The Astronomy Thread

Pharazon2

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Had dinner with my cousin from SpaceX the other night. Seems like Musk's threat to move the headquarters to Texas from CA is mostly hot air and will just entail changing the address on the corporate paperwork. No offices, employees, equipment, etc, are being relocated.

Its not hot air because they will get some benefits from moving HQ from cali to Texas, don't think he ever insinuated they'd be moving any of the major locations. Just like moving HQ of Tesla from Delaware to Tx will make sure woke Delaware judges are no longer able to override decisions of their board.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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The stranded astronauts reading the tweet below...

Excited Season 7 GIF by The Office



 
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jooka

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Wonder who is feeding him information cause that's not being said anywhere else
 

Fucker

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Wonder who is feeding him information cause that's not being said anywhere else
It is all over the place. No shock though? It barely made it into orbit, and they've been twiddling their thumbs for two months trying to figure out what to do, because returning home via SpaceX means the end of the Starliner program.

What is going to end up happening is the ISS folks will fill it full of trash and kick it back to Earth. That they are even considering putting people in it tells me NASA has learned nothing about crew safety.
 

Palum

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It is all over the place. No shock though? It barely made it into orbit, and they've been twiddling their thumbs for two months trying to figure out what to do, because returning home via SpaceX means the end of the Starliner program.

What is going to end up happening is the ISS folks will fill it full of trash and kick it back to Earth. That they are even considering putting people in it tells me NASA has learned nothing about crew safety.

It's not going to end the program, they're already developing the Starliner Max!
 
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jooka

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It is all over the place. No shock though? It barely made it into orbit, and they've been twiddling their thumbs for two months trying to figure out what to do, because returning home via SpaceX means the end of the Starliner program.

What is going to end up happening is the ISS folks will fill it full of trash and kick it back to Earth. That they are even considering putting people in it tells me NASA has learned nothing about crew safety.


All over where?
 

Ukerric

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It is all over the place. No shock though? It barely made it into orbit, and they've been twiddling their thumbs for two months trying to figure out what to do, because returning home via SpaceX means the end of the Starliner program.
Boeing's last earning call made it clear that the Starliner program was no longer expected to ever be profitable for Boeing, and that ULA should "steer clear of fixed-cost programs".

Starliner is dead. There is a massive political will to keep a second supplier for human spaceflights, but even that fails when the NASA engineers tell their superiors and Congress "do you want dead astronauts on the front page? Because that's how you get dead astronauts on everyone's frontpage".


And let's be clear. If that happens, BOEING is dead. Nobody will dare purchase their planes. Air companies are already getting more and more people to specifically pick their flights based on the plane. They can handwave "there's so many planes flying, all those accidents are a tiny fraction". But the first and only Being "spaceplane" crashes/dies on the return from the ISS? They're dead.
 

Cybsled

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Unless they are released from their contract, they still technically have to deliver more Starliner launches...but the Us Gov doesn't owe them another dime. Anything they spend on delivering on that contract is under Boeing's own pocketbook.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Boeing's last earning call made it clear that the Starliner program was no longer expected to ever be profitable for Boeing, and that ULA should "steer clear of fixed-cost programs".

Starliner is dead. There is a massive political will to keep a second supplier for human spaceflights, but even that fails when the NASA engineers tell their superiors and Congress "do you want dead astronauts on the front page? Because that's how you get dead astronauts on everyone's frontpage".


And let's be clear. If that happens, BOEING is dead. Nobody will dare purchase their planes. Air companies are already getting more and more people to specifically pick their flights based on the plane. They can handwave "there's so many planes flying, all those accidents are a tiny fraction". But the first and only Being "spaceplane" crashes/dies on the return from the ISS? They're dead.
I'm headed to Vancouver later this month, I paid a little extra to avoid flying on a BA aircraft. I know I am not the only one.
 
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Kiroy

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That's a crazy reduction. Would be interested to read a breakdown on how it's possible to reduce the external complexity so much.

It doesn’t look possible. Probably one of the more amazing pictures i’ve ever seen.
 

Lambourne

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That's a crazy reduction. Would be interested to read a breakdown on how it's possible to reduce the external complexity so much.

There was some talk about how and why in this video, came out last month. Skip to around 41 mins if you only want to see that although the whole vid (and the followup) are definitely worth a watch if you're interested in this stuff.

 
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Tuco

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Cybsled

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They can just do what John Crichton did in Farscape - jump out the airlock and shoot your gun to propel back to the space station…then need sci-if medical tech to fix all the massive damage you body sustained lol
 
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Big Phoenix

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Lmao if this is true
And we live in a world where the Soviets designed a 100% autonomous shuttle copy that had a jet engine and could fly itself. Was so capable it was able to abort its initial landing then turn around and land a second time due to cross winds.

The competency crisis is something else.
 
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