eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Did you ever read "Tranquility Alternative" by Allen Steele? 100
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 05/09/2026It's really incredible to see people still liking it to this day, which is now 15 years old! I got to meet so many people and think about so many fun things through writing Eyes with Workable Goblin. 030
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Always. Forever. The Virginian should never have been made to wait. 010
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026In the first, he exposed the image longer to get enough of the dim moonglow lighting the nightside to show colors, & the stars that show are all brighter & there's more sunglow over the horizon. In the 2nd, a shorter exposure makes city lights stand out more, & the stars and sunglow are less. 000
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026Compare these two images Reid Wiseman took with different exposure settings of the night side of the Earth, where you can see the differences in the stars and the sun glow coming up over the limb of the Earth as he changed exposure. fixupx.com/NASA/status/...fixupx.comNASA (@NASA)These two images were taken by @astro_reid only minutes apart. The stark difference is the result of camera settings. In the first, a longer shutter speed let in much more light from Earth, while the ... 210
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 06/04/2026I think it has to do with relative brightness? Like, if you're exposing so the bright side isn't totally whiteing out your camera's sensors and you get color on the day side, the night side isn't exposed long enough for the city lights to show up? 010
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 04/02/2026You may be referencing something in poll data like these from Gallup? I can't find the specific ones you reference, though. ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/G... ibiblio.org/pha/Gallup/G... 100
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026So that's how Musk had a part in how Kistler and then Rocketplane Kistler died, and how his financial distortion field ended up making it maybe possible for others later to succeed where Kistler couldn't. K-1 had all sorts of messy business and design, but I kind of love the beer bottle anyway. 8/8 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026Once SpaceX succeeded with COTS, won additional contracts, and kept launching, it got a lot easier for people like Beck at Rocketlabs or the Relativity or Stoke or all the various smallsat launch companies to go to venture capital or SPAC to raise massive amounts of money to survive to fly. 7/8 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026Rules of COTS was if you failed to meet milestones, that meant losing the contract and any unspent money. So contract pulled, RPK died. NASA rebid, but with abbreviated reqmnts. Orbital Sciences won with Cygnus. This is why Cygnus wasn't req'd to have cargo return or other stuff Dragon has. 6/8 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026Because Kistler had tapped a lot of their limits like a decade prior raising their initial $500m & because NASA didn't issue confirmation of intent to buy actual operational flights until too late, Rocketplane Kistler failed to raise the last 10% or so of the private money on time. 5/8 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026So Elon and a merged-and-zombified "Rocketplane Kistler" won the two slots. The milestone payments meant Kistler (and SpaceX) could get NASA money for progress before actual flight, which would fix Kistler's revenue problems. Problem was it req'd private match funds on schedule. 4/8 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026I don't have _proof_ (haven't gotten to interview the right folks), but the timing and what conversations and publications I'm aware of lead me to think that some of the COTS ISS cargo contract idea came from this a year or so later in 2005/2006. Competitive bid, two winners, milestone payments. 3/8 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026Musk sued over the sole source contract saying, hey, anyone could build an RLV and provide that data (RTLS 1st stage perfmnc, supersonc retropropulsn, 2nd stage TPS performance tests, etc). The GAO (gov. accountability office) agreed it should have been competitively bid and NASA yanked the $. 2/8 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/01/2026Microblogging is a bad platform for this, please forgive a truncated explanation. During 2004, when the original Kistler was fighting bankruptcy, NASA issued a potentially $227m contract for RLV flight data. Kistler still had to raise money to fly, but it was some assured revenue if they did. 1/8 131
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 09/01/2026As always, money issues (at least long story short). Especially before the Musk distortion field made it easier to do VC raises for space companies. RPK missed deadlines on match money for NASA COTS, lost the K-1 COTS, and without that it made it even harder to raise money for the rocket plane. 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 30/12/2025Maybe try and just totally sunk cost them into finding the money for the station boxes on dug-and-lined tunnel, and see how many infill stations they suddenly want to fund, something like that. Very silly idea obviously but if the tunnel is like $100m/mile, why not try it on a multi-billion project? 000
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 30/12/2025I hate it when my TBM isn't equipped for the right souls. It's a moral crisis. True though about the rock and soil differences, which is (jokingly) the only acceptable reason to stop the 2nd ave tail tracks before NJ if my understanding of cost is right. Extend ESA tail tunnels to Penn if not NJ etc 100
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 30/12/2025D line? Tunnel to the sea. 2nd Avenue phase 2 on 125th? Tunnel to the Hudson, or to New Jersey/Fort Lee, if it's only like $500m more. Dare them not to run trains later. A very silly idea, but I get tempted every time I ponder the cost differences bare tunnels vs stations, track, power, etc... 3/3 020
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 30/12/2025Always leads me to the thought of, "If it only adds 10% or so to a project, then if you ever get funding to launch a TBM in someplace dense enough or potentially dense enough like NYC or LA, never stop the TBM, just build miles of extra "tail tracks" and try to sunk cost your way to expansion" 2/3 220
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 30/12/2025@nickandert.bsky.social Do you (or anyone else) have some per-mile tunneling costs (not including station costs) for subways/regional rail projects like the LA D line, East Side Access NYC, 2ndAv Phase 1/2, etc? I was using on the DigIndy 20 mi sewer tunnels for $2b with the same TBM as 2ndAvPh1 3/3 220
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 22/12/2025That's the great thing about climate change: if you're the one changing the climate the most, you can change it so you always have the weather gauge. 010
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 20/12/2025So storage in the US as far as the EIA seems to record it is ~all either pumped hydro or battery right now, and of those two only battery is growing. EIA-860M records additions of about 42 GWh Oct24-Oct25, but the newest pumped hydro facility in the list is 2002 and the one before that is 1995. 3/3 010
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 20/12/2025DEC release w/NOV data out next wk, but NOV release of OCT data shows 37 MWh of flywheel storage (4 sites), 110 MWh compressed air storage (1 site), and 109 GWh batteries (906 sites) growing ~3-4 GWh/mo. SWAG back of the envelope calculation of pumped hydro I did I think was like 150-250 GWh? 2/3 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 20/12/2025EIA-860M has a monthly-updated list of utility-scale generators which includes batteries and some storage like compressed air and stuff. (Pumped hydro generators have pwr listed, but not energy in GWh because the facilities have many turbines in front of a given lake, so it's hard to allocate.) 1/3 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 20/12/2025I recall reading several years ago somebody's story of meeting online & telling the family. Mom/dad objected, but grandma says "my mom and dad met online, it's fine". Turns out they were telegraph operators who'd met long distance working the same wire, transferred to be together, got married, etc. 227417
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 20/12/2025Opening titles, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," 2003, colorized 010
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/12/2025It would be hilarious, yeah. (One reason I was thinking of it now, because of the naval reduction gearing stuff). Might even favor two big fans or something, or some of the ideas I've seen of core exhaust to drive the tips of a ducted fan. It'd need some kind of CL-1201 nonsense to justify. 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/12/2025I once spent an evening trying to figure out how big a fan you'd have to stick onto something like that for an aero version. (Very big) 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 21/11/2025Good morning, they did it again... fixupx.com/blueorigin/s...fixupx.comBlue Origin (@blueorigin)The Blue Ring team successfully integrated the flight vehicle's primary structure and internal harnessing with the core propulsion module. Next up: some additional checkout and integration, and then o... 071
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 20/11/2025Little sign on the door that says "We COUNT TEETH" like the "We CARD" cigarette/alcohol door stickers at gas stations. 030
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 17/11/2025(shitpost) Would you say there's any connection to the Bishop of Rome declaring himself a White Sox fan? :P 000
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 27/10/2025Reminds me of this Mountain goats pastiche this person did: www.youtube.com/shorts/pUZdh...youtube.comIf The Mountain Goats Worked in an OfficeYouTube video by Jordan Keyes 010
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 07/10/2025I love Winch, but the site is a little old since he's been less able to maintain it, and there's been some recent discussion if the assumptions that reduce to that are quite as airtight in practice, but that's definitely where a lot of people point to for originating "no stealth in space". 020
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 07/10/2025Engine drive flares are particularly likely to be "hot" and without one, your course is predictable. However, getting sufficient resolution IR view angles on everything and the revist rates to sort out what's moving is an assumption, & maybe not as justified as the "no stealth in space" asserts. 000
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 07/10/2025Basically, if you can point a lot of IR sensors many directions, updating them frequently, it's hard for a "stealth" ship to be anything like as cold as your background, and also they might get in front of stars, so you can do math that says you'll definitely see the ship trying to stealth. 100
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 07/10/2025It's been something of an article of faith on science fiction websites back to the 90s or so (see Atomic Rockets) for reasons hard to fit well into a tweet length & somewhat assumption dependent. It reduces to a snappy saying that isn't 100% true. 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 16/09/2025Fixed wing Wildcat (F4F-3 I think) compared to folding wing (F4F-4 or similar). You can kind of "tetris" two fixed wing aircraft together, but you can see how it let you fit two or three times as many planes aboard. 030
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 16/09/2025Most carrier aircraft did and do where possible, it makes packing on the deck and in the hangar significantly better. The folding wing Wildcat let you fit about 2-3 times as many planes as the early fixed wing models. 020
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 31/08/2025I'd like to read a good modern biography of him, anyone have one to recommend? I've read Horne's "History of the Army of the Cumberland....written at the request of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas chiefly from his private military journal & official & other documents furnished by him" but that's old. 000
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 23/07/2025A truly terrible launch vehicle with over-rated economics, radically oversized payload, and really terrible payload handling plans (or lack thereof). I would and could recommend others? 110
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 19/06/2025They've done that since the freaking V2: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co... This was figured out for rockets for 80 years now, and it works fine for everything from Saturn V to N1 to Shuttle to SLS. But SpaceX wanted to be different, and it turns out it was dumb. Who knew! 120
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 19/06/2025People have known how to do this right since the 40s. You use a flame deflector to turn the flow from straight down to along the trench, directing the energy out the side without ever stopping it and turning the velocity back to pressure, avoiding the stupid hard stop on a flat surface SpaceX built. 220
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 19/06/2025A static fire involves filling the tanks of the vehicle at least partially (testing ground connections & ability to hold pressure and cycle valves) and then ignites the engines for a short duration while held down, testing plumbing from engines to tanks and all valves and igniters and stuff is OK. 020
eofpi.bsky.social @eofpi.bsky.social · 10/05/2025That might be a better summary of my article than the actual article. Thanks for recommending it! 010
