You 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...

So 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

Once 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

Rules 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

Because 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

So 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

I 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

Musk 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

Microblogging 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

As 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.

Maybe 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?

I 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

D 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

Always 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

@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

That'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.

So 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

DEC 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

EIA-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

I 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.

Opening titles, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," 2003, colorized

A diagram from a 1964 report labeled "figure 2 - evolution of a tip driven cruise fan from a tip turbine lift fan" showing exhaust from a turbojet engine being used to drive the tips of a either a vertical lift fan or a forward-facing cruise fan.

It 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.

I 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)

Quite a lot, yeah.

Blue 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...

Good morning, they did it again...

fixupx.com/blueorigin/s...

Little sign on the door that says "We COUNT TEETH" like the "We CARD" cigarette/alcohol door stickers at gas stations.

Good morning. They did it again...

Shattered Sword, about the battle of Midway.

(shitpost) Would you say there's any connection to the Bishop of Rome declaring himself a White Sox fan? :P

YouTube video by Jordan Keyes If The Mountain Goats Worked in an Office

Reminds me of this Mountain goats pastiche this person did:

www.youtube.com/shorts/pUZdh...