Nuclear needs a limited resource, NASA has enough plutonium for a single-digit number of future RTG missions. So they were never going to devote that inventory to a tech demo, which is what Ingenuity was. (It’s no longer a “demo” but they didn’t know how well it would work when it launched.)

Weight is also a huge…

It hasn’t been hit with one of those big months-long dust storms yet, thankfully. But when it does, it might not have enough battery to shake it off when it’s over. And those dust storms can make the sky very dark, so it wouldn’t be able to recharge even if the solar panel was clear.

Amazing that this thing was only planned for 5 flights, and is now on flight 54. It has turned from a tech demo to doing reconnaissance for Percy, still running 2.5 years later. Someday the dust will get it, like all the solar powered rovers before it, but not yet. (Curiosity and Perseverance are nuclear powered, so…

It could be orbital/tidal energy from the moons. Phobos loses 1.8cm/year in altitude, and will eventually cross the Roche lobe and fall apart into a ring.

Businesses? That’s even more weird. Who pays extra money to site their business on a lake unless the business needs the lake? (And how many businesses can really use one small lake?)

but it goes without saying that you really should get out of your car on a highway unless you absolutely have to.

Yeah, but they play with their toys when they arrive at an anchorage, not the middle of the ocean where these orcas seem to be operating. And most of their toys are power, not sail, so they don’t have huge rudders.

The oligarchs usually have much bigger boats.

I certainly wasn’t trying to minimize it. But “byproduct” has a specific definition, which is that CO2 is produced which is not the primary product of the process. The word does not make a value judgement about how much CO2 is produced. And steam reforming certainly produces more CO2 than a similarly powerful methane…

But 42 is not the question.

Yeah, wake us up when it figures out how to say “I don’t know” instead of confidently spouting nonsense. (And I don’t mean the current practice of placing some topics off-limits in the limiting instructions.)

Sounds like they already went that route when designing one of the toys for an in-game robot. But that won’t help them release it for PS5.

He could change his name to Elon MuX

The whole point of the deposit is to say you are serious about it. If you’re the one who walks away, the deposit is usually forfeit. But if they change the deal, they should be refunding the deposit.

So far, their military structure has been amazingly bad. Ukraine has been really good at using modern tactics, which has been just important tot their success so far as having modern weapons. But Russia has also contributed to that by having horrible tactics, horrible logistics, and horrible leadership. A future…

Agree that Russia owes some serious reparations, but I’m also wary: Post-WWI reparations are often cited as a contributing factor to the rise of the Nazi party in pre-WWII Germany. I hope for better results in the future, but we may have to settle for having Ukraine be whole again without all the punitive measures…

This part of the rocket apparently uses a solid fuel, which should have been fully combusted by the time it came down. It is not the kind that uses any of the really toxic hypergolics, but any remnant could be slightly toxic to handle.

It’s simpler than that. She can try to buy it from Eric, at whatever price he demands. He might say no.

She had that option back in March, for much less than the auction price. Too late now. The gavel dropped, it’s sold.

Very carefully? I’ve been following Voyager’s operations (as reported in media) since the 90's so I’m familiar with the how we got here for the most part, and many of the magic tricks, close calls, and compromises in that time. And it still amazes me we can pick up that little 23-watt transmitter from so far away.…