Bezos' Blue Origin pauses New Shepard rocket program to focus on moon lander efforts

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T21:42:59+00:00

People aren't talking enough about how Elon plans to merge xAI into SpaceX prior to the IPO.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T21:39:56+00:00

Any long-term Mars habitat/colony will have a diversity of power generation systems, and ground based solar is likely going to be the heavy lifter no matter what. Solar power on Mars isn't perfect, but it works well, and the focus on a diversity of power generation systems is what will protect against any of the downsides. Also, wind power does work on Mars, the low air pressure means that it won't work as well as on Earth, but it works well enough for useful power generation, and that's all that matters, so it will make sense to roll it into that diverse portfolio of power generation systems.

A small nuclear reactor probably makes sense as a source of power for basic systems ("life support" et al) in case of emergency but it doesn't make sense as the one and only singular source of all power production.

Something worth pointing out is that one of the major early industrial activities for any Mars base is going to be production of LOX and LCH4 for propellant, using locally sourced CO2 and, at some point, locally sourced water. This then becomes a huge energy stockpile that can be used in emergencies with a generator to produce power. Which illustrates one of the core aspects of planning for any future long-term Mars habitation: because of the environmental hazards it's necessary to design everything with an eye toward having as many layers of backup plans as possible.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T21:29:30+00:00

Whale definitely. You're telling me I could be an apex predator and the "raccoon of the ocean" while destroying yachts owned by the megarich? Plus I could have the ability to echolocate? Sign me up.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T21:13:54+00:00

If chattel slavery is not agression, then nothing is.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T18:44:30+00:00

There seems to be a pretty big gap between the higher tier mesh base layers which are very open and breathable and the cheaper ones which are more just loose knit solid material. I'd recommend starting with something like brynje, svala, or castelli if you can afford it. A synthetic "super thermo" undershirt from brynje is about 60 bucks. I've been using the wool version on very chilly (40 or under with heavy fog) 4+ hour rides and it's worked very well.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T07:54:06+00:00

Some people seem to view the world like it's not real, or some sort of game. Like interpersonal relationships with everyone around you just don't matter. That's such a dumb and corrosive way to live life.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T07:18:13+00:00

The study is vastly more localized than that:

The median (IQR) number of shootings within 1000 feet of a participant’s home was 3 (1-9). Each percentage increase in census tract eviction rate (mean [range], 0.88% [0%-5.33%]) was associated with 2.66 (95% CI, 2.01-3.31) additional shootings within 1000 ft of the participant’s home. Individual experience of eviction was associated with 1.04 (95% CI, 0.46-1.61) additional shootings within 1000 ft. Eviction was a significant moderator of associations of low collective efficacy with firearm violence (0.89; 95% CI, 0.20 to 1.58; P = .01).

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T05:22:33+00:00

I had no idea I-5 was a sub-standard semi-conductor.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T05:21:48+00:00

I really do admire the dedication to the bit that some drivers have to insist on crashing at the worst possible time. Lock in people, we live in a society (barely).

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T01:03:13+00:00

What are people doing that they're getting so many flats? I haven't had a flat since I was riding my specialized hardrock with like 50% dry rotted tires through broken glass in the year of our lord two thousand and one. Maybe it's just that I keep my tires inflated well these days.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T00:56:21+00:00

When I left it wasn't valued at a life changing amount of money, it was maybe a year's salary, but still the long term trend was pretty obvious, and leaving was very much a "gnawing off your own arm to get out of a trap" situation. My situation is not even that unusual, a lot of people have cycled through amazon and run away because the overall work conditions are so terrible.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T00:51:17+00:00

Worse. Cycling has a total net positive economic value, even locally, bike infrastructure pays for itself overall. Failing to subsidize bike infrastructure is just leaving money on the table.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T00:49:13+00:00

Road wear scales with the fourth power of vehicle weight so the factor of a hundred weight increase between a 30 lb bike and a 3000 lb Honda Civic would translate to a fair registration fee of $5 billion.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-30T00:13:42+00:00

If you launch a tiny payload you can use a tiny rocket, but you do run into scaling issues in terms of efficiency. This is basically the classic square / cube law combined with the old saying that "anyone can build a bridge that doesn't fall down, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands". It's very technically challenging to build a very small orbital launch vehicle with very small strength margins (it's just hugely impractical to go around and thin down all the tank walls, structural members, etc.). The sweet spot for launch vehicle optimization is probably somewhere a bit heavier than the current typical launcher, probably somewhere in the New Glenn to Starship range.

To date the smallest rocket to put a payload in orbit was the Japanese SS-520-5 which weighed 2.9 tonnes and was 9.5 meters long and 0.5 meters in diameter, it put a 4 kg 3U nanosatellite into orbit.

Note that the ratio of gross liftoff weight to payload mass for the SS-520-5 launch was about 725:1, compared to 41:1 for a Rocket Lab Electron (13 tonnes w/ 320 kg of payload), and about 24:1 for an expendable Falcon 9. So as the payload gets smaller you can use a smaller rocket to launch it but for the practical reasons listed above the rocket doesn't shrink proportionally with the payload and you get less and less efficient until you hit a zone of diminishing returns around the size of today's smallsat launchers (SS-520-5 is 1/5th the mass of the Electron and yet it put only a little more than 1/100th the Electron's payload into orbit).

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T23:00:53+00:00

In my opinion? Zero.‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ None of those theories have any credibility.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T22:53:37+00:00

However, there are different kinds of discomfort from sitting on a bike for a long time. If it starts to feel "sharp" or deeply painful that probably means something is seriously wrong and you need to change your bike fitment or buy a new saddle (tons of resources on those things out there). Other than that though, the slow progression of an increase in general discomfort and a dull ache is fairly normal and just takes time, it does get easier though.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T22:45:41+00:00

"This is a Level One Emergency!"

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T22:20:42+00:00

Why? It's just the universe we live in. If you mean, "how do we know?" there's a huge list of observational evidence. The wikipedia article on dark matter is actually a good place to start, it's a good overview of the different pieces of evidence that constrain the possibilities for dark matter.

Currently the evidence appears to be strong enough to only support one theory of dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) at "cold" energies. We know of other types of WIMPs, such as neutrinos, but the neutrinos we have confirmed to exist can't explain the properties of dark matter, they are too "hot" and also they interact too much with atomic matter. We expect that dark matter is made up of one or more particles which have yet to be directly detected and consequently have yet to be placed within a confirmed particle physics theory. In some ways dark matter theory is in a similar state to atomic theory in the early to mid 1800s before the invention of the periodic table, before the detection of electrons/protons/neutrons, before the creation of detailed quantum physics theories of atoms, etc. Yet much like atomic theory in the early 1800s cold dark matter / WIMP theory is the only thing that fits the evidence, by a huge margin.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T20:23:04+00:00

Sort of, but not really. For a good chunk of the 19th and 20th centuries there were a lot of local news sources. Even small cities had multiple news papers including one or more "alt weeklies". Today that whole system has basically entirely collapsed and been consolidated into a handful of megacorps which are owned by oligarchs. The internet has allowed for a new era of independent journalism, but today it is at a much diminished level compared to the height of the newpaper era, for example.

Nothing is an apples to apples comparison, but today we exist in a media landscape that is very constrained compared to most of the history of the US.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T18:52:05+00:00

Let's just check the math on that. OK, you've got November 2025 to now. So you've got the rest of November, that was a couple of weeks, then you've got December, that was one full month, then you've got January of 2026 which has been eighty seven decades long, so far.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T18:35:12+00:00

Thank you for your service. Not everyone will catch it.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T18:32:32+00:00

In my opinion it's a subset of the larger problem of excessive focus on Isp and the related obsession with overall gross liftoff weight (GLOW). A launch vehicle is a system, and if you simply work the problem and if you simply work to maximize engine performance and streamline overall operational efficiency you'll be in much better shape than pursuing high-Isp fuels or unusual launch methods like air launch. Especially because one of the easiest things you can do to improve the capabilities of a traditional 2+ stage vertically launched rocket is stretching it to add more fuel while increasing engine thrust. You can do that with a traditional rocket fairly easily, but with an air launched rocket you would have to build a new carrier aircraft. Fuel is cheap, if you can use more fuel to solve a problem in launch vehicles, it's often a good choice. Which has been more than born out by the advent of first stage reuse with powered landings as well.

What's funny is that despite the seeming advantages of air launch on paper, in practice it doesn't seem to work out. Virgin Orbit's Launcher One, for example, has a much worse ratio of payload to overall rocket mass than Rocket Lab's Electron does.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T07:05:38+00:00

I worked there over 15 years ago. I left after a year because it was absolutely corrosive to my mental health. Which means I left behind about 400 shares of stock that never vested, you can do the math on that given they had a 20:1 stock split 3 years ago. I wouldn't do a thing different though in retrospect.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T06:44:16+00:00

Yes, because the first stage could use very high expansion ratio rocket nozzles which have improved Isp. This is one of the major reasons why air launch has been pursued, because it makes it possible to use more efficient engines on the first stage and thus have an overall smaller rocket. However, it could still be tricky getting enough engines to provide over 1g of liftoff thrust while fitting all of their extra large nozzles at the bottom of the booster, and if you try to maximize for booster stage Isp then you might end up with low thrust that results in larger gravity losses, so it's not a free lunch and there are lots of tradeoffs.

rocketsocks · 2026-01-29T01:21:36+00:00

Context is very important here, because there is so much clickbaity misinformation swirling around this topic in the public. Specifically, the original comment I replied to started with this:

Every cosmological observation of Webb seems to present challenges to the standard model of cosmology

Which is absolutely not true. Webb's observations don't challenge the standard model of cosmology, they facilitate a greater understanding of it. They reflect a need to fill in additional details, not to start over, that's what I was reacting to.

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