NeilT

@puppy_kirk @jinfeng @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX However it is certified for 7.6. Starship has the ability to regain LEO after returning. It removes all heat shield issues and allows docking and transfer.

@jinfeng @Exogynous @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX IIRC, Dragon's heat shield was designed for 14km/s reentry. I think lunar return is about 11km/s.

NEWS: NASA is planning a bigger @SpaceX Moon mission role using Starship, in a massive blow to Boeing. With the new proposal, Boeing's SLS would no longer be used to boost Orion close to the moon. Instead, Starship and Orion would dock in Earth orbit, giving Starship the pivotal role of propelling the capsule to the moon’s orbit, before taking astronauts down to the surface. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

@MyrddinEmrys2 @jinfeng @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX Time to crew certify FH is an issue. In the end it is all time. F9 is certified. Get rid of SLS and Orion. Use Starship and solve the rest with refuelling.

@jinfeng @Exogynous @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX Maybe as feasible as human-rating Falcon Heavy to launch Orion? Both are probably possible, but would likely take more time and money than we might think. It would probably need some other upgrades as well, like radiation hardening.

@jinfeng @MyrddinEmrys2 @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX Orion requires 1.492 km/s for TEI on the specified profile. ESM can deliver 1.25–1.30 km/s max, with zero margin left for safety or corrections. Even when fully inserted I to LLO. ESM cannot do it which is WHY NRHO was chosen.

@MyrddinEmrys2 @Exogynous @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX Exactly x.com/i/status/20347…

@DJR69422 @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX NG doesn't have the cadence to certify and is heavily contracted right now. Vulcan is the closest.

@Exogynous @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX Falcon or Falcon Heavy can do it for nothing.

@wholemars O'Dowd proof? I guess that means a gag and handcuffs.....

Tesla Self-Driving needs to be not just safe, but idiot proof.

@MOSSADil If there is a cease fire there is no need for them. It reads like "we are a bunch of useless wankers and cannot do anything, so we will set terms which see us sailing in safe waters, flying the flag, walking tall and telling everyone how good we are".

🚨 UPDATE: Six major powers — Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands — say they’re prepared to help ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz following recent Iranian attacks on commercial vessels. However, Italy and Germany clarify any involvement would come after a ceasefire, not immediate military action. Stay connected, follow @MOSSADil.

You can but you won't spend the hours you used to research data and details then assemble them for use when you can ask Grok and get what you need in minutes. My Google use has dropped to incredibly simple real time requests about local amenities or simple.fishing expeditions about something I vaguely remember. Even that is going to Grok fast.

I cannot live without Grok anymore.

@Microinteracti1 You are talking about the F22. Not the F35.

The F-35 was supposed to be unkillable. That was the whole point. Lockheed Martin spent thirty years and four hundred billion dollars, the most expensive weapons programme in human history, building an aircraft that the enemy simply could not see. Not on radar. Not on infrared. Not on anything. The F-35 was not just a fighter jet. It was a theological statement. America’s way of saying: we have moved beyond the reach of your missiles, your sensors, and your prayers. Iran apparently didn’t get the memo. Somewhere over Iranian airspace on March 19, 2026, an IRST system, infrared search and track, the kind of sensor your grandmother could probably explain, looked up, found the F-35, and locked on. Not because Iranian engineers are geniuses. Because the F-35, it turns out, is extremely hot. All that engine. All that thrust. All that carefully sculpted stealth geometry, and the bloody thing glows like a kettle. The heat signature data Iran now holds is not just embarrassing. It is a gift that keeps giving. To Moscow. To Beijing. To every procurement ministry on the planet that has been quietly wondering whether to spend the money on systems designed to kill this aircraft. The answer, as of this week, is yes. And here is the bit that should really worry the Pentagon. You can patch software. You can redesign coatings. You cannot reprogramme a pilot’s brain. Every F-35 driver who takes off from here on knows, actually knows, that someone down there might be able to see them. That changes everything about how they fly. Caution replaces aggression. Hesitation replaces instinct. Four hundred billion dollars. And in the end, it was done in by a heat sensor. Tremendous. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

@xdNiBoR Probably not in mine but there may come a time where I could spend my final days working on making it happen.

This will happen in my lifetime.

@booster_10 It will take as long as it takes and we will learn something from that process. Posessing your soul with patience is the optimal solution.

How long do you think it'll take for SpaceX to install the remainder of Booster 19's Raptor 3 engines.

It is implied "Boeing's SLS would no longer be used to boost Orion close to the moon. Instead, Starship and Orion would dock in Earth orbit". Yes, theoretically, Vulcan can launch Orion and the ESM to LEO. But it cannot be done and crew certified fast enough to be of relevance. Otherwise SLS still has to send Orion to LEO. There are not enough Orion to do all the certification testing required, not enough ESM and Vulcan is currently constrained until they fix the SRB issue beyond an unreasonable doubt.

@Exogynous @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX He didn't say SLS would launch Orion.

You know of course that this is about Centaur V and ICPS and the cancelling of EUS. Because SLS does not send it to the Moon. The moment you don't need any of those it becomes about Orion only being needed for the ballistic ~11km/s return from the moon and direct entry to Earth deorbit without retrograde thrust to achieve LEO before deorbit. Once you unravel that ball of wax and add in refuelling, the entire premise of SLS and Orion vanish like mist on a summers morning. This is only part of the story.

Can tiny Boeing rock SpaceX?

Not the point and not what is being discussed. The US is bombing Iran and if everyone who needs the civilian ships with civilian crews to safely transit the strait of Hormuz, they had better show up. I thought all you handwavers were against the breach of international law by attacking unarmed civilian ships. So much so that you cannot recognise that a military ship, armed or not, is not civilian and because it is a Military ship with a trained military crew it is a target. Then you excuse the Iranian bombing of civilian ships because "the US is attacking them". Clue to the confused. It is not against international law for the US to attack Iran. Another clue to the confused, the US doesn't need those ships. They can stay there till the US has dealt with the Iranian regime. You can handwave like the rest of NATO, the EU and the UK. See how effective handwaving is in a shooting war. Those ships are staying there until someone who needs them shows up.

@Exogynous @johnkonrad Nobody would be bombing shipping if the US hadn’t started bombing Iran.

Dear Europe, I know you feel outrage. I have talked to many of you on the phone. I know politicians and media on both sides of the Atlantic are furious. I attended a conference with mostly Europeans. The worry and frustration was palpable. I get it too. You are dependent on Middle East oil and aluminum and fertilizer and shipping and LNG. Dubai is a vital travel hub for you. Vital. But don’t worry. Trump will lose the midterms and Congress will flip and side with you. Or maybe not… I live in the bluest town in the bluest state, where protests are practically a seasonal sport. I drove over eight hours across New England this week past the usual corners where outrage normally lives. This time? Nothing. Left, right, center. I’m hearing almost no one talk about this war. MAGA doesn’t even care. Ask someone and you’ll get the expected talking points. But in coffee shops, kitchens, real life? Silence. Hard truth: most Americans just don’t care. And since the weather warmed, not a single keffiyeh in sight. So when Trump says you need to go protect the ships and airports that are vital to YOU, I think he means it. Because the vast majority of Americans don’t care. And it’s not that we want to see you spin into an energy and food shortage. It’s that even the most TDS-inflicted liberal American is getting tired of your BS. Hating Trump is one thing. Almost half of America is OK with that. But your anti-American vitriol and arrogance and weakness is exhausting. Nobody likes a needy person who is angry and thinks they are better than you. It’s literally the worst combination in a person. And you might not want to admit it, but you are needy. You need us to reopen Hormuz. You need our banks and our markets. You need a lot. “We will not participate in this war” is fine. Nobody is asking you to bomb civilians. What’s weak is you won’t surge defensive missiles and planes to protect European-owned ships and property. When exactly did defense make you a participant? Defense of innocent life and property isn’t a “war crime.” And you DO own the majority of ships getting attacked. Ships that you are unwilling to defend maybe because you outsource the labor to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Ukraine. You are the wealthy lords who abandoned the mansion but told the help to stick around and defend it. So you might want to send a few warships and missile defense units to protect YOUR property. Or at least leave them at anchor and send the innocent crews home. You want us to defend the Strait because we started this mess? That’s reasonable. Problem is the reaction from most of America to your demands is: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If Starship is taking Orion to the Moon, it is sending it back too. If it is sending it back, it can also do the earth leo insertion and transfer back to Dragon for Deorbit. Orion needs the ESM to get it back to Earth and the ESM does not have the ability to get Orion out of LLO only put of NRHO, which is why this was all set up this way. If Starship is taking Orion to the Moon to LLO, then Starship is hosting the crew the whole way. It is also boosting the ESM and Orion out of LLO. Which puts Starship ease tically on the same trajectory as Orion. Once you accept Starship is refuelling and doing the transfer to the Moon to LLO and the reboot out of LLO, everything changes and all the reasons for Orion go away. Because Starship can hold enough fuel to reach LLO, land, ascend, refuel again and go back to Earth and acquire LEO ready for a transfer to Dragon for Earth descent. Orion then becomes nothing more than a jobs program.

@Exogynous @SawyerMerritt @SpaceX After Orion docking with Starship, they will both goto the Moon, Starship land then take off, dock with Orion, and Orion comes home. Orion is needed for the return trip with that near escape velocity re-entry, something the current version of Dragon cannot do.

@CBrenchley @johnkonrad The US is not bombing the routes. If you can't even work that out you are even more useless than Starmer.

@johnkonrad @Exogynous You’re saying we should defend the oil shipping routes? From the consequences of the war America started? It’s one thing to stay out of the war, it’s quite another to ask us to bomb American bases. 😱

The Lords was designed to be ruled by honour, discipline and pride in the country. That could not be bought and was therefore a control on charlatans. Now the entire chamber is bought and paid for. Slow rolling destruction of the checks and balances which served the UK for so well for so long.

This is the biggest reform to our Parliament in a generation. 🇬🇧 This morning, the 700-year-old system of hereditary membership in the House of Lords was abolished. Membership is now earned through public service and merit, not granted by an inheritance. ✅

@xdNiBoR If you want to win you have to have a winning mindset. Europe, right now, doesn't even have an "in the game" mindset. They can't even get a "participation" prize.

Sadly, once again, Europe has 0% to win at anything.