Space and Science BS Thread

Chief of Human Spaceflight Loverro, who happens to be a careerist. Administrator Bridenstine (political appointee) is awesome and I hope he gets a couple more years to shepherd the program.

 

My mistake, I'll correct it.

 

I was thinking about that Kodak contract, then the "behavior" of other other individuals that looks like it might get that contract killed.

Our contracts now have to go through an OIG review before award to prevent shenanigans. Folks are tired of ending up on the news.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...ouglas-loverro-as-next-human-spaceflight-head

Pretty good bio. Like I said, I think he was just hung up on particular solutions. His resignation letter is a good read.

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/doug-loverro-resigns/

 

Boeing has been stumbling around for years with most government contracts. Last I read about 30% of Boeing's revenue comes from the federal government, which means we should only be paying about 15% and what we get is subpar anyway.

 

Boeing has definitely been cruising on past competencies for sure.

 

Side story, I did a lot of model rocketry as a kid. Even got involved in a space touch project (getting a homebrew rocket to 100k feet). One of my teachers in High School was an amateur rocket builder and recruited a bunch of us into building one, probably because it gets a bit expensive and the more people get involved the more palatable the costs are. We never made it, our multistage rocket blew up on the pad and our parents didn't want to fork over the cash for a second attempt, but it was a really great experience.

It sucks now. I've looked into getting some cheap D/E/F class model rockets but no one locally carries that stuff anymore. I could always order online I guess but models rockets are pretty fragil, I don't think mailing the kits is a great idea. Too bad. I think it was building those rockets that really got me into the sciences as a kid and I'd love to build a few with my daughters in a couple of years.

 

A friend and I were talking about Boeing the other day. His take on it was that merging with Mcdonnell douglas ended up with boeing picking up the leadership from MD, who were pretty famously the get it done and ship it sort of culture, not the old, successful, boeing culture. That has led to their stagnation.

I really need to sit down and read the 747 book.

 

Cardboard tubes and limited amounts of hazmat. Hobby shops should still carry D's but the airspace restrictions are a little onerous these days. Our rocketry at home is restricted to water rockets, heh.

 

I just built one with my 6yo son about a month ago, not only getting the kits is getting hard, trying to find places that will let you launch them is tough. I remember as a kid, just going to a park with ball field and launching them, now you get run off because of liability. I totally understand, but man, it’s not like the old days!
I found a local rocket club that has a launch day every first Saturday of the month, but been holding off since I’m not entirely comfortable with taking my kids to large gatherings right now. It’s kind of ruining the fun of it since he built it and can’t fly it.

On another note I found last Black Friday that Estes has some really awesome deals on their website for Black Friday. I picked up a lot of kits and am storing them away for birthdays etc, for the kids. Even picked up a cool rocket engine powered dragster! So keep that in mind, as that hobby can get expensive quickly!

 

I built one of those from scratch in middle school! Our shop teacher had a set of plans and was sponsoring races at the state competition.

It ran once, but they forgot to tighten the string it ran on from the previous race, so it veered to the side. Would have been fine, except we had a radar stand made out of plywood. It hit at 99 mph and left a big silver circle in the plywood.


I had far better luck with CO2 racers.

 

Late to the party- I hate when work gets in the way of life...
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1295177746012950536?s=20

 

Your shop class wasn’t sponsored by Boeing, was it?

 

Longish video and the guy’s not as funny as he think he is but it’s a good overview of what it took to land the Shuttle:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb4prVsXkZU

 

If you haven't seen this one already...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwn3kk-q1YU

 

Some of us might remember when...

https://twitter.com/NASASun/status/1296447646127796232?s=20

 

Watched the launch. In 6th grade.

Carl Sagan was my hero.

 

YOB 1965? If so, we’re cohorts.

 

looks like a segment of the ISS has a leak, good thing it’s not a high risk situation!
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2020/08/20/crew-spending-weekend-in-stations-russian-segment/

This reminds me of the .080” hole in the Soyuz!
https://www.space.com/russian-soyuz-hole-air-leak-source-secret-nasa-chief.html

 

In September 2019, NASA and its international partners first saw indications of a slight increase above the standard cabin air leak rate.

“Uhhh, what’s that again?” says Expedition 64