Claude

Snow again on the mountain top this morning. 1340 ft elevation in the Bull Run Mountains just south of Middleburg VA. This spot was under a tornado warning before noon yesterday. That cell, and some mushy storms around the region, along with persistent cloud cover helped dissipate the storm potential later in the day. @capitalweather

At 10:30 PM at 1340 fr elevation on Bull Run Mountains south of Middleburg VA. Sure looks like snow cover. But this is an infrared photo which can be deceiving. Will post another non IR at dawn. @capitalweather Unlike post in Purcellville, no snow at lower elevations.

@SpencerSays @wusa9 Yes and no credit needed

@ClaudeCMS May @wusa9 show this on tv wit credit to you?

Two photos, just 17 hours apart. South of Middleburg VA at the 660 ft elevation. @capitalweather

About 1 inch on back deck, south of Middleburg VA at 660 ft elevation. @capitalweather

At 1340 ft elevation in Bull Run Mountains, Fauquier County, just south of Middleburg VA @capitalweather

1300 ft elevation on Bull Run Mountains south of Middleburg VA @capitalweather

Traveling with a Nuke Reactor Was Cool Yesterday I was lucky to be invited to join a group to witness the movement of a new design nuclear reactor from California. It was moved in several parts (8 air cargo pallets) on three Air Force C-17s. While not yet fueled, this reactor has already been assembled and tested at operating temperatures and pressures. Next is the fueling at its test site in Utah and initial criticality test by 4 July 2026 - this milestone is the first time this design/reactor would be making energy from fission. While small at 5MW, and requiring refueling approximately every 18 months, this design has promise and is leading other novel designs also coming forward this summer. Those who read my research, know nuclear power is still an American comparative advantage in the global marketplace. And, that it has a place in powering an American maritime revival. Here are a few photos with SecEnergy and Under Secretary of Defence with links to the Department of War and Valar Atomics: @DeptofWar @ENERGY @gCaptain valaratomics.com/ward-250 war.gov/News/Releases/…

Today, we’re exited to partner with the Department of War and Department of Energy on Operation Windlord. Three C-17s will be transporting our Ward250 reactor from March ARB to Hill AFB. Here’s a peek at what it took to bring this operation to life. (Part 1)

@alphafox Bowens Warf, Newport RI.

I think this is Newport, RI - either that or Chatham MA. IYKYK

@alphafox No. Not even legal. Four straps or chains on axles or recover points.

Is this the correct way to tie down a truck for transportation? 🧐

@engineers_feed B is 1/2 the force of A because its rope travels twice as far for the same distance lifted.

Mechanical reasoning test. Which weight requires the least force to move?

Just south of Middleburg VA using 30 seconds on iPhone as the clouds move in at 9pm EST @capitalweather

It really depends on your internet needs. I think the most important is how many other Starlinks are near you. Ie. How congested is your area? Zoom calls and uploading videos, social media and video surveillance cameras can often overload Starlinks poor upload speeds. Frequent weather downpours can causes slowdowns and downtimes. For emails and simple browsing and videos you will usually be fine since the video will simply degrade instead of stopping. Many people with fiber plans never use the full capacity of their connection.

UPDATE: Here are the results of the BEST scan I could get, using the "performance" dish option. This is me standing on the roof on my tip toes trying to find a way to buy this house, and it still didn't get all green. This was the best out of like 20-25 scans. Some of them were all red. I would say I got about 75% all red+ yellow, 20% with one or two greens, and just this one with 3 greens. How fucked am I, chat?

Does anyone know a lot about wireless ISP options like starlink? I have questions I can't get answered by watching youtube videos and there's no customer service

@Hitchslap1 Kept grains safe from mice for 1,000’s of years

Dogs have contributed to human civilisation and kept people safe for thousands of years. What have cats ever done?

This is probably one of the biggest discoveries/advancements ever and it’s going to lead to ‘free energy’ microchips. If you want to know more watch my episode about Paul Thibado’s graphene circuit. Link - youtube.com/live/6Drl6Ul-j…

Not sure you need nose to nose. The TLI ship could eject its nose after earth assent and latch cleanly to base of HLS. Also load bearing of attaching together would be mostly vibrational since you could light engines during TLI in a slow sequence to keep g-forces low and steady. Also no big earth surface gravity during TLI to deal with.

(Ultimate arm chair engineer warning, long but hear me out) Artemis is a mess. I've been working on a very deep dive going over all possible options to get humans on the moon with existing (and near future existing) hardware and I've discovered something quite interesting about the current plans for Starship HLS. Starship HLS should ABSOLUTELY not do it's own Trans Lunar Injection. SpaceX should do a "stubby" HLS which only has enough propellant to get from NRHO down to the surface and back. This only requires about 400 tonnes of propellant because you could remove something like 20 or 25 TONNES of tankage that is currently baked into the design that's ONLY used ONCE to do the TLI. A stubby Starship HLS now has MUCH greater margins too, almost 700 m/s of dV for a round trip between NRHO and the lunar surface. This also means its refueling requires substantially less propellant for the subsequent missions. It makes the refueling trans lunar tanker require much less propellant, which means it requires fewer launches to fuel that up as well. It all works towards much fewer launches all together, a much more efficient lunar lander that isn't carrying around an additional 25 tonnes of dry mass, a shorter vehicle which requires less hardware for the elevator, a lower center of gravity, much lower landed mass since it requires less propellant to get back to NRHO etc etc. It's a win : win. The only drawbacks I've found so far is the trans lunar tanker and HLS would need to be able to dock nose to nose and have heavy bracing to be able to perform the TLI docked with the Trans Lunar Depot, however this would certainly be less mass than the 25 tonnes of parasitic tankage we've removed. The other drawback is a trans lunar refuel depot that has minimal dry mass (and therefore only 2 Rap Vacs) would likely need to expend a booster to be able to get into orbit initially since it would take about 19 minutes for two Raptors to burn through 1,600 tonnes of prop, so you'd have to launch it with less than 600 tonnes of prop which still gives it enough dV to get into orbit if the booster is expended, but also can get the job done with just two Raptor Vacuums, would be be most efficient for all trans lunar refueling operations. BUT, THIS IS TRUE OF THE FULL HLS AS WELL! The numbers BARELY close with little margin for error and boil-off with a full height HLS doing its own TLI. A stubby HLS is almost the only real viable option that has much greater margins and requires far less to refuel once its at the moon. Best of all, cargo and crew volume remain the same for a stubby HLS Starship. There's almost no compromise other than the complication of having to do the TLI with two docked vehicles. Something that's never been done before, but certainly the juice is worth the squeeze over having an inherently inefficient lunar lander. I'm working on a very in depth deep dive on all things Artemis and this is just something that stood out. I can't wait to show you my full rundown. There's some interesting options out there that can help ensure the US beats China back to the moon while also aligning with long term sustainability goals. What're your thoughts @elonmusk?

On Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 11am EDT, @NASA will host a media teleconference with Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy and experts from the Mars Perseverance mission to discuss the analysis of a rock sampled by the rover. Set a reminder: youtube.com/watch?v=-StZgg…