Space X

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mbasic
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Re: Space X

#101

Post by mbasic » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:04 am

I just think most of this 'stuff' has reached an asymptote of sorts...its glamourizing reinventing the wheel ...
As you say, the rocket stuff is/was already sorted out pretty well.
Chemical rockets haven't and aren't going to change much due to chemistry (we're taking getting thru and out the atmosphere here).

Guns/rifles haven't improved much in terms of ballistics or killing power of the bullet. (optics and shit, sure)

B-52? .... better engines and avionics and that's it.

An excavator looks about the same now as 50 years ago.

SpaceX? sure its great. I guess my real beef is with the Elonites ... like he's some kind of Jesus-Warren-Buffet-Iacocca-business-genius.

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Re: Space X

#102

Post by mikeylikey » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:15 am

mbasic wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:04 am I just think most of this 'stuff' has reached an asymptote of sorts...its glamourizing reinventing the wheel ...
A lot of people were thinking that in the early 1900s. Then Rutherford discovered the atom...

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Re: Space X

#103

Post by aurelius » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:24 am

Hardartery wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:29 amNo. There are not. There is zero discretion afforded to government employees in this, so as to avoid corruption issues.
I spent the last 2 years working as a private consultant managing public infrastructure projects for public entities. Part of my job included creating the bid documents, managing the bid process, and awarding the bid (we make the recommendation and the public entity awards). Not one public entity I worked for awarded projects to the lowest bidder. All had adopted codes and statutes that created a weighted criteria to award public projects. The overall bid cost was one of 7 to 10 categories the bidders were ranked by.

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Re: Space X

#104

Post by SnakePlissken » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:28 am

mikeylikey wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:15 am
mbasic wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:04 am I just think most of this 'stuff' has reached an asymptote of sorts...its glamourizing reinventing the wheel ...
A lot of people were thinking that in the early 1900s. Then Rutherford discovered the atom...
In the 21st century I think it's going to be the discovery of gravitational waves and learning to manipulate them.

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Re: Space X

#105

Post by mikeylikey » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:37 am

SnakePlissken wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:28 am
mikeylikey wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:15 am
mbasic wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:04 am I just think most of this 'stuff' has reached an asymptote of sorts...its glamourizing reinventing the wheel ...
A lot of people were thinking that in the early 1900s. Then Rutherford discovered the atom...
In the 21st century I think it's going to be the discovery of gravitational waves and learning to manipulate them.

Nah, it will be the unification of GR and QM with string theory.

@Savs

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Re: Space X

#106

Post by SnakePlissken » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:49 am

mikeylikey wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:37 am
SnakePlissken wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:28 am
mikeylikey wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:15 am
mbasic wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:04 am I just think most of this 'stuff' has reached an asymptote of sorts...its glamourizing reinventing the wheel ...
A lot of people were thinking that in the early 1900s. Then Rutherford discovered the atom...
In the 21st century I think it's going to be the discovery of gravitational waves and learning to manipulate them.

Nah, it will be the unification of GR and QM with string theory.

@Savs
I'm of the thinking that gravitational waves have helped corroborate GR and it will be understood 100 years from now, but we'll have even more questions come out of that. Or, we all are dead by then or trying to figure out how the hell to get off Earth ASAP.

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Re: Space X

#107

Post by Hardartery » Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:42 pm

mikeylikey wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 9:07 am
Hardartery wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:29 am e]
No. There are not. There is zero discretion afforded to government employees in this, so as to avoid corruption issues.
Image
I have actually bid, and won, government contracts for construction projects. I speak from first hand experience. I have seen guys lose a contract by $50, on a multi-million dollar bid. How about you? This isn't where the corruption is, it's hidden a lot better than that. The open contracts for things like fighter jer development are where the dirty stuff happens, in spite of audits and watchdogs. Straight up bids are actually pretty fair to the tax payer, the numbers are high relative to a residential project, but there's a lot less profit than you think - there are a lot of extra hoops and regs in government work that add up. The way to make money on those contracts is to do what Trumps and his daddy did, stiff the subs. There's a line where it doesn't pay to sue when you get screwed, and they know where that line is. You flat out rob the subs by stiffing them for completed work and they have to sue for their rightful money. That doesn't affect the government/taxpayer end, it screws Joe Plumber and company.

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Re: Space X

#108

Post by Hardartery » Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:47 pm

aurelius wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:24 am
Hardartery wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:29 amNo. There are not. There is zero discretion afforded to government employees in this, so as to avoid corruption issues.
I spent the last 2 years working as a private consultant managing public infrastructure projects for public entities. Part of my job included creating the bid documents, managing the bid process, and awarding the bid (we make the recommendation and the public entity awards). Not one public entity I worked for awarded projects to the lowest bidder. All had adopted codes and statutes that created a weighted criteria to award public projects. The overall bid cost was one of 7 to 10 categories the bidders were ranked by.
Every job that I bid, from school to highway rest area, went to the lowest qualified bidder with zero wiggle. Every one. All the bids were publisged after the fact. Even when they knew the bidder had screwed up and was lower because he left something off (The roof of the structure in one instance, he literally forgot to add the cost of the roof to the bid). That's the statute every where I've bid. Everyone has to be a qualified bidder, low price wins. The only finagling was in offers to minority companies and that sort of formality. Forgetting to advertise for bids from minorities would be a problem.

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Re: Space X

#109

Post by mikeylikey » Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:48 pm

Hardartery wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:42 pm This isn't where the corruption is,
HA. This proves you are wrong. The Corruption is eeeeverywhere.

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Re: Space X

#110

Post by aurelius » Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:09 pm

Hardartery wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:47 pmEvery job that I bid, from school to highway rest area, went to the lowest qualified bidder with zero wiggle. Every one. All the bids were publisged after the fact. Even when they knew the bidder had screwed up and was lower because he left something off (The roof of the structure in one instance, he literally forgot to add the cost of the roof to the bid). That's the statute every where I've bid. Everyone has to be a qualified bidder, low price wins. The only finagling was in offers to minority companies and that sort of formality. Forgetting to advertise for bids from minorities would be a problem.
I had a few towns in Oklahoma in the mid-2000's that did strictly 'qualified' lowest bidder. The 'qualified' list was joke. Those projects never went well.

Basically lowest bidder is a terrible way to select bids. It rewards either
1) Idiots that didn't understand the project and bid it wrong
2) Crooks that plan on Shanghaiing the City once they have everything ripped up and the City can't say no
3) Good contractors that are squeezed by 1 and 2

My recent experience was in the Dallas metro area of Texas. I will say it was nice using a weighted system to select contractors. Every project I worked on had good contractors over that 2 years that finished on time and within the budget.

Different areas of the country have different rules for selecting bidders. At that same company we won contracts with USACE, FEMA, State of Louisiana, multiple DOT's and DEQ's. The selection process is unique for each one, byzantine, and we were graded on multiple criteria.

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Re: Space X

#111

Post by Hardartery » Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:13 pm

aurelius wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:09 pm
Hardartery wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:47 pmEvery job that I bid, from school to highway rest area, went to the lowest qualified bidder with zero wiggle. Every one. All the bids were publisged after the fact. Even when they knew the bidder had screwed up and was lower because he left something off (The roof of the structure in one instance, he literally forgot to add the cost of the roof to the bid). That's the statute every where I've bid. Everyone has to be a qualified bidder, low price wins. The only finagling was in offers to minority companies and that sort of formality. Forgetting to advertise for bids from minorities would be a problem.
I had a few towns in Oklahoma in the mid-2000's that did strictly 'qualified' lowest bidder. The 'qualified' list was joke. Those projects never went well.

Basically lowest bidder is a terrible way to select bids. It rewards either
1) Idiots that didn't understand the project and bid it wrong
2) Crooks that plan on Shanghaiing the City once they have everything ripped up and the City can't say no
3) Good contractors that are squeezed by 1 and 2

My recent experience was in the Dallas metro area of Texas. I will say it was nice using a weighted system to select contractors. Every project I worked on had good contractors over that 2 years that finished on time and within the budget.

Different areas of the country have different rules for selecting bidders. At that same company we won contracts with USACE, FEMA, State of Louisiana, multiple DOT's and DEQ's. The selection process is unique for each one, byzantine, and we were graded on multiple criteria.
I was mostly in NC. I know there were issues with some, but the penalties for missing the deadline were wicked, so stuff got done and it wasn't super easy to be qualified.

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Re: Space X

#112

Post by KyleSchuant » Fri Mar 05, 2021 10:38 pm

mbasic wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:04 am I just think most of this 'stuff' has reached an asymptote of sorts...its glamourizing reinventing the wheel ...
There's a whole book about that, The Decadent Society.

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Re: Space X

#113

Post by aurelius » Wed Mar 17, 2021 9:49 am

NASA does it again!

Why do we spend money on space exploration? because of shit like this:

https://gizmodo.com/nasas-nearly-indest ... 1846488605

This material and materials like it will be common place in a decade. Basically any application where a strong, light material that can regain its shape after being deformed. NASA had a special need (see strong, durable, light materials), spent millions on research, and created something that simply would not have been looked at by private industry. Add this to the very long list of things developed for space exploration that will be adopted by multiple industries and drive innovation for decades to come.

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Re: Space X

#114

Post by mikeylikey » Tue Mar 30, 2021 9:32 am

Well, dammit.

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mbasic
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Re: Space X

#115

Post by mbasic » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:31 pm

aurelius wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 9:49 am NASA does it again!

Why do we spend money on space exploration? because of shit like this:

https://gizmodo.com/nasas-nearly-indest ... 1846488605

This material and materials like it will be common place in a decade. Basically any application where a strong, light material that can regain its shape after being deformed. NASA had a special need (see strong, durable, light materials), spent millions on research, and created something that simply would not have been looked at by private industry. Add this to the very long list of things developed for space exploration that will be adopted by multiple industries and drive innovation for decades to come.
We need tech like this...
..to make it more feasible for space travel,
... to allow mining the moon and assteroids,
.... for more of the required raw materials for said tech-materials,
..... to build titanium pneumatic tires for my wife's uber cool mountain bike,
...... that sits in the garage,
....... while she rides a pelaton in the den,
........ all the while taking commands from a gay guy yelling at her on the screen.
.
.
.
.
that is all

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mbasic
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Re: Space X

#116

Post by mbasic » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:40 pm

Article:
features a more ordered atomic structure and exhibits something known as the shape memory effect,
which allows it to be deformed but return to its original manufactured shape again and again without permanent damage.
.... this is how you wind up with ....

Image


good job science

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Re: Space X

#117

Post by mikeylikey » Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:18 am

mbasic wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:31 pm
aurelius wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 9:49 am NASA does it again!

Why do we spend money on space exploration? because of shit like this:

https://gizmodo.com/nasas-nearly-indest ... 1846488605

This material and materials like it will be common place in a decade. Basically any application where a strong, light material that can regain its shape after being deformed. NASA had a special need (see strong, durable, light materials), spent millions on research, and created something that simply would not have been looked at by private industry. Add this to the very long list of things developed for space exploration that will be adopted by multiple industries and drive innovation for decades to come.
We need tech like this...
..to make it more feasible for space travel,
... to allow mining the moon and assteroids,
.... for more of the required raw materials for said tech-materials,
..... to build titanium pneumatic tires for my wife's uber cool mountain bike,
...... that sits in the garage,
....... while she rides a pelaton in the den,
........ all the while taking commands from a gay guy yelling at her on the screen.
.
.
.
.
that is all
Agree. I maintain that the main benefit of spaceflight (manned and unmanned) is simply spaceflight. Unmanned is easy: satellites are insanely useful for all kinds of reasons. More than enough to justify their cost. Manned spaceflight seems to inspire kids to want to be scientists, and maybe I have an irrational soft spot for it but it's just damn cool and the world is more awesome because people fly to space.



That occasionally an offshoot technology can be tangentially linked to something NASA was also working on is not to me a persuasive argument that the billions of dollars spent getting there was worth it for the offshoot benefits. It's not like humanity was just sitting around on their hands before spaceflight. We even had Radios. Industry has enough incentives to build a better bike tire, to the extent that the market values such a thing. I suspect that to most lay people it comes across as about as good an argument as "give tax cuts to the rich and the benefits will trickle down to all of us. It is a stretch at best and I think it's a strategic mistake for space advocates to spend much time focusing on it.

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Re: Space X

#118

Post by JonA » Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:13 am

mikeylikey wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:18 am That occasionally an offshoot technology can be tangentially linked to something NASA was also working on is not to me a persuasive argument
Yep. I still can't get no tang around here.

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Re: Space X

#119

Post by mikeylikey » Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:32 am

Don't forget, also, that basically since immediately after WWII, industry started calling everything "space-age" this and "rocket" that. It's good marketing to say your product was "developed by NASA" regardless of how tenuous that link may actually be. It's a symbiotic PR dream.

Or maybe I'm wrong and Orbit Gum was created for astronauts with special properties that allow it to keep its flavor in zero G.

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Re: Space X

#120

Post by JonA » Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:10 pm

mikeylikey wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:32 am Don't forget, also, that basically since immediately after WWII, industry started calling everything "space-age" this and "rocket" that. It's good marketing to say your product was "developed by NASA" regardless of how tenuous that link may actually be. It's a symbiotic PR dream.

Or maybe I'm wrong and Orbit Gum was created for astronauts with special properties that allow it to keep its flavor in zero G.
It's kind of fun to think of "space-age" as actually being 50+ year old technology. From back before the turn of the century.

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