Saturday is the landing anniversary, but today is the anniversary of the launch.
Loren Grush has an article today on how Apollo set NASA back for decades, a subject I’ve written quite a bit about.
Russia’s Federation Spacecraft
Moscow, we have a problem.
One of the issues that the Orbital Space Plane (and now Commercial Crew) had to deal with was avoiding an abort into the North Atlantic.
The Dragon Investigation
This is good news. Hans Koenigsmann just did a press conference with Kathy Lueders in which they announced the root cause of the explosion. Apparently it was a failed check valve prior to the test as they were pressurizing, that resulted in some NTO setting fire to titanium piping, causing an overpressure which then cascaded to mixing of the hypergolics. At least that’s my preliminary understanding. They’re going to go from check valves to burst disks, and the fix doesn’t seem to be on the critical path to getting to a November flight.
[Update a couple minutes later]
[Update a few minutes later]
Here is the full SpaceX statement. And “hyperbolic” typo fixed in initial post.
Austin’s Mayor
…travels to the west coast to learn how to fail bigger.
These Democrat officials are demented.
Bastille Day
Yes, it is nothing to celebrate. Might as well celebrate the October Revolution, or the ascent of Hitler.
The Norman Conquest
Anglo-Saxons (and other indigenous British peoples) deserve reparations.
Heh.
Bicyclists
How do we get them to obey traffic laws?
I almost hit a guy in my neighborhood this week driving Patricia to the bus stop. I was in a four-way stop intersection, about to pull out, when I catch him coming from the left out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t even slow down for the stop sign, let alone stop. It would have been Darwinian if I’d hit him, but I’d still feel terrible.
Nutrition
Why everything you know about it is wrong.
Not news to readers of this site.
The Last Beetle
I disagree that the one that rolled off the line was the last one. I was a VW mechanic as my first job out of high school. As far as I’m concerned, VW hasn’t built a Beetle since 1978. If it doesn’t have a flat-four air-cooled engine with a number 3 cylinder that eats valves and rings due to having its airflow cut off by the oil cooler, it’s not a Beetle, regardless of a vague resemblance of body type.
Anthropogenic Climate Change
Two new studies indicate that, for practical purposes, it doesn’t exist.