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Elon's intention with Raptor was to create a relatively simple workhorse engine with iterative design changes. It sure looks like he succeeded.
I kinda hope we get to see them purchased for use by other aerospace companies. |
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Originally Posted By Hesperus: Elon's intention with Raptor was to create a relatively simple workhorse engine with iterative design changes. It sure looks like he succeeded. I kinda hope we get to see them purchased for use by other aerospace companies. View Quote Need to get them to at least equal the reliability of Merlin engines first. They are still losing raptors every time they fire them up. |
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Originally Posted By Combat_Leader: Need to get them to at least equal the reliability of Merlin engines first. They are still losing raptors every time they fire them up. View Quote I would imagine that having 30 of them in close proximity is contributing to the failure rate and they might be more reliable overall in other applications. |
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Originally Posted By HermanSnerd:
In reality, those two hot chicks that you just met that want you to come home with them for "a good time", are merely the bait for the huge guy hiding in the closet wearing a Batman suit. |
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well, other than an overnight AC - my Jeep is ready for the next launch. Apparently I am starting a second project (which might not be comparable with the Jeep). In the spirit of Tesla - I think it would be cool to watch the launch from an electric boat. That said, a trolling motor is electric, right.... New project is a trolling motor powered kayak - kindof. It is kind of a trolling motor, and kind of a kayak. It is really stretching it though to call it an electric outboard on a flats skiff (it calls itself a skiff, and the motor is called an electric outboard - both are overstatements).
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Originally Posted By Chokey: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F7oznh3XkAA2UJF?format=jpg&name=large View Quote |
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Originally Posted By dmnoid77: I would imagine that having 30 of them in close proximity is contributing to the failure rate and they might be more reliable overall in other applications. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By dmnoid77: Originally Posted By Combat_Leader: Need to get them to at least equal the reliability of Merlin engines first. They are still losing raptors every time they fire them up. I would imagine that having 30 of them in close proximity is contributing to the failure rate and they might be more reliable overall in other applications. Totally ignorant of rocket science so there's probably a fundamental principle I'm not aware of beyond simple redundancy. |
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God's grace is not cheap; it's free.
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Originally Posted By SoCalExile: Curious as to why they're using 30 instead of upsizing them and using less. Totally ignorant of rocket science so there's probably a fundamental principle I'm not aware of beyond simple redundancy. View Quote For one, so they can use the same engine on starship and still have redundancy. It only has 6 |
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I haven't watched it. I'm waiting for a summary. |
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"Your boos mean nothing. I've seen what makes you cheer."
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Originally Posted By SoCalExile: Curious as to why they're using 30 instead of upsizing them and using less. Totally ignorant of rocket science so there's probably a fundamental principle I'm not aware of beyond simple redundancy. View Quote It may seem counter intuitive due to the weight of the engine itself... But Lots of small engines are more efficient than a few large engines. |
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer stupidity." LTC (CENTCOM)
"Round is a shape, right? I have the body of a god...Just happens to be Buddah! Az_Redneck |
Originally Posted By kill-9:
I haven't watched it. I'm waiting for a summary. View Quote |
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer stupidity." LTC (CENTCOM)
"Round is a shape, right? I have the body of a god...Just happens to be Buddah! Az_Redneck |
Originally Posted By Master_of_Orion: Efficiency. It may seem counter intuitive due to the weight of the engine itself... But Lots of small engines are more efficient than a few large engines. View Quote The F1 engines on Saturn V were incredibly impressive. But not all that efficient. They left an awful lot of unburned fuel in their plumes. |
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They destacked at Boca this morning with no fanfare whatsoever.
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It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
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Originally Posted By SoCalExile: Curious as to why they're using 30 instead of upsizing them and using less. Totally ignorant of rocket science so there's probably a fundamental principle I'm not aware of beyond simple redundancy. View Quote You get a lot of issues with combustion stability when scaling up a rocket engine. Also scaling up the turbopumps, cooling nozzle pressure vs ambient etc etc |
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Highlights from Elon's IAC rambling:
Superheavy will eventually be doing quite a small amount of the boosting (100 second boost).....and will return to launch site in ~4-5 minutes. Starship (in expendable mode) will likely be deploying Starlink "....roughly a year from now". "Starship's absurd size is because we are trying to design something that is capable of building a permanent base on the Moon and a city on Mars". Working with Saul Perlmutter at UC Berkeley on a ("7 or 8 meter") space telescope. Hoping to lob a Starship at Mars, for an uncrewed test landing, in "3-4 years" (depending on how the Mars Transport Windows line up). Starship should be "a generalized transport system for anywhere in the Solar System". I'm guessing he means "as a lander/lifter at the destination", rather than proposing a crewed flight to, say, Saturn on a Starship. Docking with ISS will be "difficult", as SpaceX didn't design ISS and the resulting complexities in docking configs are not optimized to Starship. Starships are designed to dock with other Starships. SpaceX Spacesuit will ("hopefully") be "evolved" to be capable of (tethered and, eventually, untethered) EVA and Lunar/Mars use. |
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Originally Posted By SoCalExile: Curious as to why they're using 30 instead of upsizing them and using less. Totally ignorant of rocket science so there's probably a fundamental principle I'm not aware of beyond simple redundancy. View Quote Turbopumps getting bigger come to mind. |
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It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
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Originally Posted By Chokey: oops
View Quote How does that happen. Am I crazy to think that can cause all kinds of issues and inspections? silly |
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BikerNut:
Normal people like motorcycles. Real people like motorcycles. People who don't like motorcycles are just... weird. |
Originally Posted By Fulcrum-5: Highlights from Elon's IAC rambling: Superheavy will eventually be doing quite a small amount of the boosting (100 second boost).....and will return to launch site in ~4-5 minutes. Starship (in expendable mode) will likely be deploying Starlink "....roughly a year from now". "Starship's absurd size is because we are trying to design something that is capable of building a permanent base on the Moon and a city on Mars". Working with Saul Perlmutter at UC Berkeley on a ("7 or 8 meter") space telescope. Hoping to lob a Starship at Mars, for an uncrewed test landing, in "3-4 years" (depending on how the Mars Transport Windows line up). Starship should be "a generalized transport system for anywhere in the Solar System". I'm guessing he means "as a lander/lifter at the destination", rather than proposing a crewed flight to, say, Saturn on a Starship. Docking with ISS will be "difficult", as SpaceX didn't design ISS and the resulting complexities in docking configs are not optimized to Starship. Starships are designed to dock with other Starships. SpaceX Spacesuit will ("hopefully") be "evolved" to be capable of (tethered and, eventually, untethered) EVA and Lunar/Mars use. View Quote Just build a space station of Starships. ISS is nearing the end of its life anyways. |
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Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. - Adm James Stockdale
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Originally Posted By 1Andy2: Just build a space station of Starships. ISS is nearing the end of its life anyways. View Quote I've posted CGI animations of a Starship docking with ISS before. It is a wild image. I would be surprised if it happens more than once. Like parking a tractor-trailer in a spot for compact cars. Once it's flying I expect Starship to be used both as a station and a way of getting other companies's stations to orbit. I would guess Axiom has already discussed this with SpaceX given their close working relationship. |
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Originally Posted By 1Andy2: Just build a space station of Starships. ISS is nearing the end of its life anyways. View Quote |
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Originally Posted By 1Andy2: Just build a space station of Starships. ISS is nearing the end of its life anyways. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By 1Andy2: Originally Posted By Fulcrum-5: Highlights from Elon's IAC rambling: Superheavy will eventually be doing quite a small amount of the boosting (100 second boost).....and will return to launch site in ~4-5 minutes. Starship (in expendable mode) will likely be deploying Starlink "....roughly a year from now". "Starship's absurd size is because we are trying to design something that is capable of building a permanent base on the Moon and a city on Mars". Working with Saul Perlmutter at UC Berkeley on a ("7 or 8 meter") space telescope. Hoping to lob a Starship at Mars, for an uncrewed test landing, in "3-4 years" (depending on how the Mars Transport Windows line up). Starship should be "a generalized transport system for anywhere in the Solar System". I'm guessing he means "as a lander/lifter at the destination", rather than proposing a crewed flight to, say, Saturn on a Starship. Docking with ISS will be "difficult", as SpaceX didn't design ISS and the resulting complexities in docking configs are not optimized to Starship. Starships are designed to dock with other Starships. SpaceX Spacesuit will ("hopefully") be "evolved" to be capable of (tethered and, eventually, untethered) EVA and Lunar/Mars use. Just build a space station of Starships. ISS is nearing the end of its life anyways. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/world/nasa-international-space-station-retire-iss-scn/index.html Iirc NASA has been looking into leasing the ISS out to commercial partners but the commercial partners would have to maintain the station. I suspect keeping the ISS alive as a functioning space station would be extremely expensive and not commercially viable. If the boost cost of creating a greenfield space station wasn't so expensive I doubt any company would want the ISS. |
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Originally Posted By Master_of_Orion: Efficiency. It may seem counter intuitive due to the weight of the engine itself... But Lots of small engines are more efficient than a few large engines. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Master_of_Orion: Originally Posted By SoCalExile: Curious as to why they're using 30 instead of upsizing them and using less. Totally ignorant of rocket science so there's probably a fundamental principle I'm not aware of beyond simple redundancy. It may seem counter intuitive due to the weight of the engine itself... But Lots of small engines are more efficient than a few large engines. Might be easier for some to see it as roughly like trying to build a motorcycle with a single cylinder engine that could compete with the sport bikes with inline four cylinder engines. |
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Earthsheltered house - a reinforced bunker that even the treehuggers consider to be socially acceptable.
Earthbag house - like an earthsheltered house, but cheaper and easier to DIY. |
Originally Posted By JPN: Might be easier for some to see it as roughly like trying to build a motorcycle with a single cylinder engine that could compete with the sport bikes with inline four cylinder engines. View Quote There's also landing to consider. As the rocket burns fuel the weight of that fuel goes away... so the Thrust to Weight ratio gets bigger and bigger. Engines can only throttle down so much... and at landing the T/W would be at it's highest... Due to most of the fuel being expended. So if you only had a few super powerful engines as you would need to get the thing to lift off the pad... Those engines would not be able to throttle down far enough for landing. With a bunch of smaller engines you can just light a few of them for landing and leave the others unlit. |
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer stupidity." LTC (CENTCOM)
"Round is a shape, right? I have the body of a god...Just happens to be Buddah! Az_Redneck |
Originally Posted By Fulcrum-5: Highlights from Elon's IAC rambling: Superheavy will eventually be doing quite a small amount of the boosting (100 second boost).....and will return to launch site in ~4-5 minutes. Starship (in expendable mode) will likely be deploying Starlink "....roughly a year from now". "Starship's absurd size is because we are trying to design something that is capable of building a permanent base on the Moon and a city on Mars". Working with Saul Perlmutter at UC Berkeley on a ("7 or 8 meter") space telescope. Hoping to lob a Starship at Mars, for an uncrewed test landing, in "3-4 years" (depending on how the Mars Transport Windows line up). Starship should be "a generalized transport system for anywhere in the Solar System". I'm guessing he means "as a lander/lifter at the destination", rather than proposing a crewed flight to, say, Saturn on a Starship. Docking with ISS will be "difficult", as SpaceX didn't design ISS and the resulting complexities in docking configs are not optimized to Starship. Starships are designed to dock with other Starships. SpaceX Spacesuit will ("hopefully") be "evolved" to be capable of (tethered and, eventually, untethered) EVA and Lunar/Mars use. View Quote I don't think he was saying docking with iss will be difficult. The question was about orbital refueling. He was saying that docking with iss is more difficult and they are already doing that. Docking with starship will be easy comparatively. |
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Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window.
Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. |
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It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window. Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. View Quote Que? You could at least quote something to spew your vitriol at. Do you mean that he said he's going to launch starlinks before having reuse 100% |
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window. Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. View Quote Yeah, his whole reusability thing is just smoke and mirrors. No way he will ever create a reusable booster, no way he will ever launch more payload to orbit than anyone else (much less everyone else combined), no way he'll ever get astronauts back to the ISS on reusable boosters and command capsules - no way it just isn't possible in his or our lifetime after all, he promised it would happen... He may talk big, and his time scale may be recognized by almost everyone as being way too aggressive - but imo opinion, he has SpaceX further ahead in innovation than any other space company currently on the planet. Right now, the biggest talking failures are Boeing and Bezos. |
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“There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard... until someone listens.”
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." |
Well... Let me put it this way.
I have much more faith in SpaceX cracking second stage reusability than in someone bringing the Shuttle back to flight ready status. Heck Stoke Space might even work out second stage reusability in a few years. Why don't ya go pick on them? |
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window. Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. View Quote You got Elon for sure now! |
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Preferred Pronoun: Space Lord Mutherfucker
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window. Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. View Quote Dude, I love you (no homo), but this Musk hatred is getting old. |
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window. Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. View Quote Meth is a hell of a drug. |
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Originally Posted By Houstons_Problem: With couplings at each end at the correct angle, a decently large diameter circle could be made. Once the circle is set into circular motion, the sound system will be activated and "The Blue Danube" will play as centrifugal "gravity" kicks in. View Quote Attached File |
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DeltaElite777: It's not enough to just para bellum. If you really vis pacem, you gotta convince any potential troublemaker that not only can you push their shit in Genghis Khan-style, but you will.
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It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Well that just throws his reuseabilty schitck completely out the window. Maybe he has bitten off more than he can chew with his promises and trying to change his snake oil approach. It's caught up to him and he is the only one to blame because he had handcuffed himself to his promises and created a cult like following that he has no way of backing up what he failed at promising. It is what it is. View Quote How many Falcon 9 flights before they landed one? It won't be instantaneous |
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: So is the worship. View Quote Dagger, there is more hatred by you here than there is worship by any others here by quite a bit, IMHO. Relax. Enjoy the show. Tell everyone years later how much wiser you were. Keep posting your pics and visiting the sights, we all love that shit. The lip, not so much. |
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Originally Posted By JoseCuervo: Dagger, there is more hatred by you here than there is worship by any others here by quite a bit, IMHO. Relax. Enjoy the show. Tell everyone years later how much wiser you were. Keep posting your pics and visiting the sights, we all love that shit. The lip, not so much. No worries. From the outside looking in all I see is false promises, bullshit, and the continuation of moving the goal posts. It's like people getting sucked in to a video game and eating it all up, no matter the outcome because it's entertainment. Reality is, it's not a video game. Not even how awesome all the CGI renderings have become. Reality has set in an some refuse to accept being duped in to believing the hype. View Quote |
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It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: No worries. From the outside looking in all I see is false promises, bullshit, and the continuation of moving the goal posts. It's like people getting sucked in to a video game and eating it all up, no matter the outcome because it's entertainment. Reality is, it's not a video game. Not even how awesome all the CGI renderings have become. Reality has set in an some refuse to accept being duped in to believing the hype. View Quote First, spacex IS entertaining. They do more of their development in the open than anyone else, while moving faster than anyone else while also having the rare combo of being both ambitious and successful. Why don't you compare Spacex's record with any other company or nation? ULA? Boeing? Blue Origin? Sierra (how long has Dream Chaser been under development)? They are launching reusuable first stage rockets every three days. They have the world's largest satellite constellation that is being used to fund the world's largest rocket that aims to be fully reusable. The second ship was ready to launch in less than half the time you said it would take and they have half a dozen more being built right behind it. I believe that track record has given spacex enough credibility to not say they are charlatans quite yet. One valid criticism may be how they seemingly underestimated the regulatoryroadblocks they were going to face (reference fish cops holding up his launch due to some toasted crabs and quail eggs). For all of Elon's overly optimistic time estimates, I don't see any goal post moving if spacex anticipates their launch cadence being artificially held back by the gov and hedges their bets to fly some expendable ships to put profitable payloads up while concurrently developing full reusability. Your criticisms don't come across as constructive, just hateful which causes folks to take them about as serious as an Elon timeline. |
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They're averaging an orbital launch every 4 days.
Yes, total scam. |
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Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. - Adm James Stockdale
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: Originally Posted By JoseCuervo: Dagger, there is more hatred by you here than there is worship by any others here by quite a bit, IMHO. Relax. Enjoy the show. Tell everyone years later how much wiser you were. Keep posting your pics and visiting the sights, we all love that shit. The lip, not so much. No worries. From the outside looking in all I see is false promises, bullshit, and the continuation of moving the goal posts. It's like people getting sucked in to a video game and eating it all up, no matter the outcome because it's entertainment. Reality is, it's not a video game. Not even how awesome all the CGI renderings have become. Reality has set in an some refuse to accept being duped in to believing the hype. Funny....what I see is a company moving at near light speed, in legacy space / rocketry time....even modern time compared to the competition, and .gov agencies being the biggest bottleneck. Legacy space would still be working on OLM upgrade drawings, meanwhile SpaceX has upgrades designed, installed and tested.....and redesigned the booster to add hot staging while they're waiting. If Musk could harness internet butthurt, the next launch would end up in Mars orbit. |
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EP429: Today's lesson - Don't provoke ARFCOM. People will see your butthole.
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Originally Posted By Dagger41: No worries. From the outside looking in all I see is false promises, bullshit, and the continuation of moving the goal posts. View Quote We started moving into our new shop hangar a few months ago, when we were originally supposed to be in it a few years ago. We had to move out of the smallest of our shop hangars at the beginning, so that it could be demolished to make space for the new construction, leading to years of having to find a spot other than our main shop hangar to put some of the planes that we were working on. Then when we thought the new hangar was done and we would no longer have to toss tool bags into the back of our personal vehicles and drive a quarter of the way across the airport to work on a plane that we didn't have space for, we were told we still couldn't use the new hangar. There were significant errors that had been made in the construction, that had to be corrected before we could use the hangar. Why did this clusterfuck of multiple delays happen? Because government was heavily involved at each step of the way. When the FAA is the only government entity that you have to deal with, things generally can be expected to have some delays, but you can make a halfway decent estimate on how long those delays are likely to be. Toss other government agencies into the mix, and you find yourself asking silly questions like "why does the hangar floor have to be redesigned to support the weight of the heaviest of the airliners currently in operation, when the airport is too small for the airlines to use and there is no room left to lengthen the runway?". |
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Earthsheltered house - a reinforced bunker that even the treehuggers consider to be socially acceptable.
Earthbag house - like an earthsheltered house, but cheaper and easier to DIY. |
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Fetchez la vache!
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I just heard that Space X is a big supporter of the Dallas Air and Space Museum at Love Field and they put on a good show at the Gala this weekend. It was much appreciated. I hope they move some of the obsolete stuff up there soon for display.
Not sure if Elon was there but his Execs certainly were. |
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Originally Posted By kallnojoy: Everyone: I thought the rocket was larger... SpaceX: https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/60523/8d7419df11eecc94e0d9e3110880d8b9-2988649.jpg View Quote Having seen them in person. SHB is big enough. Heck even a Falcon 9 is pretty impressive close up. Attached File I don't think anyone ever accused the Saturn V of being smol. Attached File |
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