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For example letting passengers unlock the "optional" safety features of their 737 Max the airline was too stingy to purchase

The sad part is people who haven't been following the 737 Max debacle closely (I hadn't until just last week) will assume this is just humorous hyperbole.

Between this "optional safety" thing and the fact that 737's AoA correction system relied on only two phyical AoA sensors--but then goes on to only use data from one sensor at a time, effectively making it single point of failure--and all of this comes 10 years after AoA issues lead to Air France flight 447 falling from the sky like a stone (despite there being nothing whatsoever wrong with it other than faulty airspeed sensor readings)--it's all damn near self-parodying. And the FAA knew about this stuff and shrugged and signed off.

It may be the most egregious thing I've seen since the day I first read Feynman's appendix to the Challenger commission report.

They have conducted lots of such tests with e-coli: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p...

It takes about five seconds to find contradictory studies, such as "NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses," which says "According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008." https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

You can draw your own conclusions.

A warmer world might mean more rains.
But not necessarily at the spots you want it, see: https://www.bbc.com/news/world... or https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...

Assuming that the upcoming climate change has anything *good* in it, is just idiotic.

Okay NASA than. Dont call them Climate Change Deniers

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g...

Even NASA has no real choice but to admit that.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g...

Of course we are all doomed regardless.

Yes, lots of politics (domestic and international) behind this test.

One correction to the GP: NASA doesn't track the objects in orbit. CSpOC takes care of the tracking and distribution of data. NASA does statistical sampling and modeling of the environment, as well as impact testing and evaluation of shielding designs. Also, NASA scientists typically use metric (though the hardware people often still use inch-pound-second).

Yes, lots of politics (domestic and international) behind this test.

One correction to the GP: NASA doesn't track the objects in orbit. CSpOC takes care of the tracking and distribution of data. NASA does statistical sampling and modeling of the environment, as well as impact testing and evaluation of shielding designs. Also, NASA scientists typically use metric (though the hardware people often still use inch-pound-second).

There is high correlation between stations up to 1000 km apart:

https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs...

What you call "precious little data" is actually quite abundant for a climate scientist.

Here's a longer article on the NASA-funded work being done by MIT. Short answer: Making a BioSuit is a Very Hard Task with a lot of engineering issues.

The EU introduced RoHS that limited things like the use of leaded solder in consumer products. People would have moaned about "virtue signalling" but the term hadn't been invented back then.

What actually happened is that the rest of the world basically adopted RoHS since it made more sense to build one product for every market than to make a special one for the EU.

And yet, for critical systems, Tin lead or silver tin lead are still in use. The solders that don't contain lead have an issue with something called Tin Whiskers. And it affected a lot of electronics. Here's a listing of the EU's improvements with their new solder formulations https://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/....

The lives of people everywhere were improved because the electronics they were buying had less lead and other hazardous substances in them, even though it was an EU rule.

Do you have the citations of solder creating health problems? It's a cool story bro, but responsible recycling is the answer, not creating more problems.

Your welcome.

I'll say thank you when the EU pays for all the damage they instigated. Now it isn't likely you are familiar with all of the problems caused by the switch away from leaded solder, including problems caused when someone tried to use lead free to repair solder joints on tin lead boards. But your example isn't really a good one.

And now on my workbench, I have to keep several different compositions of solder, including 50/50 and the standby 63/37 tin/lead mixtures and hope I choose the right ones for whatever equipment I'm working onbecause you don't want mix. All the different metals mix together, and can create different melting points, brittle and other bad joints. In an interesting twist, the materials used as a substitute like antimony is considered an impurity - and it is toxic as well - symptoms similar to arsenic poisoning. I really do think it's a case of TANSTAAFL.

Regardless, there is nothing wrong with being a spearhead of change. But change done to make you feel good is just like I said - virtue signaling, not fixing a problem.

Recycling is the answer, not making something illegal. Tin/lead solder is till in use for mission critical electronics, and the EU banning plastic will not stop the people who are causing the problem. Good luck with that.

The stress of spacewalks in likely also a major consideration. Spacesuits are not easy to work in and are very uncomfortable. Astronauts do spacewalks because they're astronauts, not because spacewalks are easy or comfortable. There's also a hard limit on a suit's endurance, there's a limited amount of air, temperature control, and power available. For reference here's a list of all the ISS spacewalks, the longest was almost nine hours with the majority between six and eight hours. You'll notice that 214 spacewalks are listed over twenty one years. Spacewalks are not trivial for ISS crews to perform.

If they had ready access to telepresence robots they could perform a remote "spacewalk" whenever they had the slightest justification for doing so. If SpaceBot gets smacked with some orbital debris or bombarded with charged particles they don't need to write a sad letter to SpaceBot's family or watch them die from super cancer.

The ISS crew could also take turns controlling SpaceBot so the operator is always alert and rested. If they run into a blocking issue they can hit pause on SpaceBot for an indefinite period as there's no astronaut burning through O2 at the end of the MSS.

That's not strictly true. It's correct if you want to get there (the sun or leave the solar system) in one shot. But if you're willing to do multiple passes (slingshot maneuvers) around planets, you can get there for a lot less energy. (Non-wiki link because the Wikipedia article doesn't really explain it.)

It's easier to do this with the inner planets because (1) they're closer together so you don't have to wait as long for multiple flybys, and (2) they orbit more quickly so you don't have to wait as long for the proper orbital configuration. Cassini was launched this way, doing multiple passes around Venus, then another by Earth to pick up more velocity on its way to Saturn. So overall I suspect it's actually easier to send something into the sun (after passing inner planets multiple times) than it is to shoot it out of the solar system.

Then believe it: Astronauts on the moon in 2024.

You are probably thinking about Professor Dava Newman's BioSuit: https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/61704...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

For some evidence of global warming. It's been decades now, and everything they've shown us as evidence has turned out not to be the case.

The increasing global mean surface temperature.

The rising sea level

I think it's equally important to recognize that both NASA and the astronauts are putting the mission first.

But how does the poor maligned suit feel about that? It's just not good enough without help and is now embarrassed about it. Mission smission, it's only LOOKING GOOD that counts!

"equally important" -- no, it's MORE important. Who does it is unimportant, that it gets done safely and properly is of prime importance. And that includes the tools and support staff. There's always a slight risk no matter what, but you minimize those to the best of your ability.

(Challenger, anyone?) Wiki, NASA, UPI

NASA article The speed is relative to the Fermi Satellite. The distance was measured between the center of the supernova cloud and its current position at 53 light-years. The supernova responsible for CTB 1 occurred about 10,000 years ago. 53 light years / ~10000 years ~= 5 720 040.1 kilometers per hour.

The surprise here, is that this hasn't happened sooner. Or it possibly has, just no one noticed, or it didn't make it to the public.

It did happened in different times and have been saved in federal database. Though, the database is not indexed by any search engine, so almost all people have no idea about it. Besides, the search is not an easy-to-use interface, so go figure.

First, I had to double-check my calender that it isn't April 1st. Then I double-checked NASA's website to make sure Apollo 18 never happened. I also RTFA, just to make sure it says "Apollo 18", and it sure does. Not sure just who to attribute this FAIL to; NYDN or Slashdot.

NASA better be careful, that bag is probably full of moon spiders.

Just a few, teeny tiny problems:

1. So you need to be close to the black hole. Except for the very largest black holes, the tidal forces will rip you apart. See the answer to problem 3 in this exercise: solar mass black hole, distance roughly 30 times the radius, tidal forces on a human-sized object of 50,000g. Good luck with that.

2. Aside from that, they are relying on a "slingshot" effect for the laser beam. But the photons are already travelling at light speed, so they cannot speed up. They energy increase will go into frequency: you'll be transforming light into hard gamma radiation. Enough energy to accelerate you to relativistic speeds is more likely to simply vaporize your ship.

3. If you survive the tidal forces and the radiation and actually get to relativistic speeds, you're going to need to target another black hole to slow down, by reversing the whole process.

4. Meanwhile, you still have to travel interstellar distances by some other means, to get to and from the black holes.

This isn't science. It isn't even science fiction. Heck, I expect more realism in bad space opera.

I didn’t read the article, but since the energy described would result in very short wavelength photons, wouldn’t the just pass straight through any solar sail? https://science.nasa.gov/ems/1...

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/...

I saw some comments on the Physics Today article about this being pedantic, but astronomy is and always has been about pedantry.

It's not pedantic enough to me. Why circular orbits and 2D? 20 minutes with SPICE someone could write up and measure the actual distances. It would take less than 24 hours to run a few years worth of averaging. I don't see why they cheated.

But what if you draw a bigger circle?

Bigger than the visible universe?

Well ok, I guess since the universe is larger than just the portion we can see, that would be possible.

Here is another source. The bottom panel is highly zoom-able.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/j...

NASA has always been a marketing agency that does some space and military related work.

And an earlier comment is correct - skip linking to junk news outlets like CNN and use the original source

Don't link to fucking CNN you utter twat. Link to the original source.

Two stages from Apollo 18 are at Johnson, but the second stage from Apollo 18 is in Florida. See this detailed explanation.

In contrast the 60s capsules were allowed to sink to the bottom of the ocean if not needed for inspection.

Huh? Now that I'd like to see a citation for unless you consider every capsule needed for inspection.
There was one or two that accidentally sank or allowed to burn up IIRC but most are still around including the Gemini (2) that was reused (unmanned).
Can't find a citation right now but I believe Gemini was intended to be reusable. It was actually the most advanced of the spacecraft due to being designed latest and originally was meant to land on land using a para-glider.
Lists of locations of the spacecraft,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pl...

A Nova Scotia court threw the company a lifeline this week, granting it a 45-day extension that prevents creditors from filing lawsuits against it until mid-April.

This prose is pure, unadulterated, snotty-nosed imbecility.

Imagine the botched Apollo 13 stir had happened instead on Apollo 8.

Apollo 8

A Lunar Module was not used on the Apollo 8 mission but a Lunar Module Test Article which was equivalent in mass (9027 kg) to a Lunar Module was mounted in the spacecraft/launch vehicle adapter as ballast for mass loading purposes.

And then mission control radios up: "hey, we found a way to add another 24 hours to your failed main oxygen supply." But, sorry, they didn't find a way for the astronauts to live inside the Lunar Module Test Article, leaving them up the lifeline without a paddle.

That hoary "lifeline" cliche is less serviceable here than a boomerang on Loonie Tunes.

Second snowiest Feb ever ( well, since 1893) and about third or fourth coldest in Spokane.

Snow is more an indicator of high moisture than extreme cold. Also, it's called 'global' warming, not 'Spokane' warming.

Here, check the worldwide map for January: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...

(next month you can go back and check world map for Feb)

In the Eastern part of the US, there is an area called the "Snow Belt" It is warmer than areas north of it, yet gets more snow. How can this be???

As you note, it's moisture. While a fair bit warmer than it's northern neighbors, the temps hover around freezing, which makes for more moisture, and more likely snow storms. The resulting snow doesn't stay on the ground as long, but there is more of it.

If the denialists watched other than Fox News, they would hear more about the anomalously warm places. I did a search on the record breaking heat wave Australia has been having, lots of dead wildlife, fruit bats cooking in trees and dropping off dead, days of 120 degree plus weather.

Lots of coverage by apparently everyone. Four pages in - not one citation or article from Fox News.

But hey - it snowed in Spokane! Time to rewrote the laws of physics.

Fox News loyalists are being kept from the news. Or perhaps are teh lone stalwart of the truth, standing bravely against the entire world. If a place is getting unusual 120 degree plus temps, yet isn't reported, indeed the opposite is being pushed, there is a definite agenda.

Second snowiest Feb ever ( well, since 1893) and about third or fourth coldest in Spokane.

Snow is more an indicator of high moisture than extreme cold. Also, it's called 'global' warming, not 'Spokane' warming.

Here, check the worldwide map for January:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...

(next month you can go back and check world map for Feb)

One last time, see rule # 1.

https://www.pea.com/blog/posts...

Or from the AOPA https://www.aopa.org/news-and-...

OR gives practical examples of what happens when you don't http://iflyamerica.org/safety_...

Even NASA agrees with me, and I'm no rocket scientist. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/...

Pay close attention to the conclusions in the PDF where it clearly indicates that ATC conversations are a hindrance to task management, not a help, and clearly justifies my reluctance to engage them in conversation when struggling to come to terms with how to keep my aircraft safe.

Again, I'm no great pilot, never claimed to be one, in fact I'm a pretty poor one having very little experience. The guys in that Boeing went from about 7,000 Feet to the ground in less than two min. They had their hands full of airplane. The publicly available flight data shows a rapid descent with a pretty healthy heading change to the right. They didn't have TIME to communicate and if you where in the cockpit you'd not either. This wasn't some gentle lazy maneuver as they lost control this was a sudden change into unusual attitude which I'm sure they where struggling to correct, while trying diagnose the reasons it was happening. 120 to 180 seconds is all they apparently had, and it wasn't enough. And you think they should have had time to get out a mayday call or two? Then there is my original point, that they MAY have tried, but on a congested approach frequency in an unusual attitude it may be nobody heard them. So there are many reasons other than a major structural or even electrical failure to account for the lack of a mayday call.

But at this point, we are both guessing. So Call me back when the NTSB publishes their final report and you where right... Until then, I'm done debating basic pilot training with you.

Are you that ignorant?

The Moon will be very costly to maintain humans on. The "plentiful" water on the Moon is in very relative terms. It's likely to take days of work for a glass full enough to drink. And the extremely abrasive regolith and pitch-black-only shadows plus zero protection for radiation is all going to add risks and work.

[citation needed]. Your claims are at odds with this NASA study which suggests that "thermal extraction of the in-situ water [in lunar regolith] is an attractive means of satisfying water requirements for a lunar mission".

On Mars, north and south of the equator hold hundreds of large, fresh water glaciers more than 2 km deep.

If by "fresh water" you mean "the exact opposite of fresh water" -- it is my understanding that Martian water is more like a brine. Where are you seeing reports of large deposits of "fresh water" on Mars?

And the atmosphere and gravity make it easy to launch this stuff into orbit on single-stage rockets.

Mars' atmosphere is thicker than the moon's, and Mars' gravity is stronger than the moon's. You're wrong on both counts here, if you're still comparing Mars with the moon.

There's also the fact that a fuel depot at Earth-Moon L1 would be a lot more useful than one near Mars, since most missions start here.

Scientists predict temperatures to rise X % a year based on current models Scientists predict sea levels to rise > 1 meter in Z years based on current models

The scientists' models extrapolate out a number of years...

I'll just extrapolate out the rate of reduction from 1 meter sea level rise to 15 cm and go on a few more years to predict that the sea level rise will be 1.5cm (90% lower) than predicted....and then another few years predict it will be 0.15 cm) .....

Let's try this thing called "Google": It seems sea level has already risen by 9 cm in the past 26 years.

lol, ooo back at the city thing again I see. Let's clear things up a bit since you had an aneurysm with a gotcha because I typed: "to get a craft in Venus' atmosphere (call it a city, a probe, a station, w/e) ". IOW, I don't care what you call it and the difference between the three are size and function. When does a probe become a station? When does a station become a colony? When does a colony become a city? I don't know and don't care.

A probe = possible now.
A manned craft = possible but would need some work.
A colony/city/ whatever = conceptually probable.

Ok? Ok. So yes, it is a fact that putting a probe in Venus (she's a whore) is doable today (assuming time of month).

I want YOU

I'm flattered. I took a balloon ride with legos and a blow up doll of Antonio Banderas. Clearly I am taken. Clearly taken with a floating city. Check and mate.

Whether global warming is true or not ...

Whether gravity is true or not, global warming's been measured.

Yep, warming.

It did work, just not efficiently. If you mean his specific setup then no it wouldn't have ever worked, but if you mean ionic thrusters or wireless beamed power in general then yes they can work. The former is used by satellites ( https://www.nasa.gov/centers/g... ) and the latter has been studied for use with drones using lasers ( https://www.nasa.gov/centers/a... ) or microwaves ( https://science.nasa.gov/scien... ).

It did work, just not efficiently. If you mean his specific setup then no it wouldn't have ever worked, but if you mean ionic thrusters or wireless beamed power in general then yes they can work. The former is used by satellites ( https://www.nasa.gov/centers/g... ) and the latter has been studied for use with drones using lasers ( https://www.nasa.gov/centers/a... ) or microwaves ( https://science.nasa.gov/scien... ).

It did work, just not efficiently. If you mean his specific setup then no it wouldn't have ever worked, but if you mean ionic thrusters or wireless beamed power in general then yes they can work. The former is used by satellites ( https://www.nasa.gov/centers/g... ) and the latter has been studied for use with drones using lasers ( https://www.nasa.gov/centers/a... ) or microwaves ( https://science.nasa.gov/scien... ).

Their natural summer habitate does not exist anymore, so they migrate.

It doesn't?

Here's an image that compares sea ice average prior between 1979 and 2000 to sea ice in 2007: https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov... . It's been worse since 2007. Polar bears rely on sea ice to efficiently catch their seal prey. The polar bear's main prey, the ringed seal, relies on sea ice, too—for giving birth to and raising their pups.

...weather isn't the same as climate. At least that's what all the AGW zealots say when we have a cold snap.

Correct: weather is not the same thing as climate. A single cold winter in a single place is not evidence against global climate change, nor, on the other hand, is a single warm winter in a single place evidence for global climate change.

That's why this is relevant: this is not a single location, it is a global average, and it is not a single day or even a single month, it is a average over a year.

And it is one data point in a trend: https://www.giss.nasa.gov/rese...

That is what we mean by climate.

But you knew that.

NASA was out of commission and no one even noticed. Remind me again why are we to be throwing twenty billion dollars of STOLEN tax money at these people with there shit record of failure after failure? I say DEFUND NASA and give the money to companies like boeng that ALWAYS do much better jobs without the liberal agenda.

Treat it at a source, instead of trying to contain the symptoms.

https://earthobservatory.nasa....

Put some political pressure on Cambodia, as well as at its own citizens and other nations around, to stop fucking doing this every year, instead of trying to simulate rainy season.. to appear as they are actually doing something.

At the time of writing this, the pm2.5 particles are at 180 Link .. so obviously this little PR stunt ain't cutting it.

A lot. Here's some educational material for you, if you wanna know my citations:

2015-2017 are the hottest years on record on Earth. Citation: https://public.wmo.int/en/medi... and multiple countries and weather stations confirmed this

2018 is looking to be #4, but not 100% confirmed yet; but last April was the third warmest on record: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/...

The higher temperatures are affecting all crops, but their effects are most pronounced under Middle East and African Desert countries currently, but their effects should be closely examined to find ways to stop them in general. Citation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

That would work great, if we had any way to see such objects. Before we went to visit up close and personal, this is one of the best photos we had of Pluto, a planet ~2400 km across. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/space...

A still-huge rock 1 km across would be about 6 million times smaller and dimmer (assuming the same surface albedo). It'd barely show up as a single very slightly less black pixel. More typical sized rocks in the 10-100m diameter? That's another 100x to 10,000x smaller and dimmer still. We wouldn't have a clue they were there.

Also, there's no "steady stream of objects" implied, not from a human perspective anyway - at Pluto's orbital distance things are moving less than 1.5 degrees per year. And with a mass 10x Earth, spread out around an orbit that could hold a "necklace" of 3 million Earths, there's not necessarily going to be much in any give spot. Especially when you consider that the thickness of the Kuiper belt (perpendicular to the planetary plane) is larger than the diameter of Earth's orbit.

Or have we forgotten that Obama shut down the space program altogether?

https://www.nasa.gov/

Seems to be working for me?

You're an equal opportunity ridiculer: the occasional "but it happened in such and such a novel" gets the same response as someone who's gone ahead and worked out the math.

Taking you seriously for a moment, the problem with your rhetorical style is that it simply appeals to people's preconceived notions without contributing anything. Aliens, nonsense! Space factories, nonsense! Interstellar probes, nonsense! Quantum computers, nonsense!

Also, your appeal to all the "hard work" the "REAL people" at NASA put in is pretty ironic. Those real people at NASA (and elsewhere) have studied all of the above, and in many cases published real, workable concepts, or, well, have done it already.

Some examples:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p...
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/...
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p...
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/...
https://www.nas.nasa.gov/proje...