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The joys of expanding foam...
While all this talk of high-tech repair in space is going on, I have been fitting a new shower "enclosure" (I'm sure they were cubicles when I was a child, though cubicle means something different now[1]). After much consideration about whether the instruction to bed the shower tray in cement was really necessary to support it - or just a way of ( Read more... ) -
Risk tradeoffs
So, Nasa has decided not to repair damage to the Thermal Protection System (TPS) tiles on the underside of Endeavour. Much of the discussion they wert through was a tradeoff between risks. How did they reach the decision - and what options were available?
( Decision on tile repair ) -
Oribits episode 2: Shuttle ascents and aborts
I started writing this post a week or so back and an unfortunate combination of circumstances caused it to go missing... the well-educated amongst you will possibly feel that you know all this stuff already, so apologies in advance. You can always go and do a complicated poll for evilmattikinz instead... Oh, and do ask questions if you want!
( So here it is at last ) -
Decisions, decisions...
Just before the next exciting episode of the "getting to orbit" series ( Read more... ) -
Brief remarks about orbital mechanics for the educated layperson (and for marmosets too)
... as it came up in conversation at the weekend, I thought I'd offer a brief guide to getting spacecraft in and out of orbit. I must confess to being self-taught in these matters and the reader is advised to consult other sources for further detail. The JPL Primer is a good reference for the educated layperson in aspects of spacecraft operation. ( Read more... ) -
Just a little rewiring...
I like these sort of things - Organ Conversion (best to start at the bottom to see what he's started with) even if I don't have the patience to do anything like this myself. There is an interesting thing about the Hauptwerk software he's using, which I may come to in a future post ( Read more... ) -
But How Does the Story End?
Well, what would you do if your gung-ho and careless attitude impressing your guests had resulted in nine deaths? Go into hiding? Sweep that unfortunate incident under the carpet ( Read more... ) -
When Submarines Collide...
This is an old report I've just stumbled across. This paragraph stands out (especially point c ( Read more... ) -
The things people do...
I ended up watching a fair bit of the coverage of Domino Day 2006. This is an annual attempt to break the world record for domino-toppling. This time they were aiming for 4.4million dominos - but not all the tricks worked... there was a delay at the end while the scrutineers counted up the dominos that hadn't fallen and provided a final figure of 4 ( Read more... )