KDog

The purpose of the state is to funnel tax dollars into the hands of autistic arms manufacturers. Failure to do this is one of 100 clear signs that the Byzantines had lost the mandate of Heaven.

Absolutely insane Lewis and Clark (both Virginians) were two of the greatest Americans of the early Republic, and were not only skilled and intrepid explorers, but some of the greatest pioneering naturalists to ever come out of the United States Clark, for example, meticulously documented the route West as they explored, and created a map that was the best available for decades. As noted in Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists: "[Clark] himself is acclaimed a near cartographic genius. Clark's talents in this direction did not reveal themselves until he sat down in mid-winter at Camp Dubois and with paper and pen made a map of the country of open sky stretching endlessly to the west. From then on, he produced many more, the majority of which have found sanctuary in the Beinecke Library, Yale University. Collectively, they pay high tribute to his perseverance, skill, and execution of detail. His cartographical talent, it would appear, had thus far been dozing behind an unopened door of his subconscious, marking time until the proper stimulus brought it wide awake. Its emergence and subsequent development provide one of the many significant and unexpected highlights of the Expedition."

The Sprint missle launching with 100 g's acceleration to reach Mach 10 in 5 seconds like

Crazy that Constantinople fell almost entirely because the Emperor didn't want to pay for a Hungarian's autism project (building a 19 ton cannon with a 30" bore inspired by much smaller models introduced by the Mongols) so the autist in question asked the Ottomans if they would like to fund his superweapon instead. Being tired of repeatedly losing, they said yes and threw money at him to make the damn thing, which destroyed the previously unassailable walls of the city using 1200lb cannon balls with a range of up to a mile. Dude wasn't concerned with politics, religion, or the civilizational consequences of his actions. He just really wanted to make an enormous cannon, and by god did he succeed.

You were born at a particular time and in a particular place for a particular purpose.

Carl Jung once said that one of the most destructive forces a person can carry is unused creative energy. if you have something in you that wants to be made and you keep refusing to make it, that energy does not just go away. it turns inward and starts working against you.

"Tell Jackie... It was me."

@aviationarchive Kennedy could have had a VC-10C as Air Force 1

Can clearly see S39 generating lift during reentry to make up for the lost range from the engine-out on ascent.

.@PalmerLuckey: "Patents are Chinese instruction manuals" and we need to reinvent the US patent system: "Stop patenting everything." "The Founding Fathers never predicted a world where you'd have a globalized economy, and the entire patent office could be downloaded every single morning, ripped off, and then used to fight a war against you." " We need to really fundamentally revisit the patent system." "I think we need to massively expand the national security patent process. You can obtain a classified patent. You can get a patent on something that you are not allowed to disclose to anyone, but you still maintain the exclusivity on those rights." " We need to massively expand that program." Via @HooverInst

Onboard views from Starship and Super Heavy V3, which are equipped with upgraded cameras capable of streaming 4K video through every phase of flight via @Starlink

The main failure of flight test 12 is actually a sign of how insanely powerful the Raptor 3 engine is. During "most engine cutoff," that extra power from the booster and the upperstage engines during the hotstage separation pushed the booster to flip sideways at 44 degrees per second, or 0.77 rads/s. Nominally, it should flip up instead of sideways more slowly. That rotation was WAY too fast in the wrong direction with added axial rotation, causing an estimated 2.2 g outward force at the nose of the booster, causing massive sloshing for the propellant. That caused gas ingestion, engine explosion, and cascading failure for the boostback. This led the booster to an uncontrolled fall at terminal velocity. I think for the next flight, they are going to have to change the gimbal profile for the MECO to reduce rotation and counteract the upperstage engine push, increase the coast time to allow propellant to settle, and stagger the relight more slowly with 2 engines per 3-4 seconds or so. This won't need many hardware changes, mostly software changes, so the next launch will probably be sooner than expected... classic too much of a good thing problem.

There are the two lines I see from upset immigrants 1) "We're better than you, you're just jealous and resentful of us" and 2) "This is all very frustrating for my personal career plans and life goals," I see very little gratitude, actual love for America (and not just the opportunities it presents, and especially not concern for America's people outside of a very insular SF bubble

Color-coding the engine config according to startup/shutdown sequences REALLY shows the impact of that single engine on the entire booster. 3 other engines failed to fully light before the energetic event.

I've reviewed the Starship launch videos this morning and my conclusion is that SpaceX is almost ready to start launching their Starlink V3 FSS constellation. Everything needed to launch satellites has been proven, with the only outstanding issues being Raptor 3 reliability and return to launch towers for both the booster and the ship. I think SX are within reach of proving out these remaining milestones over the coming months and we will see real Starlink V3 satellites launched by late-2026. Over time, with establishment of rapid reusability, this will reduce the constellation replenishment costs for Starlink by a significant margin. I don't think this means mass-market adoption of Starlink by customers currently using terrestrial broadband, but it does mean the profitability of Starlink's existing customer base can be improved, leading to a sustainable business model generating lots of cash. I'm not going to get into valuations, or any of the IPO nonsense, but Starship's success certainly means that LEO constellations can be profitable, provided that launch is cheap. We don't yet know how Starship will be available for competitors and at what pricing, so anyone trying to compete with Starlink FSS is likely to face severe headwinds for several years. The same is true, I believe, for DTD, with Starship likely to start launching high performance V2 MSS satellites by mid-2027. As such, SpaceX is likely to dominate DTD NTNs over the next few years with competitors such as $ASTS Amazon and Equatys having severe competitive cost pressures unless they can access cheap, rapid launch. There will be multiple DTD NTNs, no doubt, but I wouldn't bet against SpaceX being as dominant a force in this market as it is for FSS today.

@BellikOzan also looked like a much more vertical ascent profile for a long time after the wiggle but it could have been the camera lens.

@BellikOzan Internal success projections must have not been good, they spent a good deal of energy on the wiggle to clear the pad right after hold down release, looked really weird compared to other launches but it was covered up by the much faster ascent.

Could have been better, but could have been so much worse. Pretty great for first v3 with all the changes they made. New stage sep looks aggressive -- booster held up well considering (esp. without an HSR). Congratulations and looking forward to the next flight!

@antonioetayo @BellikOzan Booster ascent engine loss (fine) Booster boostback engine loss (catastrophic) yeah but I dont know if we can blame the engine yet as IIRC ingesting ice has been a cause before. Ship ascent engine loss (partial ok, didnt check the orbit yet) Ship flip and landing (looked good)

@BellikOzan I don't know why everyone is taking it so well. We're 8 years in and raptor its still having multiple blowups per flight Horrible engine