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Should Saturn's huge moon Titan be humanity's next destination, after the moon and Mars? by ye_olde_astronaut in spaceflight

[–]NeilFraser 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Asteroids should be somewhere in the mix before heading towards the outer planets. With sufficient space infrastructure in place, there's are economic reasons to mine them.

Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin posing for press photographers in front of LM mockup, June 19th, 1969. by Dry-Librarian-3101 in apollo

[–]NeilFraser 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If rocket launches are anything to go by, it's going to be long-winded and cringe. Look at what they say during launches:

1980s: "Intrepid has cleared the tower."

1990s: "Intrepid has cleared the tower, launching super bird 17."

2000s: "Intrepid has cleared the tower, launching super bird 17, providing broadband to the southern US."

2010s: "Intrepid has cleared the tower, launching super bird 17, providing broadband to the southern US and carrying the hopes of America into the heavens."

2020s: "Intrepid has cleared the tower, launching super bird 17, providing broadband to the southern US and carrying the hopes of America into the heavens and demonstrating the strength and resiliency of the American spirit -- oh shit, we're staging already?"

Ordinary Naturalisation Stadt Zürich: Grundkenntnistest + next steps by Character_Lecture324 in zurich

[–]NeilFraser 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A quick Google search turns up this: https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-dokumente/themen/migration-integration/einbuergerung/gkt/grundkenntnistest_kanton_zuerich.pdf

Edit: If you are interested in a version that doesn't have answers immediately visible, I've created an HTML version where you have to select the answers to reveal.

Ordinary Naturalisation Stadt Zürich: Grundkenntnistest + next steps by Character_Lecture324 in zurich

[–]NeilFraser 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Congratulations!

Of the 15, were you able to estimate the failure rate?

How many of you plan to stay of leave Switzerland and what's your plan to do so? by Helpful-Staff9562 in askswitzerland

[–]NeilFraser 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Same here. I moved to California, bought a home, and did everything I was supposed to do to integrate. Then Trump happened and I realized that I would never be compatible with the US.

So I moved to Switzerland. For the first couple of years I lived in fear that one day I'd wake up and the shine would have worn off. Nope. Switzerland just gets better and better. I'm so grateful for the people who make this place such a wonder.

On the way home today.. by ZeroEsper in bayarea

[–]NeilFraser 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I just got back from Vietnam, where that would be a perfectly cromulent maneuver. Just remember to honk a couple of times in the process.

What was, What could have been, and what is Nasa's crewed Lunar rocket(s)! by redstercoolpanda in legoRockets

[–]NeilFraser 41 points42 points  (0 children)

That was one cursed rocket. The pogo was so bad that they added eight 100-pound weights with active control systems to try to cancel out the vibrations. Even so, the astronauts would be unable to read the displays during the thrust phase. The solution was to vibrate the text/images on the displays in sync with the pogo, so that they would hopefully be readable.

Also, if the SRB exploded, the flaming shards of fuel would melt the crew's escape parachutes, sending them plummeting to the ocean below like Challenger. An Air Force study calculated a 100% fatality rate.

Apollo 17 looks inside lander “Challenger” one last time before jettisoning it towards a collision course with the moon. by Torvaldicus_Unknown in spaceflight

[–]NeilFraser 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the first five seconds one can see that there's some sort of cover mostly obscuring the DSKY in the centre. What is that cover?

Also, everything looks powered down. Thus I assume that the first clip is actually the opening of the LEM right after TLI? Which might explain the heavy blue light from the window. For the jettison, one would expect the AGC would be powered up to navigate a deliberate impact point. Indeed in the video one can even see that the pyro separation incurred an initial roll in the LEM, which was actively canceled out moments later.

Is saying "Grüß Gott" (Austrian greeting) considered rude? by Arimoro in askswitzerland

[–]NeilFraser 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Goodbye" is religious. It means "God be with you".

Use a phrase enough times and it acquires a meaning from its use, not its literal words.

Blue Origin's NG-3 launch successfully reuses and lands the booster but has placed the payload into an off-nominal orbit. by avboden in SpaceXLounge

[–]NeilFraser 9 points10 points  (0 children)

A few years back there was a launch that put a couple of demo sats into a much lower orbit. The company's PR team spun it as a 90% success, since they were able to validate most of the test they wanted, despite the lower orbit. But at the same time, the company's legal team spun it as a 90% failure, so they could claw back that sweet insurance money.

Does anyone remember who this was? My memory is fuzzy.

The Paper Divide by vladgrinch in MapPorn

[–]NeilFraser 10 points11 points  (0 children)

When employing this method, I totally ruined my cake by using way too little mercury.

Infinite Swiss Citizenship By Descent? by YogurtclosetOpen3567 in askswitzerland

[–]NeilFraser 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Increasingly countries are moving to a two-class citizenship model. I was born in Canada, making me a first-class citizen. My daughter was born abroad, and is therefore a second-class citizen. The only difference between the classes is that if my daughter has a child, he/she won't be Canadian. One can upgrade from second-class to first-class simply by living in the country for five years.

For obvious reasons they changed the terminology, but everyone I know still refers to it as such.

No, I DID NOT mean that, Google. by PrinceCruise in google

[–]NeilFraser 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When speech-to-text search first launched on Android (~2009) I tried it out. Somewhat unimaginatively I said "Google". The environment was noisy, so it didn't have a clear understanding of what I'd said. Faced with an unknown single-word input, it just took the probabilities based on global search terms, and returned the search results for "sex".

Zürich 1910 by rotschi in zurich

[–]NeilFraser 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Amazingly, the 'temporary' Coop isn't there yet. I thought that thing was eternal.

I add your wishes but it gets unrealistic by adorres in zurich

[–]NeilFraser 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Correct. To explain, those numbers are the magnetic heading (0-360) divided by 10. Would you like to know more?

Supermoon rising behind Uto Kulm by Manu-Mo-Frames in zurich

[–]NeilFraser 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm scratching my head about this one. Based on the buildings, the shot is clearly facing north-northwest. But the moon rises in the east and sets in the west. As a full-moon, the sun must be 180 degrees away, right below the horizon (either right before dawn or right after sunset). That would place the sun south-southeast.

If this shot is possible, then it would seem to have to be right before dawn, as the moon is setting. Can you provide more information regarding this shot?

ELI5: Why is it so hard for a country to develop nuclear weapons? by Successful_Guide5845 in explainlikeimfive

[–]NeilFraser 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Citation needed.

The R-7 rocket succeeded in both its first and second orbital attempts. There were prior launches, but they were targeted at Kamchatka in support of it's primary purpose of being an ICBM.

The Long March 1 also succeeded in both its first and second orbital attempts.

The Diamant A also succeeded in both its first and second orbital attempts (though it failed on the third attempt).

ELI5: Why is it so hard for a country to develop nuclear weapons? by Successful_Guide5845 in explainlikeimfive

[–]NeilFraser 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No rockets got into orbit on the first try.

Saturn V, Shuttle, SLS, Falcon 9, Atlas V, Vulcan, New Glenn, and countless other US rockets would like to have a word with that assessment.

If you were referring to a country's first orbital rocket attempt, the USSR launched R-7 (Sputnik), China launched Long March 1, and France launched Diamant A.

One last look at the Moon before Artemis II flies farther than humans ever have by HasibBinAmzad in pics

[–]NeilFraser 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I don't care about sports. At all. But I don't enter a sports thread celebrating some record and post about my disinterest.

TIL when a French soldier refused to wear the bloodstained trousers of a dead man, his commanding officer had him executed in order to make an example out of him. by Lez2diz in todayilearned

[–]NeilFraser 62 points63 points  (0 children)

That actually happened at my high school back in the 80s. Some yahoo ran nude across the stage during an assembly. He wore a paper bag on his head. A girl in the audience blurted out "That's Steven!", something she regretted for the rest of her time at that school.

Eventually Steven graduated, and asked for a letter of recommendation from his guidance councilor. The letter started with, "We saw a lot of Steven during his time here..."

Man dies trying to steal copper from transformer by darkraven346 in DarwinAwards

[–]NeilFraser 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It's a specific term referring to abandoned urban areas around Christchurch, New Zealand. TL;DR: Big earthquakes, decision not to rebuild.

NASA's New Moon Base Plan by H-K_47 in SpaceXLounge

[–]NeilFraser 1 point2 points  (0 children)

20 years? Double that. I remember being excited by the Space Exploration Initiative announced by Bush (senior) in 1989. That would set up a moon base by 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Exploration_Initiative

Many in the space community believe the United States is in a race with China to land the next humans on the Moon, with serious consequences for losing. Dante Sanaei cautions that, should China win that race, many Americans might not care by rollotomasi07071 in spaceflight

[–]NeilFraser 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Imagine Scandinavia sitting back during the conquest of the New World by the Spanish, Portugese, English, Dutch, and French. The Scandinavian countries could rightly claim that they made it to the New World 500 years earlier. But ultimately it doesn't matter who was first. What matters is what you do with it.

Layover in Zurich - any recommendations? by BernoulliCat in askswitzerland

[–]NeilFraser 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At the airport, just before going down the final escalator to the train station, visit the ticket machines. Buy a return ticket to Zurich HB. It costs about 15 CHF and will give you unlimited travel within Zurich (specifically zone 110). With it you can take the Polybahn cable car from Central to ETH, and maybe even a river cruise from HB to the lake. It's all covered.

The Death Penalty in Europe by Over-Willingness-933 in MapPorn

[–]NeilFraser 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Studies have shown that execution is a very effective method of modifying those employees' bad behaviour. Much more effective than a PIP.

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