pigeonberry

joined 2 years ago
[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

An easier way to reach the app in Android is the Google Play store. It's named Austin 311 from City of Austin. Some negative reviews, though, like (20 Jan 2023) "You can't report when your trash doesn't get picked up - easily 99% of the reason I ever call 311" and (9 June 2022) "App sucks. The categories are very limited and hard to locate. I should be able to search on a keyword and your app suggests appropriate categories. Where do i report a malfunctioning pedestrian cross signal, for example. Very disappointing!"

I just checked out the Web page. That has a search capability (I don't see one in the app), both built in via a Search text box, and the browser's own facility (except there are not many items per page). I think I prefer it, even on my phone.

But the Android app at least has a map of recent reports, which is a nice feature; I don't see it in the web page. It also has one central place to enter the reporter's info; it looks like the Web page has it on each request.

 

It's an interview with Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center, which publishes the Drought Monitor map. He talks about the center itself, He talks about how they determine drought, considering lots of different factors and their impacts. There's a distinction between short-term and long-term drought. He compares the current situation with 2011, which was actually the peak of a long drought that lasted until 2015 or so.

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Austin was another name for Augustine (as in missionary to the English), so San Austin works theologically.

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

As an analogy, I go to r/spacex, see important things that are being mentioned, and post it in !spacex@sh.itjust.works with a link to the original tweets or articles or whatever. Wikipedia may say

the name "Reddit" is a play-on-words with the phrase "read it", i.e., "I read it on Reddit."

but for a good number of posts, you could describe them as "I read it somewhere and decided to post it here".

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

I think this was what was mentioned in the "New comment from /u/santacfan on Reddit:" thread just a bit ago, around "7:00pm".

Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase tweeted at 7:54 PM - Jul 15, 2023:

Pretty massive liquid nitrogen or liquid oxygen dump going on. Tough to tell which it is.

I can't remember ever seeing this occur before outside of a testing event.

Initially thought this was some sort of clean out process but the volume appears to be a bit excessive for that.

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

A tweet from Jack Beyer @thejackbeyer with a close-in picture (from the state park?) of the Orbital launch mount.

4:13 PM - Jul 14, 2023 'Just got shooed out of the dunes by a drone with a speaker on it because im “in the blast danger area for today’s test”. That’s a first. [emojus] @NASASpaceflight'

Edit: video here, visible to me even in incognito mode.

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

An unusual test object (?) has caused some discussion, it seems, like in https://lemmy.world/comment/1154582 from @LettuceTurnipTheBeet@lemm.ee

The Ringwatchers @Ringwatchers had a long thread today analyzing the situation. threadreaderapp unroll here.. Their TL;DR: "Ship 24.2 will be a 7-ring tall article composed of 3 main sections: a top ring with a dome and 24 external attachment points, a Ship Payload Bay that features a PEZ dispenser rack, and a bottom ring with a hatch in the side.", designed nicely to fit into the nosecone cage / can crusher, and the nosecone cage structure has been modified to fit it.

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

And this couldn't have been predicted because ...?

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Controlled burns, which are another alternative to controlling invasive plants in the area, often lead to reduced air quality and can compact the soil, Anderson said

That's kind of slanderous against controlled burns. There is reduced air quality while it's burning, but the benefits can last years where the time of burning can last hours. I have not heard of compacting the soil as a drawback: a bit of Googling suggests that that's a drawback of cutting with machinery instead. Furthermore, there are ecosystems that are adapted to having burns from time to time, so they can be useful if done right.

However, the article mentions poison ivy. Goats can not only eat it, they actively like it, and their bodies destroy the urushiol (the irritant) so their milk is safe. Furthermore, for a burn of poison ivy: some people did that upwind of my sister and a lot of other people on a military base, and the results were Not Good.

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The Booster Bidet got its first test. Looks like a lot of pressurized gas spewed out for about 40 seconds. The video can be seen on Twitter even without being logged in (currently) here. The video is from LabPadre, shown in a tweet by Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase 7:40 PM - Jul 12, 2023:

Much better angle of the purge test. This is a pretty intense amount of force that will be pushing out the water through steel blast surface!

Audio has been synced with @LabPadre Rover 2.0 camera.

Later,

This was no accident. Its a purging of the high pressure gas system

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Huh, the tweet seems to be visible even without a login? If not, the underlying image is https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0zTpR6XwAAnVvl?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

The tweet says

Chris Bergin - NSF @NASASpaceflight 9:09 PM - Jul 11, 2023

Say hello to S24.2 at Starbase. You're interesting!

Photo by Jack Beyer (@thejackbeyer) for NSF.

I think the naming convention of Snumber.number or Bnumber.number is for a test tank or other test subassembly.

One suggestion is that it's a test of the lunar Human Landing System. S normally means it's on Starship, and maybe the reinforced holes at the top of the tank are the landing thrusters, or the openings for the thrusters.

There's also the suggestion that it's a hot staging ring, but it was objected elsewhere that that would be on top of a booster, not in a Starship.

Another suggestion is that it's a "Frankenbarrel", combining two tests.

 

SLC-6 is a launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Summary: because "SLC-6's main trench was designed to handle >30,000 kN of thrust", the thrust of a Space Shuttle. "Falcon Heavy makes ~22,800 kN of thrust".

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Tweets from Elon Musk @elonmusk.

7:51 PM - Jul 9, 2023: "3 more engines for the meaning of life." Meaning 42 Raptor engines total for Super Heavy and Starship together. It's with an upskirt photo of a Starship, though with 6 engines. I can't quickly find an authoritative statement of the configuration, but since 2021, it seems that people have been stating 3 sea-level gimballing engines in the center, and 6 Rvacs (vacuum Raptors) inside the circumference (so one added between each existing pair of RVacs for a hex array). Everyday Astronaut tweeted a reply at 8:57 PM - Jul 9, 2023, "So 33 on booster, 9 on ship. Which will be the first 6 X Vac ship?", so he seems to be thinking 6 RVacs.

The Ringwatchers @Ringwatchers have a 10-tweet thread (via threadreaderapp) analyzing it. They see a Hydraulic Power Unit: they say that, since S26 on and B9 on have the electric Thrust Vector Control system, this has to be a picture of S25. The engine shielding has been removed -- for inspections? for redesign? The COPVs have been removed too. There are other details, like the interior camera, the static firing stiffeners on the RVac (vacuum Raptor) engine bells to prevent damage from sea-level flow separation, et cetera.

Two Elon tweets in sequence:

  • 12:35 AM - Jul 10, 2023 "Looks like we can increase Raptor thrust by ~20% to reach 9000 tons (20 million lbs) of force at sea level"
  • 12:43 AM - Jul 10, 2023 "And deliver over 200 tons of payload to a useful orbit with full & rapid reusability. 50 rockets flying every 3 days on average enables over a megaton of payload to orbit per year – enough to build a self-sustaining city on Mars."

Edit for the record: Zack Golden @CSI_Starbase tweet on Jul 9 this picture. It showed Starship's config as mentioned above. But the 3 center gimballing sea-level engines are lined up with 3 of the 6 RVacs on the rim, which I think would slightly reduce their range of motion.

Musk replied 10:29 PM - Jul 9, 2023

Inner engine gimbal angle is limited in some directions, due to impacting outer engine nozzle, but probably ok

[–] pigeonberry@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

"SpaceX launched the most powerful rocket ever built. Its impact is still felt in this Texas community", a CNN article dated Friday, 7 July 2023.

Musk has repeatedly said he’d like to try to launch Starship again as soon as this summer, but the FAA said in a statement to CNN that SpaceX has yet to take public safety actions or submit a mishap report with corrective actions for FAA review and approval.

 

I saw the fireworks at the Q2 stadium tonight, but from a building nearby.

I thought they were kind of meh. 11 minutes and the grand finale was not grand.

Were people inside the stadium able to see them? From a distant angle, it looked like they were being launched off the top of the roof on the southern seating area.

 

I hope spaceflight posts are welcome for now.

On 2 July 2013, a Russian Proton rocket had a spectacular crash on takeoff (original video was here with the original watermark but in 2x slow-motion). Anyway.

There's a story that a technician deliberately hammered in a set of sensors upside down, despite a system that should have prevented installation the wrong way. John Palmé @JohnPalme tweeted to set the record straight.


Not true - I ran the US Failure investigation.

The Yaw rate sensors were a blind install with off center pin holes that were supposed to make sure that the unit was installed in correct orientation. Unfortunately the pins on the mounting bracket were only press fit...

...so when the new tech installed them blind by reaching through an access hole, he slid them onto the studs, and then torqued the nuts down on the studs. The act of torquing the studs drove the press fit pins back in the bracket...

...and allowed the unit to sit flush on the bracket. The debris of the units showed the mark on the baseplate that the alignment stud made as it was driven back into the bracket. Root cause....

They were building so many Protons, they used a secondary horizontal stand at the factory for building the stage. The primary stand only allowed 1 orientation of +Y up so the install documentation did not ask for orientation verification. The secondary stand allowed...

either +Y or -Y up, and this LV was in -Y up. The tech installed the unit per the documentation, but the stage was inverted. The quality person looked through an access hatch after install and verified the orientation arrow on the unit was pointing up per the documentation.

The tech was new so did not realize the force that was needed for the nuts was atypical, and the quality documentation did not ask for verification that alignment studs were in the holes.

 

(I selected Language English when posting this, but there's "Warning: If you deselect Undetermined, you will not see most content." above that. Did I do a bad thing?)

My last jury duty was many years ago, and I don't even remember what jurisdiction it was.

I got a jury duty notice from Travis County. Is this a "one day or one trial" system? Anything to note, like take the bus early rather than try to use a parking garage?

 

NASA official Jim Free testifying to Congress about Artemis.

But it was his assignation of blame for the delay that raised some eyebrows. Free pinned the schedule slip on SpaceX, ... Oddly, Free also questioned the value of the contract mechanism that NASA used to hire SpaceX and its Starship lander. "The fact is, if they’re not flying on the time they’ve said, it does us no good to have a firm, fixed-price contract other than we’re not paying more," he said.

Eric worries that this is the resurgence of old thinking in NASA. I love the first half of this quote from unnamed source:

"I can't give him a pass on the fixed-price comment," one of these officials said of Free. "On cost-plus contracts, the hardware is always late, and you pay more. On fixed-price contracts, it's only late. So yeah, his comment was technically accurate but totally tone-deaf. What really makes me worried is that I think it shows where the heart of the agency is."

 

It's for Austin, so it had to be posted. The meta must flow.

Also, I wanted a little test and a little traffic.

Ooo, cool, here we can edit the title.

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