There was a pizza company that for a while equipped its delivery drivers with electric motorbikes.  The motorbikes of course had to make electronic noises, per regulations, but as long as you’re having them make sounds, why not have them make sounds appropriate to the product?  Apparently they had them go…

Random factoid: TIE fighters and A-10s sound oddly similar.  (Except, of course, when they’re shooting.  A TIE simply does not BRRRT.)

I like this idea.  :-)

They do apparently have sensors that can detect the chatter, since they were able to use recorded data from those sensors to count the cycles the valve had experienced during the episodes of chatter, so I suppose the question is why they don’t have telemetry on those sensors. However, I do question whether it’s as…

It’s not. ValveTech said they weren’t comfortable with launching today with this valve. (They made the valve.) ULA agreed with their recommendation and rolled the vehicle back to the Vertical Integration Facility) so they can replace the valve with a new one.

Along with the implication that it’s yet another Boeing whistleblower, when it’s neither Boeing nor a whistleblower. It’s a supplier to ULA indicating that they are not comfortable with it flying with this part.  And guess what?  ULA agrees.  They rolled back to replace it instead of pressing forward with a second…

This comment needs all of the stars.  The cognitive dissonance alone in alleged physician Sean Hollonbeck should be enough to melt anyone’s brain.

First flight went well! That was very, very good to see.  I am already missing the Delta IV Heavy fireball, but they really need something that can compete and serve more customers than just national security launches, and Vulcan can be it.

Apology very much accepted, and respected as well! I hope that means you were having a good night. ;-)

Sorry to hear that. :-( They do amazingly cool stuff, and make some incredible vehicles. But the industry got absolutely clobbered in the 2000s. Not by SpaceX; this was before SpaceX came along. As a space geek, it was so exciting to see all of the amazing things coming up, and then so devastating to see it all…

Oh, and technically, Lockheed (well, originally GD Convair) designed the rocket. ULA, which operates the rocket, is owned by Lockheed and Boeing, but the Atlas 5 was designed by Lockheed prior to the formation of ULA.  Boeing’s contribution to ULA was the Delta IV.  The Centaur upper stage’s design legacy goes back to…

You might want to reread my post if you thought I was defending Boeing. ;-) I just described two gigantic screwups on their part that dwarf the billion dollar overrun on Starliner.

There is value to building these kinds of androids, but it’s mostly in the research sphere — that is to say, it’s a valuable exercise that pushes forward the state of the art by driving improvements in a lot of necessary subsystems, but it’s not a useful product in and of itself.

And for all those saying “but it’s generic, it can do many different jobs,” remember — each of those different jobs would have to be done by a single Optimus, nonstop, forever, for this to make sense. And if one Optimus is just doing one job, what’s the point of a stupidly expensive general purpose robot instead of a…

The government had to approve of the merger for several reasons. Firstly, because it would create a monopoly, and generally mergers that produce monopolies aren’t allowed by the FTC. Secondly, because it went against the whole point of the EELV program, which was to ensure competition would exist. But Boeing’s…

An excellent channel that more should view.  :-)

I think it relates to how rarely they’ve had to be used.  It’s sort of like the Cirrus airframe parachutes -- rarely needed, but damn, when you need ‘em, you’re sure glad they’re there.

You’re welcome! I’m an avid space geek, and as you might have guessed, I’m in the industry as well. FIA is quite a bit more obscure, since it’s an NRO program, so I can understand why it’s not well known. But it still amazes me how quickly the Delta IV pricing scandal faded from public consciousness, because while the…

Thank you, you’re very kind! I used to write a blog, Fractal Wonder, and I wrote for Mental Floss for a while. Been too busy to write regularly for a long time. (Basically, my kids got older. :-D )

Well, apparently Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams. ;-)  But they have to climb out and climb back in again later -- there was an issue with a valve on the Centaur booster, so ULA decided to call a scrub.