Slashdot Mirror


User: c6gunner

c6gunner's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
8,911
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 8,911

  1. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    We're not talking about the English language - we're talking about engineering design.

    No, at this point you are definitely arguing about English. I'm well aware of how aircraft are designed, and how they function. I've acknowledged from the very beginning that failsafes and emergency equipment are part of the design. You just don't seem to understand the words we are using.

    When is an airplane not operating as designed? When a whole lot of people die in a crash caused by equipment failure.

    So are you saying that your only metric is how many people die? If two identical planes suffer the same engine-loss event but one aircraft is at the right altitude to make it survivable while the other one is not ... in your world, one of those aircraft functioned perfectly to design, while the other did not?

    Do you not see the absurdity of that position?

    If you want to try again, go ahead ... but I suspect you're going to have a lot of trouble drawing any real distinction.

  2. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure why you think that being an engineer makes you an expert on the English language, but maybe we can take a different approach to clear this up: give me an example of when an aircraft is NOT operating as designed.

  3. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    But once the vertical speed decreased, that effect went away, making it easier to stop the spin. Then you can see the flame of the center engine gimbal around.

    Yeah I noticed that too. Obviously as velocity decreased the amount of force needed to counteract the spin lessened, but there was still plenty of roll left right up until the legs deployed. I did notice the engine gimballing around like crazy too but, AFAIK, there's no way to control roll with just a single centrally mounted engine. You can control pitch and yaw but not roll.

  4. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    You're arguing that as long as some parts of a system are working, the whole thing is working as designed. That's idiotic. Sure, your brakes failed, your ebrake failed, your gearbox fell out, your airbags failed to deploy, and your seatbelt fell apart ..... but hey, the radio still works! System is working as designed!

  5. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    In this context, individual components may have failed, but the system as a whole is working as designed. It's not even semantics, it's being able to step back and look at the system as a whole rather than focusing on individual components.

    And this seems to be the issue right here. That's just wrong. An aircraft with a broken engine is considered unservicable and unfit for flight. Nobody in their right mind would dream of sending it up. You're confusing the fact that the system can compensate for some failed components with the idea that it's operating as designed. It is not. As soon as a single component fails, the system is operating in a degraded state. If it were "operating as designed" there would be no need to fix anything.

    You can certainly say that the redundant parts of the system are operating as designed, but the system as a whole is not. "Operating as designed" implies that the system is functioning 100% within specifications, not that it's kinda sorta limping along in a way that the designers planned as a fallback mode.

  6. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    We're really getting down to semantics here because the system as in "the set of all contingencies and modes of operation" can be working as designed because the failure modes are part of that plan.

    How is that relevant? Your TV has a designed failure mode too; when its stops working you take it a shop and they swap whatever component failed. Does that mean a TV which isn't displaying a picture is "working as designed"?

    Or take a car. If your brakes go out, you have an emergency brake. If the emergency brake fails you can downshift. If you don't have enough space to stop with downshifting, the vehicle is designed to crumple on impact. It also has seatbelts and airbags to protect you from more injury. But while you're trying to climb out of the mangled wreck which used to be your car, I very much doubt you would say that it was "working as designed". Nor would you be congratulating the manufacturer on planning for all of these contingencies. On the contrary, I suspect you'd be looking forward to suing either the manufacturer or whatever clown last worked on your brake system.

  7. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    An engine on a plane catching fire (on very rare occasions or in exceptional circumstances) and not hurting anyone is definitely working as designed. Ask a pilot.

    I have one sitting right beside me. Showed him your comment. He laughed.

  8. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 2

    No, it's not. I've worked on aircraft, and I've experienced emergencies both on the ground and in the air. By no stretch of the imagination is an airplane with a burning engine "working as designed". The safety systems may work as designed to put out the fire, and the redundant systems may be working as designed to prevent catastrophic failure, but the plane as a whole is certainly not working as designed. Even a fucking child looking at it would be able to say "nope, that's not supposed to happen", so I'm flabbergasted why an adult would fail to understand this.

    Even an airplane with a busted microwave oven isn't working as designed, and pilots get really pissy when they can't nuke their coffee. An engine is a weeee bit more important than that.

  9. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 2

    The mars rover which used a parachute weighed 18,000 lbs and the parachute had a 21 meter diameter. Even with those numbers the parachute alone was not enough; it only slowed the descent while the final landing was done with rockets.

    The second stage of the proposed BFR will have a maximum weight of just under 3,000,000 lbs. Wanna do the math on how big your parachute needs to be?

  10. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    They already know what failed, just not sure why yet. And they're already talking about adding a second pump and associated plumbing to avoid the same problem on future missions.

  11. Re: Any landing you can walk away from... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    b) Even if a human were onboard the landing was survivable/soft

    Maybe. The rocket is 200 feet tall. Assuming passengers are at the top, when it topples that's a 200 foot fall. If you have good restraints it might be survivable, but they probably won't be walking away from it, and fatalities would not be unexpected. I certainly wouldn't want to try it!

  12. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 2

    Clearly something clever implemented here to stabilize in the event of the failure of a gridfin

    From watching the footage, it looked like at least one of the fins was still functional enough to counteract the spin somewhat, and the thrusters were firing quite a bit as well. Those both seemed to slow the spin but not stop it. The main engine was gimballing like crazy too but I'm not sure that that would have had much effect.

    What finally stopped the spin almost completely seemed to be the extension of the landing legs. Which makes sense - same principle as a figure skater stretching out or tucking in his arms to increase or decrease rotational speed. Not sure that part of it was "clever" ... it was probably completely unintended ... but it was pretty damn cool.

    Either way I'm amazed. I watched both the onboard video and footage from land ... this is the most exhilarating thing I've seen since the Falcon Heavy double landing.

  13. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Heh. Failing gracefully is "working as designed". I like it. When Windows throws a Blue Screen of Death, it's working exactly as designed!

    Ok, bad example ... but imagine trying to get a pilot to take a plane with that argument.

    "I tried to start #2 engine and it caught fire!"

    "That's OK, you still have 3 more engines, and a fire suppression system. Plane is working as designed. Enjoy your flight!"

  14. Re: This is a spent rocket shell. Not a plane. Wr on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    If it fell onto the LAND, that would absolutely be a crash. They were aiming for the water intentionally, it's safer.

    Makes sense. This one time I was about to crash into an oncoming truck, so I drove off the road and hit a fence instead. Totally not a crash, because it was safer.

    Stop being dumb anytime just because you dislike Musk, this isn't about him.

    I like Musk; I've never really had a "role model" a such, but he definitely makes the very short list of people whom I respect immensely. This isn't about him - it's about reality. You're the weirdo that suddenly decided to make it about him.

    Just because Musk says silly things when he's high doesn't mean you're smarter than a Billionaire. You're a moron who impersonates APK online because your life is that boring and shallow. Tsk.

    I'm certainly not smarter than Musk, but I'm a regular fucking Einstein compared to you, Pete.

  15. Re: Grasping at Straws on Bizarre 'Dark Fluid' With Negative Mass Could Dominate the Universe (theconversation.com) · · Score: 1

    AFAIK wave particle dualism doesn't allow us to calculate much of anything though. It's just a proposed explanation for an observed phenomenon. I'm not familiar with the quote but I think Feinmen must have been talking about something else there. Certainly there are things in physics which seem counterintuitive or nonsensical, but do allow us to make some incredibly precise calculations and predictions.

    On that note, so did Newtonian physics. Newtons models are still very useful even today. They just turn out not to be an accurate explanation of how the universe is actually functioning, and so they fail in edge cases which we didn't know about when he first proposed them. Even if the wave particle dualism explanation did allow us to do some incredible work, it wouldn't mean that it is actually an accurate description of what's going on ... it just happens to be the best we can do right now.

  16. Re: Crash implies harm on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    That's news to me. As far as I understand once they land in saltwater, they are no longer usable. Electronics don't hold up well once exposed to saltwater and the effort to recondition would not be worth the risk or the potentially reduced usability. Corrosion is also a structural issue.

    It's safe to say that it will need some heavy duty inspection and refurbishment, but SpaceX as of now has stated they plan to fly it again if the inspections turn out OK. So they at least don't seem to think it's impossible. They did however say they would use it for "internal missions" (ie. launching their own stuff), so they seem to be acknowledging that there's some element of risk involved.

  17. Re: Just like commercial passenger planes... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    It absolutely is a crash. It's just a more or less planned crash. When we crash cars into walls for testing purposes we don't call it "high speed parking", we call it crashing.

    The fact that the rocket managed to come down safely in the water and remain intact is nothing short of amazing, but it's not a very good reason to start redefining the English language.

  18. Re: All things considered... on SpaceX Sends Dragon To ISS But Falcon 9 Rocket Misses Landing Pad (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    do you know why they throttle down to land instead of just using parachutes

    Because parachutes large enough to do the job would be ridiculously heavy and would add systems which aren't needed for anything else. They also can't really be steered very well, let alone well enough to land on a barge in the middle of the ocean. SpaceX is trying that now with the payload fairings, and it's not going all that well; It seems to be pretty hard to catch the damn things. They have at least managed a soft splashdown in the ocean now, which is OK since the material they're made of doesn't rust in seawater ... but you wouldn't want to do that with a rocket.

    You also can't use parachutes to reverse trajectory, so you would need the ability to flip and burn back towards land anyway. If you already have systems to do that, why not use a bit more fuel and land the damn thing?

    From what I remember ... early on, spacex actually was working on recovery systems using parachutes, but eventually concluded that propulsive landings would be much better.

    or literally anything else?

    Like literally what? A giant trampoline?

    seems like such a waste

    I don't see why. What everyone was doing previously - expending the rockets on every launch - was an incredible waste. This system is far less wasteful than anything we've done before. I'm curious as to why exactly you believe that your proposed alternative would be less wasteful.

  19. Re: What about School Buses? on Elon Musk Says Autopilot Will Soon Recognize Emergency Response Vehicles (inverse.com) · · Score: 1

    Cool. You go tell Boing and Airbus that they're no longer allowed to use the word "autopilot".

  20. Re: How will success be known if no communication? on China Set To Launch First-Ever Spacecraft to the Far Side of the Moon, Will Attempt To Grow Plant There (scientificamerican.com) · · Score: 1

    You should have probably read the whole summary instead of stopping after two and a half sentences.

    At least you could have read three sentences.

  21. It seems like a dumb name because English is goofy. The word "dark" has a half dozen different meanings depending on context; anything from "unlit" or "unreflective" to "hidden", "malicious", "angry" or even "inactive".

    In reference to the moon, "dark" means "hidden" or "unexplored" rather than "without light". That's why Africa used to be referred to as "The Dark Continent" back in the early days of English imperialism. It's not like people thought the continent didn't receive sunlight ...

    Interestingly enough, the word "dark" itself is likely descended from an old Germanic word meaning "concealed". So yeah, "Dark Side of The Moon" works ... even if it confuses plenty of less educated people.

  22. Re: What about School Buses? on Elon Musk Says Autopilot Will Soon Recognize Emergency Response Vehicles (inverse.com) · · Score: 1

    The fact that the general public is retarded means that we can't keep using words to mean what they actually mean?

    K.

  23. Re: 'communities' will object on The Police in UK Want AI To Stop Violent Crime Before it Happens (newscientist.com) · · Score: 1

    Maybe if you shut down your government funded homeopathic "hospitals" you could afford better policing?

    Sure, tax avoidance is bad. So is wasting taxpayer money on useless horseshit. Neither is a good excuse for race-baiting.

  24. Re: Why are wind and solar better? on France To Close Four Coal-Fired Power Plants By 2022, 14 Nuclear Reactors By 2035 (cleantechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    And it turned out, you don't need high capacity, as there is almost always either wind _or_ sun.

    Heh. So you can almost always have some electricity. That's wonderful. Third world energy standards right there ...

  25. Also a rather expensive one. About 0.15 euro = 0.17 USD per kwh. That is not so high by EU standards, but hurts them globally, leading to trade deficits and chronically high unemployment. France needs to be more competitive.

    Solar and wind can generate power for about 0.03 euro per kwh.

    You're hilarious. France, with about 70% nuclear and very little renewable energy, has by far the cheapest electricity prices in Europe. Meanwhile Germany - with the largest uptake for wind and solar - has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe. But yeah, wind and solar can like totally make electricity cheaper ... they just don't ... because reasons.