It’s also a tribute to the genius of Korolev and the other great Soviet engineers. Think about it: the current version of the R-7 is Soyuz, and it is still launched from the same “pad” from which an R-7 put Sputnik 1 into orbit in 1957 and Gagarin in 1961. Its American counterpart, as the respective first kerosene/LOX…

Mr. Texas : Nonsense! The Soviets or Russians have lost only four cosmonauts on missions, one on the first Soyuz flight in 1967, three on Soyuz 11 after a Salyut space station stay in 1971, whereas the US has lost fourteen astronauts during flight (in 1986 and 2003). The Soviets lost one astronaut in a ground…

The really big decrease comes from delidding. That is because from about Haswell onwards, Intel in their Core processors have used thermal paste instead of solder to make contact between the CPU die and the integrated heat spreader (the top of the CPU that you normally see). There are people on the Web who perform…

Several points: (1) Space X have previously obtained at least one licence from NOAA, for a MicroSat a few years ago. (2) One of the legally mandated functions of NOAA in this matter is protecting Israel. The second stage would have passed over the Middle East shortly after releasing its payload. Likewise, USAF…

As I explain elsewhere here, I think the Crystal’s story is more plausible than the alternative, i.e. that Fitzgerald made a massive turn to port into Crystal’s path.

All of this discussion is based without referral to Fitzgerald’s known course. According to the published “Supplemental Timeline of Events” attached to the “Supplemental Preliminary Inquiry”, Fitzgerald was on a course of 230 degrees (SW), while the AIS data shows that ACX Crystal was on 88 degrees (E). The Inquiry on…

There’s something odd here. According to the published “Supplemental Timeline of Events”, Fitzgerald was on a course of 230 degrees (SW), while the AIS data shows that ACX Crystal was on 88 degrees (E). The Supplemental Preliminary Inquiry on page 3 shows the relative positions of the ships at the moment of…

I think this is not the closest approach by a large asteroid since NASA has observed asteroids (though not necessarily systematically searching for them). In 1994, 1620 Geographos approached within 5 million kilometres of Earth, and in 1969 it came within 9 million km. It is 5km x 2km x 2km, very shiny for an asteroid…