The Pod Bay

PearsonArtPhoto

02:23

@Undo It is an answer, albiet very short and simple.

Stack Exchange

03:09

TildalWave has added an event to this room's schedule.

TildalWave

03:26

@PearsonArtPhoto I was in two minds about that one, but it was gathering various flags, OP commented under it with request for a better explanation, and there was at the time I posted here my request for others to give their opinion a consensus that deletion or conversion to a comment is needed. But I won't dispute your decision to undelete, I just thought to explain why I deleted it in the first place. While I agree with Erik's comment to mods, I fear it will still persist to be controversial. :|

Stack Exchange

03:37

0

Q: Live chat room event: Minotaur V to launch the LADEE (Sep. 7, 2013 at 1:30 a.m. UTC/GMT)

This is an invitation to attend our chat room event, where we will be covering the launch of the U.S. Air Force-provided Minotaur V rocket launching the NASA's LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) spacecraft set to study the Moon's tenuous atmosphere and dust from the Lunar orbi...

Hash

07:48

@TildalWave did my answer here addresses the question properly ?

TildalWave

@Hash Actually yes it did, but I'm not sure you're forwarding the idea well enough for others to understand what you mean. I thought to mention that in my answer, but I'm not sure I'll have the time to prepare it for a few days at least. Maybe you could try rewording it to be a bit more clear?

Hash

@TildalWave i will try to add more details to it ;)

TildalWave

The problem (at least the discussed one in that thread, there are several others) with a direct pressure-fed cycle is that any variation in pressure will result in double the change in the whole loop, amplifying the oscillation. There's no turbine between the injectors and the containers to stop that oscillation from propagating, so such engines are avoided where environmental pressure might impact these dynamics, like in the lower atmosphere with lower rocket stages.

The effects are actually pretty similar to any resonance chamber sound amplification effects

With pressure-fed engines, this is sometimes also called a "feed system coupled oscillation"... or from an engineering point of view, a L* oscillation (since it's a function of time, or putting it otherwise the length L the propellant travels during each feedback cycle, as well as pressure)

If you're interested, a lot of these pressure-fed designs are discussed in the LEO on the cheap, tho there isn't any mention of this oscillation. It's still a nice reference book, also listing which rockets used such designs, and which were planned, proposed,...

But it does discuss to some extent other problems with pressure-fed single-stage-to-orbit designs

Hash

08:11

@TildalWave thanks :)

TildalWave

@Hash No problem ;) If you think you can write an answer out of this, here's a highly relevant video lecture on this exact problem (it's a bit dry tho, I'm afraid):

►

Hash

08:53

@TildalWave edited my answer with your idea ;)

TildalWave

@Hash I've read it already, +1. Tho it'll need a bit of cleaning up for grammar and spelling, but maybe someone else will find the time ;) Oh, and (out of my head) I believe you say fuels = oxidizer + propellant, when in fact it should rather read propellants = fuel + oxidizer ;)

IIRC

TildalWave

11:04

►

PearsonArtPhoto

11:29

This is the first time I've ever used xkcd as an answer to a question...

2

A: How would one go about speeding up the rotation of a planet?

The key thing to doing this is to accelerate some of the mass of Venus outside of the planet, or alternatively bringing in some mass. Thus, there are 2 main things that could be done to alter the rotation speed. These ideas are explained in Wikipedia. Carefully plan a series of asteroid impacts...

TildalWave

@PearsonArtPhoto nice, I saw it before... +1 of course,.. BTW what did you mean with "it's think atmosphere"? I'd correct it myself, but didn't know if you meant "thin" or "stink" LOL

PearsonArtPhoto

Thick actually.

It's kind of funny, I managed to come up with the same ideas independently that Wikipedia had when I was writing that answer...

TildalWave

oh "thick"... yes, sorry now I wrote it wrong even

@PearsonArtPhoto well there's been a lot of those fun articles cruising about a few years back on "what would happen if all the Chinese at the same time .... " something, and there's even been suggestions to speed up or slow down our day cycles LOL

PearsonArtPhoto

I swore XKCD did a what if on that subject, it would be a great one to do if they haven't already...

TildalWave

somebody had a rather peculiar sense of humor ... because the "speed up the day" ends with all Chinese in the Pacific ocean, and "slow down the day" with all of them in India

Donald.McLean

12:57

Stack Exchange

13:13

0

Q: Should "speeding up the rotation of a planet" be closed?

When the question How would one go about speeding up the rotation of a planet? was posted, four close votes were added citing that the question was off-topic here, but on-topic on Physics.SE where it already has an answer. Since then, one of those close votes has been removed. Hash linked this q...

discussion migration off-topic

RhysW

13:41

@PearsonArtPhoto I recall this one, something about everyone in China jumping at once I think?

Undo

0

Q: Was the NOAA-N Prime really toppled onto the floor?

Recently, Donald.Maclean posted this image in The Pod Bay, our site chat room: It's a rather disturbing image once you think about it for more than about half a second. Did it really happen? What consequences is it going to have for the mission?

noaa-prime

I can see this one getting a lot of views.

Hash

@Undo your question is the $501^th $ :)

Undo

@Hash Neato! I was trying to be #500, but Tildal beat me to it

Hash

13:58

@Undo i thought of posting the 500 question but at that moment i was lagging
question :D

Undo

@called2voyage It's absolutely OK!

$501^th$ <<Test of Mathjax

No, I guess it doesn't work :(

PearsonArtPhoto

14:20

@RhysW Not quite, that's this one. what-if.xkcd.com/8

RhysW

@PearsonArtPhoto ah thats the one, my bad, i like the one eabout everyone shining lasers onto the moon

PearsonArtPhoto

That was the one that got me hooked on the what ifs as well.

called2voyage

@Undo Say what?

PearsonArtPhoto

I think this might have been the one I was looking at.

what-if.xkcd.com/41

called2voyage

@Undo Are you referring to the speeding up the planet one?

Donald.McLean

14:42

@Undo - could you please approve that edit, since you so callously misspelled my name in your question?

called2voyage

@Donald.McLean I think Undo has left the building. I noticed the error myself.

RhysW

@Donald.McLean do you also clean PC's? :P

the mistake makes it sound like mac clean :L

Donald.McLean

@RhysW No, I avoid Windows machines as much as possible.

@PearsonArtPhoto - are you here?

called2voyage

@Donald.McLean I think RhysW meant PC in the generic personal computer sense, not in the specific IBM-clone sense.

RhysW

@Donald.McLean im surprised this mattered, youd like to think they could build things capable of staying in tact against a foe mightier than the floor

called2voyage

14:52

@RhysW You can see in my response that they were able to repair it with spare parts, and it did eventually get launched.

But weather instruments are really sensitive.

Donald.McLean

@called2voyage "mac clean" as compared to "do you also" would tend to indicate he meant Windows.

RhysW

still, 290million dollar equipment, youd like to think that wouldnt be destroyed so easily

called2voyage

@Donald.McLean Ah, good point, I interpreted the "also" as meaning "in addition to your day job".

@RhysW "Destroyed" is a strong word. "Damaged" is probably more appropriate.

RhysW

I could clear up all this confusion by saying that i did mean PC's in the windows sense, but this is more fun :P

called2voyage

@RhysW lol

@RhysW And, yes, we'd like for expensive stuff to not be so easily damaged, but that is frequently not the case. In this case it was a technician error--I can't tell you how often problems arise because of the human factor.

RhysW

14:58

@called2voyage the breakability would have been the same, the technician error was what caused us to see its fragility in action, adding those screws means it wouldnt have fallen, not that it would have been tougher, if it WAS screwed and fell, it would have been just as damaged,

called2voyage

By the way, I can assure you that there is now a process in place for double-checking bolts on instruments, if there wasn't before.

@RhysW As I said, you often can't help that things are breakable.

RhysW

but yeah i agree with that

cough iphones cough

to be fair, i dont see how people drop their stuff so damn frequently, i have never dropped my phone, o rknocked it off a table, or spilt anything on it or accidentally fed it to a dog as a chew toy...

called2voyage

@RhysW Let me guess, you're a single male with no children?

;)

RhysW

no points for guessing there :P but still, my siblings are just as careless and theyve never ruined any of mine, or my parents stuff, because they dont put it in reach of the children in the first place

called2voyage

@RhysW Well, I guess you've gotten lucky then.

RhysW

15:03

gotten lucky for 12 years straight? nu-uh, some people are just careless and blame it on the kids

called2voyage

Have you ever broken any bones?

RhysW

nope

called2voyage

Neither have I, but I wouldn't say it was because I was more cautious than some people who have.

For example, my mom broke her foot getting out of bed.

And she doesn't have any diseases to speak off.

And there was nothing on the floor.

RhysW

no i agree mistakes happen and sometimes things do break seemingly randomly, what annoys me are the poeple who are careless, and complain when stuff breaks

called2voyage

@RhysW That, I can agree with.

RhysW

15:05

ie. the people that party, jump in a pool, then phone up the next day complaining their phone isnt water proof

called2voyage

My wife recently broke my Android tablet by putting it in a chair and carrying the chair outside.

It fell out of the chair of course.

Donald.McLean

@RhysW I'm moderately clumsy - I knock things over or drop them on a regular basis. That's why I have a case AND a belt-carrier for my phone.

RhysW

@Donald.McLean precisely, but you know youre clumsy and have taken action to prevent it, rather than phoning up complaining that the phone cant survive being dropped from head height

called2voyage

@Donald.McLean A case is a definite must-have for an expensive phone.

all right, I'm out for now. Might be back later. Ping me if you need anything.

Donald.McLean

@RhysW Yeah. I paid for the memory upgrade to my phone because the standard configuration wasn't enough. I haven't upgraded because I don't want to pay that much until I absolutely have to.

RhysW

15:11

cya later!

Yeah, somehow we seem to have slipped into the culture of blame everyone else and that gets on my nerves, sorry to rant here! :P

Undo

15:24

@Rhys Like your new avatar.

RhysW

@Undo decided i wanted something a little different, so just stuck my initials over the auto generated icon!

Undo

I used to have a red generated one, back before I was Undo.

Stack Exchange

0

Q: Why so many upvotes?

i experienced that I got far more upvotes on Space Exloration.SE, than on other sites like Stack Overflow. How is it possible? I mean, my questions are not always cover important of popular aspects. Also, there aren't so many active members yet. This question may be downvoted, I can see clearly....

discussion

TildalWave

16:04

@Undo I did? Nice, didn't realize that :)

@PearsonArtPhoto Which got me thinking we should go through those XKCDs and maybe find inspiration for new questions ;) I mean, there's only a few thousands of them, should be a breeze :))

@called2voyage You should see how many times my name is misspelled ... don't believe me? Just search for "tidal" :)

called2voyage

16:20

@TildalWave Oh, I know. I'm probably one of few who noticed that your Ti**l**dalWave.

@TildalWave The way you lump animal and beer together in your user profile makes it sound like you enjoy the consumption of both. ;)

Undo

16:50

Wooo! 3k!

Stack Exchange

astrobites: Jets in a post-AGB envelope

posted on September 05, 2013 by Josh Fuchs

The authors present the first direct evidence of a jet shaping the circumstellar envelope of a post-AGB star.

Undo

Now I want the protect questions privilege to be moved to 3k. I'm a little biased, though :D

@StackExchange You split up my message :#

Undo

An edit by an anonymous user! Must be a sign we are getting bigger!

Rory Alsop

@Undo congrats

Undo

@RoryAlsop Thanks - I still have a ways to go to catch Pearson, though.

Rory Alsop

17:02

@Undo I'm not sure some folks are catchable. Over on Security.SE we have Ursa Major and Minor - two accounts from the same person. Big bear is top with double our number 2 person. And little bear is 4th and rapidly looking to end up in 2nd. Some folks just give amazing answers all the time

Undo

@RoryAlsop Yes - it's looking like Pearson and Tildal are those people here - the Jon Skeets of Space.SE (I refuse to use Manish's abbreviation :))

Rory Alsop

@Undo I almost always call Security Sec.SE - which is part of the reason @Manish uses SEx.SE here, I think

PearsonArtPhoto

@Donald.McLean No.

Undo

@RoryAlsop I still refuse to use it :D

@Pearson No what?

PearsonArtPhoto

@Undo Click on the arrow on the left of the text.

Undo

17:08

@PearsonArtPhoto Oohh! I learned something new today!

Rory Alsop

@Undo there's all sorts of clever functionality around you know

including nice extensions for chrome that improve the entire experience

Undo

@RoryAlsop Yes - I've only been here since the end of last year, so I'm still learning it.

And yes, I have some fancy Chrome extensions.

Rory Alsop

@Undo (me too)

PearsonArtPhoto

To set it up like that, you click on the down arrow by the line, and reply to that message.

Undo

@PearsonArtPhoto That's extra work. Undo no like extra work - Undo just wanna ping someone :)

ManishEarth

17:14

@Undo The SE modifications userscript gives an easier way of doing this.

Undo

@ManishEarth Ohh - linky?

ManishEarth

31

Q: SE Chat Modifications -- Keyboard navigation and commands for chat

Screenshot Use /command shortcuts to perform common chat tasks: See message history inline: Easily preview replied-to messages: And much, much more... About Legends tell of a prolific Meta Stack Overflow chatter who despised using their mouse above all things. In an effort to keep t...

script chat

Undo

Oooh! I get to expand my keyboard shortcuts to chat now!

/last Pearson

/command last Pearson

Aaak!

Neato!

ManishEarth

Why is message#789 super-private?

Ah, all of the lower numbers don't exist

Undo

@ManishEarth Yes - I wish it would autocomplete numbers somehow.

ManishEarth

17:22

ah

@Undo You can scroll through messages with the keyboard

Undo

@ManishEarth Actually, OS X has stolen the cntrl-up shortcut.

Ooh - I can flag stuff from the keyboard too. Might want to stay away from that - it gets me in trouble :)

@ManishEarth You can see deleted chat messages globally, right?

ManishEarth

yeah

Undo

And I can't, right?

ManishEarth

except in site private rooms and dev rooms

@Undo only if you are a room owner

Or have posted the message

Undo

ok

It's amazing how you really don't see how much work mods do until you can see deleted stuff.

@ManishEarth The default sorting for answers is accepted first, then ordered by score, right?

ManishEarth

17:36

@Undo something like that

Undo

ok

It's for the app.

Donald.McLean

@Undo Yes.

Undo

@Donald.McLean OK, thanks! Sorry I misspelled your name, BTW.

Donald.McLean

0

Q: Parametric types in Java

I'm looking at the documentation of JasperReports and I do not understand the return type of the following method: public java.lang.Class<?> getValueClass()

java types

@Undo By way of example. No worries.

Thanks to Zoltan's question, I've now satisfied 30% of my commitment.

called2voyage

@Undo I need your help.

Undo

17:50

@called2voyage Yessir?

called2voyage

Here is my answer to the MDM question: space.stackexchange.com/questions/1232/…

TildalWave

@called2voyage Oh God that's NOT how it's supposed to be read!! LOL

called2voyage

My computer is being dumb today and won't upload pictures.

Undo

@called2voyage Ahh. URL?

called2voyage

@Undo Here's the picture I want to use for the second "Insert Chart Here": upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/…

That is the picture I want for the first.

@TildalWave I know, I thought it was funny.

Undo

17:53

@called2voyage Done.

called2voyage

@Undo Thanks, looks great!

Undo

@called2voyage Anytime. You know, as long as you have a link to the image itself, you can select the 'From the web' box - then the image never has to touch your computer.

called2voyage

@Undo I know, that wasn't working for me either.

Strange, I know.

My IE8 was being dumb.

Undo

@called2voyage Wow - really weird.

called2voyage

As usual

Undo

17:55

Oh - IE8 :D

called2voyage

yeah, work computer

Undo

I like Chrome on OS X 10.8 :)

Chrome 20.123.4.2.4.12.4 or whatever crazy version number scheming they use.

called2voyage

I love Chrome. Can't use it at work.

Donald.McLean

Sometimes I use six different browsers all at the same time.

2

Undo

@Donald.McLean Uhh - how about tabs?

How many mice do you have?

Donald.McLean

17:58

@Undo Doesn't help when you're a web developer testing a web application for users who use different browsers and operating systems.

Undo

@Donald.McLean Ahh - so it's a webdev thing. Makes sense.

called2voyage

@Donald.McLean I would star that except we're on Space.SE

3

Donald.McLean

18:11

Primarily though I work on Mac/Firefox, but only because I find Firebug slightly more comfortable than the Chrome developer tools. I really hate debugging problems that only occur in Win/IE. Blech.

TildalWave

18:27

@Undo you really struck gold mine with that NOAA question, it's #3 on the SuperCollider. I'm favoriting it and sharing on Twitter, let's keep it high up and steal a few more folks from other Stack Exchange sites :)

And it say in the list "Undo on space" :))

Undo

18:48

@Tildal I figured it would be popular - it's the kind of thing you can't resist clicking.

#2 now, and catching up with #1! :D

Donald.McLean

And all I got out of it was a lousy 2 rep, and only because I had to edit the question to fix the spelling of my name.

Undo

Yep - it's going to be #1 within a few minutes.

For those finding this question off the MultiCollider-SuperDropdown, stick around! We have many more interesting questions here. — Undo 22 secs ago

TildalWave

@Donald.McLean Add an answer, it'll have then an even bigger score on the SuperCollider, might go thermonuclear even

Donald.McLean

@TildalWave Haven't the two existing answers already covered all the important points?

Undo

@Donald Surely you can find something to add to it.

TildalWave

19:00

@Undo - You wanted to say we've got plenty of space? — TildalWave 12 secs ago

Undo

@Tildal lol.

Shoot, we're falling off the MultiCollider. Someone do something!

TildalWave

@Undo star it

share on your social network accounts

Undo

@Tildal I've starred it, and I don't have any social networks other than here :(

Changed title to be more click-luring:

13

Q: Was the NOAA-N Prime satellite really dropped on the floor?

Recently, Donald.McLean posted this image in The Pod Bay, the site chat room: It's a rather disturbing image once you think about it for more than about half a second. Did it really happen? What consequences is it going to have for the mission?

noaa-prime

TildalWave

@Undo meh you can create a twitter account in seconds, then search with the hashtag #space and follow all that seem like they have many followers themselves, preferably those that then also follow their followers... then share and favorite there also

there's no limit to how many you can follow, not that I'm aware of at least

also add @StackSpaceExp

but ideally, it should get more answers

Undo

@Tildal As a mod, is there a way to have the Stack twitter account tweetify it?

TildalWave

19:12

@Undo as a mod no, but all questions with 2 or more upvotes are automatically tweeted with site's own Twitter account... I'm not sure what are requirements for those to be retweeted by the main SE account tho, I'd guess it has something to do with how many times it was shared by others also

probably other metrics also, like the number of views, votes, e.t.c.

Undo

@Tildal Usually, I would expect to see a 'tweeted' entry in the questions history - but I'm not seeing it.

Rep capped for the day :)

TildalWave

@Undo it will be I'm sure, it obviously didn't yet get to do that... but that's not so important anyway, our account only has 10 followers, it would be much better it's retweeted by the SE main account with 7692 followers

Anyway, as far as SuperCollider goes, I think we're doing fairly well for a young beta site, there's almost any day at least a few of our questions there, and I'd say maybe a couple per week make it on the first page... that's pretty good IMO

Undo

@Tildal It's great - we seem to be moving along much faster than most beta sites.

TildalWave

@Undo Well we're keeping the pace with those that eventually made it, by my analysis of the last handful of the graduated sites, but we need to step it up a bit, hopefully as new members come that'll be easier. We kinda neglected last few weeks our Space Exploration Meta also, I've seen a drop in questions and also answers... and we still didn't really figure it out what's in scope, and don't have a descriptive about page. So, still plenty to work on ;)

TildalWave

19:51

@Undo You NOAA question just made it for this week's newsletter, it was just forwarded ;)

Undo

@Tildal Great!

Rory Alsop

@TildalWave this newsletter thing - what's that all about then. Don't think I have seen one other than the mod newsletters

on any of the sites I frequent or mod

TildalWave

@RoryAlsop All the sites have them and anyone can subscribe, as far as I can tell. SEx.SE one is here: stackexchange.com/newsletters/…

and all of them: stackexchange.com/newsletters

there's a nice "subscribe" button next to all of them (or on top) ;)

Rory Alsop

ahhhh - hadn't seen them before

Undo

@Tildal Mind forwarding that newsletter to me? You should be able to see my email on my profile.

TildalWave

19:58

@Undo stackexchange.com/newsletters/…

@Undo why not hit the subscribe button? :P

Undo

@Tildal I never did because I read everything anyway :) I'm subscribed now, and wanted to see ours.

TildalWave

@Undo I can forward it but you can also see exactly how it looks like through that link... it's a preview link for our site's newsletter, that's always same as the one that was last sent

Undo

@TildalWave Nope, that's fine.

JohnB

20:20

Does alt text show up in search results?

for google

apparently hobo-web.co.uk/how-many-words-in-alt-text-for-google-yahoo-bing

called2voyage

20:42

@TildalWave Yes, we need more activity on Meta.

@called2voyage Ok...who starred me for that comment...

lol

TildalWave

21:00

7

Q: Is the [dust] tag really necessary?

It seems to me that all the possible posts that might use the [dust] tag will not necessarily be related to each other. Some will be FOD issues (a much more interesting tag, imo), some will be space debris, some will be dust during orbital operations, some will be dust on planets and other bodies...

discussion tags remove-tag-request

can others also look into this one, please? I'm not applying suggested changes based on two of us agreeing there :O

Rory Alsop

21:25

@TildalWave If clean-room is effectively the same as dust-mitigation then I like your answer

TildalWave

@RoryAlsop hmmm no not really, it's same as dust-mitigation before the launch, but doesn't really say anything about dust mitigation techniques after it,... suggestions?

maybe just keeping suggestions as they are, and attaching a new threat-mitigation tag (or something simpler to find) to those questions asking about it?

Rory Alsop

@TildalWave that would work

TildalWave

What other words describe "threat mitigation"? That sounds a bit too InfoSec-ish :/

or maybe it doesn't, I just dunno I'm too much into it LOL

Rory Alsop

@TildalWave it does a bit to me, but I have the same issue...erm, what are the main risks from dust after launch? Rapid dust=micro meteorites=puncture. Slow dust=coating solar panels/docking surfaces/manipulator joints/etc

what else is a common problem

TildalWave

5

Q: Does cosmic dust pose a problem for long-term satellites, telescopes and probes?

We have many long-term satellite observatories and probes in outer space way above the Earth's magnetosphere, and some of them progressively cruising out of our Solar system. Off the top of my head, some of such satellites, probes and observatories are the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space ...

artificial-satellites probe solar-system dust space-observatory

that was one of my questions not long ago... it only has a single answer so far, I was hoping someone else will discuss a few other points to it, mainly how much is that even a threat to deep space probes, not just orbiting satellites

Rory Alsop

21:38

oh yeah, the charged particles bit - hadn't thought of that

TildalWave

anyway, I though the "origins" approach might be worth considering, but I'd be open to other suggestions how to differentiate "dust"

while on the ground, it's clean-room, then it's probably one of the other three... and the rest is then implications, which might be a bit too long of a list to make much sense at this point in time, plus posters might not realize that at the time of writing their questions

RhysW

@TildalWave 4 of the others are yours :P

TildalWave

@RhysW I might have been a bit too bored around the US Labor Day, true :)

RhysW

@TildalWave just trying to show off i bet :P

TildalWave

busted :(

David Freitag

21:59

Anything fun going on today? Any launches or NASA experiments?

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag I just bought pyro for our next gig - does that count?

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop Only if i can stand next to you while you test it.

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag That's the next step if we start to get more successful - getting others to stand closest to the explosions :-)

David Freitag

Although given the ocean between us i would suffice for a YouTube vid :]

@RoryAlsop Well, get around to signing that record label already - we Americans need to hear it!

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag Vid of previous gig. Small fires at about 2 minutes in:

►

David Freitag

22:06

@RoryAlsop I'll have to check that out as soon as I'm out of class :]

Rory Alsop

That's the onle least like our music, but we like Rammstein so thought a wee tribute was in order.

This is more like us:

►

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop Is it in German?

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag that one...sort of is. It is about not being able to write a song in German, but not caring because it still sounds good over an Industrial beat.

If you do know German it should be much funnier

we played it to Sascha from KMFDM and he just about wet himself laughing

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop Nah unfortunately i don't speak very much German, i think it would make a tribute a little more badass if it's in a foreign language :]

Jon Ericson

@TildalWave You've obviously put a lot of thought into the topic. My only concern is that dust will likely continue to pop up. It seems likely that most people using the tag really mean regolith.

RhysW

22:22

@JonEricson keep dust and make it a synonym for a regolith tag then?

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag it is all in real German words, but we muddled them a bit using Google Translate with misspellings

Jon Ericson

@RhysW I think so.

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop I look forward to hearing it

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag I should get around to putting up the lyrics on our lyrics page

Or in fact actually re-publish our lyrics page, as it doesn't appear to have survived the migration from Flash to HTML5

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop Haha, yeah probably. I mean, it's not like it's a page specifically devoted to lyrics or anything

Rory Alsop

22:27

@DavidFreitag it does have lyrics to a lot of our songs, but it's one of the difficult pages - especially when fans tell us we have it wrong...

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop The fans tell you your lyrics are wrong? Hah that isn't surprising in the slightest.

PearsonArtPhoto

This site seems to have a core of about 20 users who regularly check the site, and quite a few others who drop by.

Actually, this might be one of the healthiest betas that I've ever participated in...

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag well, maybe not with this song, but sometimes with some of the bigger hits :-)

@PearsonArtPhoto Good core scope, a community dedicated to that scope - it's got good odds

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah. The key thing is to keep the question count up, but I think we are doing pretty well at that.

One of the big things they look for is a community formed around the site. I think the very fact that everyone gathers for launches is a good sign for that.

David Freitag

@PearsonArtPhoto Not only the question count, but the quality. On top of that the quality of answers as well.

PearsonArtPhoto

22:33

Speaking of launches, can't wait for the F9 V1.1 launch in a week and a half.

This is true. Keep up the quality questions.

David Freitag

Good questions attract intelligent people which attracts better answers and conversely more questions of a better quality. It's kinda cyclical.

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag And in the space field there are a lot of smart, well informed, passionate folks

David Freitag

@RoryAlsop A field of study that isn't inhabited by smart, well informed, folks doesn't deserve to be called a field.

Rory Alsop

@DavidFreitag hahahaha - true, but still - they seem to exist

Undo

23:09

@PearsonArtPhoto Not sure about your most recent question (the Lithium one) - it doesn't seem related to space exploration enough.

PearsonArtPhoto

I'll edit to show that it is related, but charging batteries is a big deal in space.

Undo

@PearsonArtPhoto Yes, but so is eating your Wheaties - and getting lots of Vitamin D and flossing and... you can see where I'm going. We need to figure out where to draw the line. Would we accept your battery question? Would we accept one about how to floss in space?

PearsonArtPhoto

Battery life is among the most critical factors for most space missions, after thrusting power. It is crucial for spaceflight development for 90% of the space missions out there.

Undo

@PearsonArtPhoto Agree to disagree? I've retracted my close vote, but I'll keep my downvote. We'll see how the rest of the community reacts :)

PearsonArtPhoto

Yes, it is a boring topic, but very important. My company actually has hired a battery consultant in the past to try and eek more life out of the batteries.

Undo

23:15

It's actually an interesting topic, but I don't really think it belongs here. That's all :)

PearsonArtPhoto

In addition, the application makes a big difference. Spacecraft must keep their lifetime for a lot longer than cell phones, for instance.

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