I am stuck in the worst traffic jam in Paris since 10 years. Bah. Who cares? :D That was insane!
How about dat snow tho? Hope you made it home safe! :)
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
401–410 of 926 posts
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're showing your biases here. The other people on the livestream are also rocket scientists. They aren't PR people. They just happen to be younger, or women, or of color. So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated. Sorry to call you out like this, but these kinds of prejudices about who is the "correct" kind of person for tech jobs are harmful a…
On the other hand, there are indeed many scientists/engineers who look/act "nerdy" or don't have the suaveness of people we typically see on TV. I think what GP is saying is that typically companies will put forward people who are good-looking and charismatic for PR, so it's nice to see someone different and unpolished be center-stage in the public eye.
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Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ISS should count as major progress as well.
Should have, but didn't. At least not for manned spaceflight. We learned how to keep humans alive in space way back with the Gemini project. A long-duration orbital sojourn could have been had for the cost of the ISS. At the end of the day, I struggle to think of a single big thing we can do post-ISS that we couldn't without.
It may not make headlines, but the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price. For all its problems, that alone makes ISS worth it.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They just happen to be younger, or women, or of color. Maybe parent was referring to their mannerisms, rather than their appearance. It's not fair to jump to the assumption that parent was showing a bias against any of those variations in the human species.
To be pedantic, the poster did say "looks like" and: - "looks like" is associated with physical appearance - possibly things like clothes, jewelry, gender, hair, skin color, face, etc. - "sounds like" is associated with their speech - tone, accent, choice of diction - "acts like" is associated with physical behavior + speech But anyway, I think the point is that, we don't know what mabbo's intent was and 95% likely i…
We should also welcome pointing about the stupidity in assuming things always boil down to race/gender/sexual orientation.
It should be obvious that aesthetic stereotypes go far beyond race and gender. Here's 2 very stereotypically different white guys: http://ricerfiles.gizmore.org/images/20160629/28030-human-ha... and this: https://i1.adis.ws/i/Superdry_com/NS_MP_Hoodies_hb_right?qlt...
But to some people, they only think in race/gender/orientaion terms. We should fix that.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#405Can someone explain to me why are we sending a Tesla to Mars? I mean other than shits and giggles, is there any value in having it there? I assume putting stuff in the space is expensive and I wonder if that effort couldn't have gone to something more useful like a robot to look for water or whatever.
First flight of this vehicle configuration so it's a test flight. Most other test flights would just use a concrete mass simulator. Elon thought of something more interesting.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#406Can someone explain to me why are we sending a Tesla to Mars? I mean other than shits and giggles, is there any value in having it there? I assume putting stuff in the space is expensive and I wonder if that effort couldn't have gone to something more useful like a robot to look for water or whatever.
The short answer is: no. You're talking about an entirely different mission profile, at far greater difficulty and at a radically greater cost.
You need an advanced robot, reliable, highly tested, constructed by the best rover engineers on the planet. You need to spend years designing the overall program. You need to deliver the robot safely to the surface of Mars. You need to operate the program at non-trivial cost for an extended period of time to then look for water etc.
Add a few billion dollars to the cost, basically.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
I absolutely love that Musk is putting a car into Mars orbit. Assuming mankind doesn't have an extinction event (or dark ages event), it is extremely likely we'll populate the solar system over the next millenia. In 200 years, Martian children can look up in the sky and know that one of the quickly moving visible satellites is a hilarious, old-Earth car. Depending on how accessible orbit is from planets over the next…
It would be cooler if it was going to be in Mars orbit, but it is just going into an elliptical solar orbit that will vary in distance from the sun between Earth orbit and and Mars orbit.
Hmm, they said heliocentric several times. But it’s a cool orbit no matter how you slice the the pork chop. Pretty sure this is intended to be similar to a “mars cycler” orbit. A “mars cycler” is an interplanetary space station which follows a sort of transfer orbit between earth and mars. This provides a cushy radiation shielded environment for interplanetary travelers and economizes on propulsion by leveraging gravity assist. IIRC some guy named Aldrin came up the gist of the design.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They just happen to be younger, or women, or of color. Maybe parent was referring to their mannerisms, rather than their appearance. It's not fair to jump to the assumption that parent was showing a bias against any of those variations in the human species.
To be pedantic, the poster did say "looks like" and: - "looks like" is associated with physical appearance - possibly things like clothes, jewelry, gender, hair, skin color, face, etc. - "sounds like" is associated with their speech - tone, accent, choice of diction - "acts like" is associated with physical behavior + speech But anyway, I think the point is that, we don't know what mabbo's intent was and 95% likely i…
It reminds me of when I interviewed at Google.
At the end of one of my onsite interviews, while showing me out the door, the interviewer turned to me with a big smile and said "you really look like you fit in around here". I almost burst out laughing.
I guarantee he had no malice but I just found it funny for one tall, white dude with glasses to say that to another tall, white dude with glasses. And he was right, I did blend in pretty well.
You might argue that perhaps he wasn't referring to my appearance but rather my uhhh.... hand gestures while talking, but at some point you have to call a spade a spade.
I left without saying anything just because I feel awkward sometimes, but in retrosepct, I should have said something. He was so good-natured, I'm sure he would have genuinely appreciated me pointing out that certain people might find his words harmful.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#409Did they need to modify the Tesla to make it vacuum worthy? Like, remove any fluids, remove any parts that might explode in the hot or cold of space, deflate the tires, etc. Note: I'm more interested in a scientific answer, as opposed to casual conjectures. Preferably from an engineer knowledgeable of such things. And specifically, the materials sciences aspect of how materials will survive in a vacuum.
They have a bigass vacuum test chamber, you can bet they did their homework and every container that might end up pressurized had a hole in it to allow the leveling of the pressure. No point taking chances with something like this, it only has to look good, it doesn't have to drive.
> it only has to look good, it doesn't have to drive.
After all, where it's going it won't need roads.
Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone asked me to be a reference, I said no, they still put me as a reference anyway. I was not happy. Didn't badmouth him, but I also didn't say anything good about him. And when asked if I would hire him where I worked, I said no.
I asked permission from all of my references beforehand. Two were coworkers and the last was my previous team lead. I knew all of them had positive opinions regarding my work. The problem was BlueOrigin’s reference-questionnaire. One of my references shared it with me afterwards. It’s a stock template - except pretty much all the questions seem contrived to find reasons not to hire someone. One of the questions was a…
>Sometimes I think I wouldn’t even hire myself :)
Don't let other's words shape who you are.