The Junk Drawer

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
this is going to become the standard...things aren't going to be getting better any time soon...
Yep, so ya better make basic preparations and be prepared to be without essentials for a while. There is much the government can do however with essential businesses like banks, gas stations and grocery stores, in towns, villages and city districts to implement backup power, with backup generators or made so that towed or trucked ones can be easily hooked up. We live in a cashless society, and we also need to secure the fuel and food delivery systems. We need better back up as communities, being prepared oneself helps a lot, but your generator will need gas and your stove will need propane. Your car can charge your devices, keep you warm and provide radio news and a small DIY tin can wood gas or rocket stove burning twigs can keep you in hot coffee and cooked food.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
is a muddy field the best place to be parking heavy vehicles before an expected very heavy rainfall, do you think?
You would think they could find and airfield or air force base close by, but those things don't get stuck very easily! Looks like they have their work cut out for them, the damage appears more intense and local where it made landfall and it rapidly diminished to a cat 1 going over central Florida and was moving fast. Here Fiona stalled and we had near cat 3 sustained winds for over 12 hours in some cases. Ian in Florida was nearly a cat 5 when it came ashore, we only lost less than a half dozen people here, but I hear in Florida it could be in the hundreds. We are on higher ground here with frequent winter storms that rival hurricanes, so fewer flooding events and most houses on the coast built back from it.
 
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cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I’m setting up to watch Firefly Alpha get beta tested. Got the 20x100s on the back porch all lined up on the azimuth for Vandenberg. (And the obligatory frosty beverages chilling down.) The Minuteman launch taught me that a launch not to (the usual) polar orbit breaks horizon a coupla fields of view north (right) of the Falcon 9 sweet spot.

It’s a bit like watching Nascar expecting something unplanned. The first Alpha launch had an event.




edit: Everything is go!
Launch is set for 12:07am.

This energetic young man is giving us a live feed with much cool commentary. I’ll likely update post-launch. It is a beautiful and quite cool (70 degrees off the earlier high of 98 ) evening in meep meep country.


edit 2, circa 23:49 Thursday: Launch controllers were polled: Go. Count is in terminal mode. Riu is loading slowly for me, so off I go to watch the stream and check my optics.

00:05 Friday: soft abort, hold. Cause not disclosed. If the reset succeeds, launch could occur 45 minutes late. The window is open til 2am local. What I did see was a sudden increase in oxidizer venting fog and a loud hiss over audio. My engineering chops are not up to forming an opinion about that. Time for something incorporating chocolate.

00:33 Recycle under way. Controllers were polled: all Go. The new T0 — if they said it, I missed it. Perhaps 00:50.

00:44 Eight minutes out, new launch time 00:52.

00:52 Engine shutdown at T minus one second. Possible opportunity for another recycle.

01:10 They’re defueling. No launch tonight.
 
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Lucky Luke

Well-Known Member
More so the other parts, not so much the fancy boat part.
That's a bit heartless. For lots of people that's their home.
Cheap waterfront property for lots of people.
My yacht club is cheaper per night than the local caravan (trailor) park
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Firefly Alpha looks to be on for tonight — technically Saturday morning. Launch window is same as this am. 0001h to 0201h, to adopt the military idiom. Got the optics aligned.

Vicarious Launch Operations lead reports dessert is internal, and beverage chilldown is proceeding nominally. Meteorology reports clear and visibility unlimited, with a nipple-crinkling breeze from the southwest.

Live stream starts in about an hour.

2342h: go for terminal count. They say that yesterday’s “light’m up and shut’m down” event at T-0:01 was from a sensor in one of the four stage 1 engines reporting conditions not quite right.

10/01/0010h: A fine launch! Count and ignition were without a hitch.

At T+0:55 (approximately; the webcast was near-live with maybe a 20 second delay) it broke local horizon — about as bright as Jupiter from my location 150 miles eastish. It was very nice in the 20x100s on a ball mount “tight enough to point, loose enough to track”. Orange-yellow flame, and with the binocular field providing a fixed angular (field of view) reference, the acceleration was evident.
At that point I abandoned my count (I count seconds within a coupla percent) and watched. The plume grew longer, wider, less dense, and a bright leading point (likely hot engine bells) kept climbing.
The flame went faint, long and blue — went out — five seconds of dark, and the second stage lit, whiter than the stage 1 exhaust.
For the next three minutes, the dot of the burning engine made just enough light to illuminate the exhaust plume that got wider and wider as the air thinned out. That big vacuum bell is radiatively cooled and orange-hot. Then it was a faint (magnitude 7 or 8?) dot arcing down to the horizon.
I lost it at about T+06:20, less than a degree above local horizon. Less than a minute later, the exuberant presenter called out engine cutoff. The stage and payload successfully arrived in a retrograde orbit.

Time to hug the pup and go to bed, savoring the cool desert night breeze.

I hope they’ll launch a Falcon or something an hour or two before sunup. It would be wicked cool to see the upper stage emerge into sunlight.
 
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cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
It’s based on the Ami, which embodies ugly cute.

 

Lucky Luke

Well-Known Member
"China has been eating Russia's lunch in the far east economically for many years," Mr D'Anieri said.

"That shift from Russia to China is only going to continue."

 
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