The Pod Bay

PearsonArtPhoto

12:26 AM

Well, I now have a screensaver installer for the visualization. Anyone want to test it out for me?

kim holder

do you need a windows user?

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, for now.

I might try to do something for mac eventually, but...

And I don't even have the slightest clue how to do anything for Linux.

kim holder

:)

kim holder

12:53 AM

okay, i've downloaded that usapassphrase page onto my tablet, and have started generating passwords in airplane mode, which i then enter into my keepass program on my phone, as i change the passwords on my accounts. sound method?

kim holder

1:26 AM

ok, i guess i can see a couple of weaknesses with that. mostly to do with this chat thread itself.

Everyone

2:24 AM

What did you make?@PearsonArtPhoto

PearsonArtPhoto

A screensaver.

Screensaver Mode- Where Is Roadster?

►

No music, BTW.

Everyone

No such concept as a screen saver on phones, I suspect

PearsonArtPhoto

There is such a thing as live wallpaper. No idea if I can make that one work, but...

It's on my list of things to look at.

Everyone

Mmm is roadster in orbit, or star bound anyway?

PearsonArtPhoto

It's orbiting around the Sun.

whereisroadster.com/chart.html

Everyone

2:32 AM

Period?

PearsonArtPhoto

I need to look it up, but it's about a year and a half.

Everyone

Makes sense... Might apply to tablets though

Pity Elon didn't make it longer

PearsonArtPhoto

557 days.

Going on the site, it's been on my todo list for a while.

Everyone

What kind of life could we get out of a real pulse propulsion system in space anyway? Would radiation hardening be a factor?

This site can’t be reached

www.whereisroadster.com’s server DNS address could not be found.
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN

PearsonArtPhoto

Forgot the s...

whereisroadster.com/charts.html

Try that one.

Everyone

2:44 AM

Wonder what events are planned on the close approach. How close is it?

PearsonArtPhoto

Which close approach?

Look at the Close Approaches tab.

PearsonArtPhoto

3:21 AM

Everyone

OK... I was thinking of a pass by Terra

PearsonArtPhoto

There won't be one of those for some time actually.

Everyone

It just registered ...

PearsonArtPhoto

?

Everyone

I thought it was an Earth orbit

PearsonArtPhoto

3:32 AM

Nope, solar orbit.

You wouldn't be the first...

whereisroadster.com/faq.html#7

Everyone

4:22 AM

How small can a real thermonuclear powerplant be anyway?

Small enough to propel a craft intermittently over a millennium?

uhoh

6:01 AM

4

Q: Does this amateur observation hold a record even including robotic searches for supernovae?

The new paper in Nature A surge of light at the birth of a supernova (doi:10.1038/nature25151) describes the fortuitous capture of a supernova "Shock Breakout" - the earliest rise in brightness of a supernova only about 4 hours old. An open access epdf is linked in the Washington Post article if ...

Has a boundy...

(bounty)

Rory Alsop

10:16 AM

@PearsonArtPhoto I can give it a test this evening - can it cope with a display that is two 4K monitors wide? :-)

PearsonArtPhoto

10:33 AM

One of the monitors will be blank.

PearsonArtPhoto

1:16 PM

@RoryAlsop Deleted the link, but you should know how to still get it.

Rory Alsop

1:32 PM

I'll give that a shot later on - cheers :-)

(I was just being cheeky about the monitors)

PearsonArtPhoto

LOL, I'm actually curious, so...

geoffc

2:01 PM

First block 5 F9 is on the test stand in McGregor!!! Woo Hoo!

PearsonArtPhoto

:-)

Edlothiad

How feasible is their 10 reuses with only inspections given they've only ever flown them on two missions max?

geoffc

@Edlothiad Great question. How many other companies have had 23 exmples of flown boosters to develop data on what parts wear out, what parts need replacement, which parts should be lightened, which should be strengthened.

They have more empirical data on this anyone. (Shuttle had it, just did not really use it that much. I know, SSME's got a bunch of upgrades over the years).

So better than any one else on the planet, they have the most info. This is their 5th major iteration of the booster. Each time they fix a number of issues, they update to better survivable parts and test them.

The goal of Block 5 is to have all that converge in a single, final configuration, to meet the stated 10X flights. We shall see if they made.

Edlothiad

Ok, so that was a pre-determined target that they're trying to hit as opposed to one released now?

geoffc

So I would say, more feasible than anyone else trying it. More than 2? Greater than 100% certainty. 10 flights? I think better than 50% and it might still take another revision to get there finally.

Edlothiad

2:13 PM

I mean 2 flights with 6 month breaks for refurbishment and what else is a big step from 10 with just inspections.

geoffc

I think it was both. That is, they want to reuse things. They want to make it more afforabdle (aka profitable). They have been trying. Somehow they decided 10 flights is a number that is a goal that works.

So I imagine both.

160 days between flights is shortest so far.

Edlothiad

I'm sure they'll get there first, I meant more as an internal "Is this another set your targets in space and if you miss you'll hit the clouds" kinda thing or a more concrete certainty

geoffc

Also, if you look at the manifest, next 10 launches are almost all reused boosters, emptying the storage rooms of used stages. :)

Edlothiad

I guess it was more surprise as 10 with just inspections would be momentous. It would change everything

geoffc

Heres hoping they get there!

Edlothiad

2:22 PM

I think it's amusing that SpaceX seems to be the only commercial space company with such a big cult following

It's almost like people cheering on their favourite sports team

geoffc

Look at the competition, how much do they insprie? Or joy. Another Atlas V. US Booster with russian engine. Delat 4 Heavy is kind fo cool as it launches on fire, all the way up. But 8 flights in 10 years? How interesting is that?

With SpaceX you get first land landing, first water landing. And all the coolness leading up to othat.

First reflight. First Heavy, with 2 landing cores side by side.

Keeps going and going. :)

That continuing inovation is great and inspires. People are looking for inspriation.

SpaceX is providing it.

And making money at the same time.

Edlothiad

But do you think any other commercial company would reach any sort of following like that, or would they just keep snapping at Space X's heels?

geoffc

Which commercial company is innovating and insprining like SpaceX? ULA? nope. Arianespace? Nope. JAXA/NASA/ESA are governments so don't count.

PearsonArtPhoto

Blue Origins.

geoffc

Excellent counter example!

Edlothiad

2:28 PM

Oh is ULA commercial? Of course... They're Boeing and someone else right?

geoffc

Is that the exception that proves the rule, though?

PearsonArtPhoto

Lockheed Martin.

geoffc

Electron is the one I had in mind.

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, them too.

Edlothiad

I was thinking more like Blue Origins, Electron and the like

PearsonArtPhoto

2:28 PM

Blue Origins is still too secretive to really have that kind of inspiration, but they are getting somewhere slowly.

ULA is starting to give it a shot.

But they aren't moving that quickly.

Blue Origins and SpaceX both have announced big rockets. SpaceX is leading the pack at the moment, but I wouldn't count Blue Origins out yet.

geoffc

Bets on Vulcan every happening? Actually, more likely than SLS for sure.

Bezos has suggetsed he is willing to fund BO at $1 billion a year indefinitly. Which is a nicec source of income to have.

Edlothiad

I really want SLS to work, it sounds interesting

geoffc

@Edlothiad Is it worth it?

Something like $30 billion before first launch.

Edlothiad

I dunno, that's for you guys to know, I'm the foreign casual who wants to see fire and people go to space

PearsonArtPhoto

SLS would be great if it could be better used, but...

Edlothiad

2:32 PM

None of my money's going in there.

geoffc

But it costs too much, so it never will be properly used.

PearsonArtPhoto

I think that BFR is going to be cheaper and more capable.

geoffc

I want a solid gold potty as well, but that just ain;t in the cards baby.

PearsonArtPhoto

In fact, it's almost certainly going to be cheaper, and likely to be more capable.

geoffc

How can ANYTHING not be cheaper than SLS?

PearsonArtPhoto

2:33 PM

LOL

Saturn V

The Saturn V (pronounced "Saturn five") was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA between 1967 and 1973. The three-stage liquid-fueled super heavy-lift launch vehicle was developed to support the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon and was later used to launch Skylab, the first American space station. The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload. As of 2018, the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful (highest total impulse) rocket ever brought to operational status, and holds records...

geoffc

Consider how much work it would be to actually BURN $30 billion in say 20's and how long it would take. Not sure one person could successfully even do it in a normal lifetime.

Edlothiad

Why has SLS racked up so much money?

PearsonArtPhoto

$1.16 billion in 2016 value per launch.

Edlothiad

@PearsonArtPhoto You broke wiki

geoffc

Not a tech program, a Jobs program. Must keep 20,000 people employed for 20 years before first launch.

Salaries kill you.

Consider - reusing RS-25/SSME engines. Not even building new ones!!! Using the same tooling that was used by Shuttle main tank.

Initially was supposed to use existing SRB's but of course they changed to need basically all new designs. (SRB's suck that way. Adding a segment is a complete redev program).

No impetus to cut costs, money always magically appears.

No competition. If SpaceX spent that much on Falcon, they never would have gotten a single launch, not ever finished before they ran out of money.

PearsonArtPhoto

2:37 PM

No, they would have used it to build BFR as well.

geoffc

Consider ULA - Atlas II almost owned the launch market in its class for a long time. Then ULA got on the govt teat and now Atlas V has launched 70+ times, and I think 3 or 4 were commercial?

PearsonArtPhoto

And then the Bigger BFR to boot. All for the same pocket of money no doubt.

geoffc

Right. But I mean, if they wasted that much money/time, they never would have happened. Since unless there is a govt with a magical source of money, it just does not work.

Now Bezos and BO is interesting as he is funding it out of his spare change. Which is cool and interesting. But he is a super rare exception at his scale. Musk funded SpaceX to get it over the hump and started, but NASA contracts, commercial contracts is what keeps it going.

PearsonArtPhoto

Sanity check: Anyone have a problem viewing whereisroadster.com/views.html ?

geoffc

Worked for me.

Embedded YT video

PearsonArtPhoto

2:51 PM

Yep.

Strange. Received an email saying it didn't work, but every browser I've tried it seems to work just fine...

Edlothiad

Works on this side of the pond too

PearsonArtPhoto

I suspect said person has some strange config on their end. Unfortunately said person is an associate editor of a major online news website...

kim holder

3:12 PM

@Edlothiad it always sticks in my mind how Elon said in the press conference after the first reused stage landed that there's no reason the boosters couldn't be reused hundreds of times. he has this odd way of seeming calm and saying wild things, but i think he feels that is possible. 10 reuses may just be a reasonable goal to set first, until they know more.

geoffc

5:01 PM

Oh! Hippasat launch is back on, Mar 1, 12:34AM EST! Yay

Current schedule: JAXA H-IIA - IGS Optical 6 - 27 Feb - 04:34 UTC. SpaceX Falcon 9 - HispaSat 30W-6 - 1 March - 05:34 UTC ULA Altas V 541 - GOES-S - 1 Mar - 22:02 UTC Falcon 9 is "Range Pending". 18 hour separation between Falcon 9 and Atlas V is possible thanks to AFTS,.

Tweeted by NASASpaceflight on February 26, 2018 at 1:36 PM

50th Falcon launch! And 18 hours between Falcon and Atlas. Well done on upgrading the range!

PearsonArtPhoto

That is a pretty quick turnaround.

geoffc

About time they got that ability. 48 hrs between launches for range issues? Come on.

PearsonArtPhoto

Didn't Gemini do some really close launches?

geoffc

For the docking tests. Agena and Gemini and Gemini^2

PearsonArtPhoto

Yeah, that one.

geoffc

5:06 PM

I do not remember my Gemini missions that well.

PearsonArtPhoto

I wasn't born then, but...

geoffc

I am basically post Apollo entirely, very young during the very end of Skylab.

PearsonArtPhoto

Maybe it is easier to track if they are both heading in the same direction?

Gemini 10

Gemini 10 (officially Gemini X) was a 1966 manned spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the 8th manned Gemini flight, the 16th manned American flight and the 24th spaceflight of all time (includes X-15 flights over 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles). == Crew == === Backup crew === === Support crew === Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin (Houston CAPCOM) L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. (Cape and Houston CAPCOM) == Mission parameters == Mass: 8,295 pounds (3,762.6 kg) Perigee: 86.3 nautical miles (159.9 km) Apogee: 145.2 nautical miles (268.9 km) Inclination: 28.87° Period: 88.79 min === Docking ==...

Just over 4 hours apart.

PearsonArtPhoto

6:32 PM

Website value estimator says my site is worth about $1.3 million...

I'm not picky, I'll sell out for half of that. Maybe even 25%.

kim holder

life is strange...

i knew you'd picked a stellar moment to build on the popularity of an event, but really, i had no idea.

PearsonArtPhoto

Same.

I'm almost positive the site isn't worth nearly that much. The curves are downhill pretty steeply.

Every day has had fewer visitors since Elon's tweet.

kim holder

yeah, that occurred to me.

PearsonArtPhoto

On the flip side, I have more sources now of income from the site than I had when he sent his tweet out.

I'm managing to hold steady actually, but that likely won't last for much longer.

I'm considering enhancing a lot of the educational aspects to the site to help it last more long term.

kim holder

sounds like you are still getting some media coverage, so if you can add those on before that peters out, you still have lots of opportunities.

it is a very instructive case study for me.

PearsonArtPhoto

6:38 PM

Me too:-)

I'm still getting a bit of coverage, but not a whole lot.

I'm hoping the simulation videos will get a bit of coverage. I've reached out to a few of the people who contacted me before to see if they are interested in discussing them more, but so far...

My best bet now is something like Star Talk.

kim holder

well, that raises the matter of whether advertising on other sites would be worth it :P

PearsonArtPhoto

Nope.

I don't make nearly enough per visitor to justify advertising.

kim holder

not even for sales of the screensaver or merchandise?

PearsonArtPhoto

Those are a very small part of the money coming in so far.

Google still is the major contributor to money, followed by Amazon. Everything else is about 5% compared to those two sources of income.

I am probably going to sell a few tools on the Unity Asset Store that I made to help with my tool that might be helpful.

The screen saver hasn't really been sold yet, although I have only had a poor way to sell it for a few hours.

If Elon had waited 2 days to tweet out my website I might have been able to make a lot more money off of it, but... Oh well.

The 3 days of boost thanks to Elon are responsible for about 50% of the money I have made on the site, so I really can't complain.

kim holder

one really can't complain about the whole thing :P

PearsonArtPhoto

6:46 PM

I should probably do a AMA on Reddit. That could be a fun thing to do, and might give me a few ideas too.

LOL, no kidding.

kim holder

an ama is a good idea

PearsonArtPhoto

The trick is, which sub-reddit.

Well, it can't hurt to ask the mods on /r/space

They hosted Elon Musk's AMA there. Maybe they would consider it?

geoffc

7:04 PM

I have my question ready!!! What is the average speed of a laden sparrow?

PearsonArtPhoto

Uhm...

Next?

kim holder

@geoffc a north american sparrow or a european sparrow?

geoffc

@kimholder Eurpean or African! Sproing!

kim holder

(and now this is actually really what reddit is like.)

@geoffc there's no such thing as an african sparrow. besides, it should be pidgeon. shouldn't it?

my god, there is. and it wasn't pigeon. dear me.

i need to review my MP

Swallow! it was swllow.

geoffc

7:38 PM

Yes! Swallow!

geoffc

8:06 PM

I loved that entirely stupid minor plot point that became a running joke. The ones mocking the coconuts, and the swallow arguement. The troll at the bridge. And the two soldiers who tie a bird to a coconut as the camera pans by. So clever the writing.

Rory Alsop

8:26 PM

@PearsonArtPhoto - I have tested that out. You are right that it only copes with one monitor, but it's rather nice. I think I'll keep it on here.

PearsonArtPhoto

9:29 PM

@RoryAlsop Good to know it works on other machines:-)

I wouldn't complain about a rating either.

Rory Alsop

10:56 PM

@PearsonArtPhoto I will figure out how to do that...

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