131–140 of 269 posts
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Yes, the red light is supposed to mean that they failed to boost enough to be able to glide back to their target runway. But... they did anyway? Apparently? Something is missing from this account.
Typically warning lights appear when the thing they warn about is impending, not that you've past the point. Otherwise they would be useless, except for existential mockery.
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There are other flaws too. Like pretending to bike to the spaceport on the day of, but it was actually filmed the week before and when called out, they said, oops, you're right, sorry! It's like when Guy Fiery in his hot rod. He pretends he rolls up to the place in his 70s hot rod, but actually it's just rolled out of the truck that lugs it around from location to location and he opens the door, sits, gets filmed get…
OK. That's it! I draw the line at Guy Fieri slander! That's not fakery. That's every classic car owner's dream. You get to show off the hot rod and not put miles on it. I am sure he does plenty of joyriding in that thing. Guy is anything but phony. He is actually one of thee more wholesome dudes on television ATM. We need more Guy Fieri's.
I didn't get why the orange or red light is scary. Because it could mean landing in the desert when you are a glider?
For reference, here's a video of a Boing 727 landing in the desert: https://youtu.be/kJZ1eHU_JZg?t=51 It doesn't go terribly well.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Boeing_727_crash_experime...
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20130129040232/http://alum.mit.e...
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> It's like when Guy Fiery in his hot rod. Better than driving on a real road whilst talking to a camera off to the side, no? Every car scene in every movie and TV show is "fake" too, just so you know.
Steve McQueen wants you to hold his beer.[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJZ-BHBKyos
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What about that is deserving of respect? Edit: This was an honest question, and I was hoping for an answer that would help me to understand. It's a shame that this is getting downvoted rather than someone enlightening me.
The pilots' willingness to risk their lives for an historic flight. It's a bit of a machismo thing, but it takes guts to do that, and a certain amount of comfort around risk.
I recommend Schmidle’s recent book “Test Gods” if you are interested in Virgin Galactic and test piloting. Schmidle is not an engineer and I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into Virgin Galactic’s design choices, but it is a great book about (among other things) the tensions that emerge when a complex technical project is overseen from a distance by utterly nontechnical, PR-oriented upper management. The company’s co…
SpaceShipTwo (and SpaceShipOne) are fascinating to me because they're so _not_ general purpose vehicles, yet are sold and in most cases perceived as such. SS1 was conceived by one of the most creative designers in aviation as a point solution for the X-Prize contest - the minimal design/implementation to precisely solve that problem in the most cost effective way possible (as detailed in "Test Gods"). This cobbled to…
I recommend Schmidle’s recent book “Test Gods” if you are interested in Virgin Galactic and test piloting. Schmidle is not an engineer and I would have enjoyed a deeper dive into Virgin Galactic’s design choices, but it is a great book about (among other things) the tensions that emerge when a complex technical project is overseen from a distance by utterly nontechnical, PR-oriented upper management. The company’s co…
Agreed about the chickens and it will have a broader negative impact than the $SPCE stock price. Fundamentally I think it’s a culture problem. Collaborative engineering that identifies problems, views them as opportunities, doesn’t finger-point, and works each problem. Versus a sales and marketing organization with hard deadlines and a 100% focus on perception and revenue targets. We don’t need an Apollo 1 in the pri…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the red light is supposed to mean that they failed to boost enough to be able to glide back to their target runway. But... they did anyway? Apparently? Something is missing from this account.
Typically warning lights appear when the thing they warn about is impending, not that you've past the point. Otherwise they would be useless, except for existential mockery.
Much like every human navigator I've ever had who has been as unhelpful as possible.
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OK. That's it! I draw the line at Guy Fieri slander! That's not fakery. That's every classic car owner's dream. You get to show off the hot rod and not put miles on it. I am sure he does plenty of joyriding in that thing. Guy is anything but phony. He is actually one of thee more wholesome dudes on television ATM. We need more Guy Fieri's.
There have been so many seemingly respectable celebrities that we've gotten to know only to find out they're not really so great. I feel like Guy Fieri is the exact opposite - when I first saw him on TV I just knew this guy sucked. The car, the attitude, the hair - something just rubbed me the wrong way. But the more I've learned about him - his advocacy for gay marriage, his relief for restaurant workers during the…
For example the Nike corporation. Some groups have heaped praise on them for supporting Kaepernick and related social justice protests. But was it altruism? Of course not. Their market research simply showed that their customers tended to feel passionately about that issue. So they did the math and calculated that the revenue they’d lose by taking a public position was more than made up for with what they’d lose, and better than if they’d remain neutral too - as their founder said “It doesn’t matter how many people hate your brand as long as enough people love it.”. Consider too that Nike now sells a majority of their product overseas to a very American-skeptic market.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/when-i...