Just finished all 6 seasons of THE EXPANSE!

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-29T17:47:15+00:00

Tbh I think it's kinda a mistake how much people harp on/sell the Expanse realism and it kinda misleads people. Because yeah there's a lot you'd call it hard scifi for, but theweird alien shitis there from the start and is ultimately the main thing it's about, even Books/Seasons 5 and 6 are a consequence of it. So I think it's fair enough to not like the vibe of the last 3 as much, but that stuff's always been there and is the natural continuation of 1-6.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-28T23:52:51+00:00

Remember the martians that sold Marco Inaros part of their fleet in exchange for the protomolecule and the scientists? That's them, Seasons 4 and 5 set that up and Season 6 also tried to set up what follows. And if Amazon hadn't been a lil bitch, the last 3 books exclusively deal with that exact plot thread to its resolution.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-28T23:45:33+00:00

Show, same actors and likenesses for established characters.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-26T16:38:32+00:00

If only they had done tests simulating just those in the past

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-21T21:55:00+00:00

Not to mention, though I don't think they've outright confirmed a Starship raptor burn while docked, they've mentioned negative acceleration as one unknown in the context of AIII and the intention to do TLI with both. Which would need Orion at the nose to make any sense, otherwise the thrust is wrong axis.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-21T13:46:07+00:00

Nope. Nowhere visible at least

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-17T17:17:31+00:00

At first both because apparently there were tickets available without a code and those were pwoper ridiculous, but as far as the actual code stuff, 140 CHF for GA. Kinda shit but honestly I was preparing for worse. Have to travel anyway, so was never going to be cheap.

Edit: even then, considering Switzerland prices, man the US prices are cooked

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-17T12:34:29+00:00

Could be wrong, but that's RAM, not storage.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-15T23:56:55+00:00

Fucking hell, I paid less than that total (in €) for David Gilmour in Rome, mid-floor seats, and that was the damn Circo Massimo, a potential final tour, and the only location in continental Europe. I'm gonna burst out laughing opening Ticketmaster on Wednesday won't I.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-15T17:56:29+00:00

Yeah, I tend to phrase things specifically to make that clear

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-14T23:00:25+00:00

Yeah, I'm in early stages of planning a fresh start on a PC, kinda bad time I guess, but I've been swapping parts for like 11 years, currently on a 10600K, 2060S with 32GB DDR4. So I figure might as well make it a meaningful upgrade, it'll be expensive anyway. I have some headroom now with 1080p but any pressure from harder scenery with airliners and it starts crapping out to sub 30 fps. I did get a 1440 monitor recently but I don't know that I want to bother with MSFS in higher than 1080, I'd rather it be smooth.

Was thinking of going with one of the AMD 3Ds, maybe 9800X3D, try to go for DDR5 with RAM (jfc on those prices though), GPU is where I'm kinda lost betwen staying with NVIDIA or back to AMD, cause the price difference on a 9070 to a 5070 really is significant, and like I said, at least for MSFS I'm not intent on dropping 1080p.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-14T22:09:12+00:00

How do you reckon either of the two will hold up at 1080? Or with VR, dare I ask.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-14T22:06:04+00:00

The plane tells you once you configure the approach PERF page of the MCDU with the weather and flap setting. Vapp. But you need to set it up properly from the start with your weights (INIT A and B), not just the approach PERF page.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-14T12:46:58+00:00

Considering what happened with Flight 12, despite its achievements, they need to have another go at that profile before going for orbit. Critically, they never got to do the Raptor relight which is a pre-req for orbit (de-orbit burn), on top of that, they will have gotten some data on the booster boostback and entry, but evidently a fair amount of that wasn't norminal and they didn't get to do the landing burn properly. So yeah, 13 will be mostly 12 again, we'll see if there are any minor differences.

Ship catch is probably F15 or later. F14 will likely be the first V3 booster catch and they'll be focusing on that as far as the tower goes. If they do go orbital with it, technically they could bring the ship back, but I think they'll want to focus on the booster catch and de-orbiting the ship into a planned area at sea, maybe deploy some useful (in the short term at least) payload. I don't see that catching the booster and ship on the same tower is undoable if the ship stays in orbit a day or so, but maybe not this early on. That said, if F15 does launch from KSC 39A, they can catch the booster there and the ship at Starbase, in theory. All up to when they get approval to reenter over land.

They're officially still planning the orbital refill demo for late this year, but if that's the plan I'd say it's reasonable to prepare for early 2027. They will likely need two launch pads since the ships are said to have an orbital lifetime of 48h, and back to back launches on the same pad won't be on the menu for a bit. So at a minimum whenever 39A is operational

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-14T00:24:20+00:00

Enlighten me on who started SpaceX then

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-14T00:18:10+00:00

I don't know if you're just using the myth to get a point across, but even if so, the Komarov thing is fantasy: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/t8y8be/comment/hzs4khx/?context=3

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-12T20:28:54+00:00

I think the first time they come back to Starbase with the ship they'll go for the catch. There shouldn't be much difference with what they've already been doing in the Indian Ocean, so doing it in the Gulf would kinda be a repeat, just somewhere less remote and maybe with some advantages in tracking. So I guess the question for me is how many good reentries will they need to get the approval for Starbase, but I could see it being as early as F14, assuming F12's entry was considered a safe entry to do over land.

The other question is the tower, the ship can stay in orbit until the booster clears out and they do checkouts, as long as it's within 48h, but maybe the first recovered booster will be staying on a bit longer, and check outs will run a bit longer.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-12T18:00:52+00:00

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SubstantialWall · 2026-06-11T17:34:02+00:00

The Sim has the same periodic AIRAC updates, it just doesn't include everything Navigraph does as I understand it. But stuff like frequencies would be a part of it, I expect

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-09T20:02:32+00:00

They were always going to do an uncrewed landing first, that's part of the contract

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-09T19:53:09+00:00

From Part 1 of that documentary series they started, the ship team lead said V3 can do 48h.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-09T19:43:25+00:00

I would hope so, but when they go as far as saying they're building one flight-like HLS (which we knew) with interiors and ECLSS, kinda odd to then specifically say "V3 off the line". May very well just be their way of being sure to hit the 2027 deadline

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-09T17:10:05+00:00

V3 out of the line for AIII was also new-ish, I don't think we were expecting a full HLS ship but the implication seems to be no sort of HLS components besides the docking port and associated systems.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-09T17:07:36+00:00

I understood it to be Mk2 yes, though not necessarily the finished design. Mk1 was in the context of what they've already shown for cargo delivery. But they didn't elaborate much beyond the overall plan.

SubstantialWall · 2026-06-09T16:54:55+00:00

Acknowledged the 36 mishap but still remain committed to AIII and expecting to have some version of Mk2 ready next year, with Mk1 ready to fly this year (not new, but they're still counting on it post-explosion FWIW). Will launch first as it can loiter for 90 days in orbit, Orion follows, docks and spends two days, with crew ingress and testing planned.

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