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The amazing thing to me is that SpaceX appears to have said, effectively, "Another launch? Yeah, we can fit you in next month." Suppose the Falcon 9/Heavy were grounded for six months. How far away are either ULA or BO from being in a position to say even, "Yeah, we can fit you in before the...

Probably off-topic, so feel free to down vote if so. One consequence of the Iran fighting is that Qatar's helium production is offline indefinitely. They produce about 35% of the global total. Spot prices have about doubled. NASA will probably get as much as they need. Still, it raises the...

My son's SO owns one of the latest batch of Leafs Nissan has identified with defective battery cells. The defect makes them more prone to overheating and catching fire when fast charging. Nissan says there will eventually be a software fix, but in the meantime, "Do not fast charge." Her...

One of the seldom-mentioned reasons that wind and solar are so popular in most of the US Western Interconnect states is that they are semi-arid, and looking worse. Thermal power plants that consume cooling water are a problem. The NuScale UAMPS project at the INL -- since cancelled -- was...

It's not a bad place, though. Wyoming is not opposed to the project. The locals around Kemmerer are not opposed to the project. Warren Buffett is involved because he owns PacifiCorp, which provides a site with a big-enough existing substation connected to a HV transmission infrastructure that...

Also Berkshire Hathaway (formerly Warren Buffett, who has now retired). Berkshire owns PacifiCorp, who owns the site where the reactor is being built, the substation that connects the power generator to the transmission network, 17,500 mile of high-voltage transmission, and utilities from...

That was my immediate question: How long can NASA keep the ISS safely in orbit and safe for the crew if the Russians stop playing along?

My complaint about the use of national data is the US is split across three interconnects, with minimal power transfer between them. Each has its own history -- eg, the vast majority of nuclear power is in the Eastern -- and its own set of constraints. There's not one problem to solve, but three.

On the subject of Boeing's software, I seem to recall that after Starliner was docked, and the possibility of an uncrewed return flight began to be discussed, the mission software load did not include the option of undocking without a human on board to push some button. Some amount of updated...

Even ignoring the issue of scale -- the Heavy booster is a lot more mass, surface area, etc than the Falcon 9 booster -- the final maneuvering is a whole new thing. The Falcon 9 hoverslam is conceptually much simpler. The Heavy has to actually hover, possibly rotate into correct alignment...

This seems like an unfortunate turn of phrase.

Re nationalization... US law requires that owners be compensated at fair market price whenever there's a "taking". SpaceX is supposed to have an IPO this year with an initial value somewhere between $800B and $1.5T. NASA's annual budget this year is just under $25B. So, more than 30 years of...

Are there technical journals that don't get (illegally) copied and posted at Sci-Hub, or Library Genesis?

This may have been answered elsewhere, but if the Russians can't launch Progress vehicles for several months/couple of years, what does it do to maintaining the ISS's orbit height? Do the US (and Japan now, maybe) have enough capacity to do orbit maintenance without Russia?

Anyone else wondering if BE-4 deliveries to ULA for Vulcan will affect BO's launch tempo?

You get used to the way rockets using strap-on solid-fuel boosters -- Vulcan, Ariane, Atlas V, the Shuttle -- look like they just leap off the pad.

You need tons of something that can remove heat from the chips/blades, then away from the racks. For supercomputers today, the most common arrangement is pumped water: readily available, high heat capacity, non-toxic, simple additives make it non-corrosive. One commonly used figure is that an...

All of them seem to be working very hard to avoid the financial risks of being self-sufficient in power for their data centers on the ground, but eager to take on the much larger financial risks of being self-sufficient in orbit?

The Europeans release their AI model's forecasts, labeled as experimental. So far as I can see, that wasn't included in the models shown in the graphics.

Construction for the non-nuclear parts of the Gates/Buffett fast-neutron reactor in Wyoming has already started. Recently the NRC approved the final environmental impact statement for the project. The final safety approval for the nuclear portion is expected to be issued in the next few...