SpaceX Starship

[Harpo]

And then again...

SpaceX loses contact with Starship

50 minutes, not bad. Considered a win by NASA.

 

[Elckerlyc]

I never expected the re-entry to succeed at the first attempt. It was a nice try and brought us some really nice images, though.

 

[Harpo]

 

[paeng]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1782775179233399295

 

[BAYLOR]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1782775179233399295

And he might get us to Mars.

 

[paeng]

Given what's currently happening, we have to hope that that happens:

Has the planet’s climate gone haywire?

As the heat index ranges from 42 degrees Celsius to 51 degrees Celsius this summer in the Philippines, the link between global warming (more aptly called climate change) and extreme temperatures has

opinion.inquirer.net

Stopping oil use, deforestation, or livestock production all at once won’t result in a sudden stabilization of the world’s climate because of climate forcing, among other factors. According to the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “If all human emissions of heat-trapping gases were to stop today, Earth’s temperature would continue to rise for a few decades as ocean currents bring excess heat stored in the deep ocean back to the surface. Once this excess heat radiated out to space, Earth’s temperature would stabilize.”

The most optimistic prediction for the climate to stabilize, if there is no further human influence, will happen after 40 years, according to one scientist at the University of Michigan.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The only thing being said is that space travel for a few is entirely possible. Going to Mars isn't going to fix anything. For a long time, the few living on or orbiting the Moon or Mars, it will be like living in an armored bubble. The space industry can supply band-aids to Earth for temporary patches. Someone else is going to have to figure out a way to sort everything out in a replenishable manner.

 

[paeng]

Various natural resources can be replenished, but it would take thousands or millions of years. And current ecological footprint is in excess of biocapacity:

List of countries by ecological footprint - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Oligonicella]

Beyond awe, I'm not sure how to describe what it looks and feels like to someone my age. I can remember talking with my grandmother about her family's migration to K.C., down from northern NE. She was ten(?) and rode in the back of the wagon, 1893-is(?). She then went on to become one of K.C.'s premier seamstress/furriers. Made the wedding gown for some Spanish princess, mid 50s. She died '77.

Point is, she lived and saw the changes from having to traveling cross country by buckboard to jet flight (which she did once). Not just the travel mode but the entire worldly changes around her that accompanied that.

I've gone from a kid who read hundreds of scifi and fantasy stories dreaming about the "space age" while air travel was still propeller standard, to watching as Musk pulls us kicking and screaming into becoming an interplanetary species. From no transistor technology to where we are now, with scifi computers in our pockets. NASA may have jimmied the latch on the door but SpaceX has kicked it wide open, taking us from exorbitant costing, single-use propulsion to sleek, stainless steel, self-landing systems that can sustain up to twenty relaunches. This in less than twenty-five years and against heavy resistance and ignorant mockery.

I'm in awe and have a slight pre-melancholia that people won't personally experience such a radical leap in their lifetimes. It will take something beyond anything we've got going at the moment to initiate that. I'm very glad I'm here to watch our first true steps and I understand my grandmother more.

It's a wonderful bewilderment.