spending $250,000 or whatever they’re saying now for one.

I have to say that I now have almost no interest in them. When they started up I was interested since it was a rare example of commercial space...

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. I’d be happy to see another Newspace innovative competitor to SpaceX, but I’ll wait and see if they can actually...

Your post 16 links to this NASA page which has a short comment on the Moon’s rotation: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4709 Which says: An...

If Scott Manley is right, there was more than one microphone and the one that was supposed to capture sound on descent failed. (That’s from his...

Actually, I’m curious how much aircraft pilot experience carries over and if it really is that important? Most of the flight would be handled by...

It is just so great seeing commercial orbital flights about to begin. I wonder who will start offering real space flight lotteries? I never put...

Low 70s here, bright sun and quite windy today. I would have the windows open more but for the wind. The grass has really started growing and I’ve...

Who ever said magic isn’t real? Well, we’re getting into Clarke’s third law territory here. I never dreamed I would be someday watching robots...

Looks like we lucked out on the COVID-19 vaccines. Early on there was a lot of question about whether a reasonably effective vaccine could be...

The question might get more notice in the S&T Boeing thread. I’m not sure if it is fire or just really hot metal, but I would expect it would be due...

Even from Earth, you can watch the sun move across the lunar surface, which clearly indicates the moon rotates with respect to the sun. Anditopens,...

I was reading a CNN article on how passengers reacted to the problems with the engine in that recent Boeing flight and came across this (emphasis...

Yep. I was familiar with reviews so only watched it when I didn’t have to pay for it (well, beyond my standard cable fee). If I had watched it cold...

I never knew anything about the Texas power grid until now. I laughed when I heard that “ERCOT” stands for “Electric Reliability Council of Texas” -...

Those earthquakes are huge, but not large enough to explain the change in earth's rotation. But, the rotation has changed a lot, that's the activity...

And has been in Mars orbit for just under 15 years. Another impressive NASA spacecraft. I’m very happy about this. I was concerned about the...

Yes, in the long run. Pretty much the reason for leap seconds--the defining of the day as of a length from a century before meant that we would...

Me too, but like I said, it would work in this case: A lithobrake event would lithobreak the rover. It was intentional, meant as a small...

The way you wrote that, I was afraid it was today, but it is tomorrow, about 12:55pm PST. I am making a point of not checking on it until after...