MartianSands

joined 1 year ago
[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 30 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

The biggest problem is that the magnets will "quench", which is what happens when a superconducting electromagnet suddenly stops being superconducting.

There's a lot of energy stored in that magnet, and when it quenches the energy all turns to heat in a very short time. Any remaining helium will flash boil, turning into an explosive expansion of gas, and the thermal shock will seriously damage the machine

Because it's feedback on how effective their targeting has been when confronted with whatever electronic warfare and misdirection Israel was using to defend themselves.

That sort of information might let the attacker make adjustments to be more accurate next time

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago (6 children)

They probably can do that, but a lot of the connections Ukraine are using will have been donated by third parties, rather than directly purchased by the Ukrainians. How do they tell the difference between those, and someone claiming to be doing that then shipping the dishes to Russia?

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It is guaranteed, actually. US law imposes requirements on telecoms providers to support wire taps

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You don't need a force to prevent collapse if there's no drag force to slow things down. It would actually be almost impossible for a cloud of dark matter to collapse since any individual particle has momentum and no way to slow down, so they'll all be in some sort of mutual orbit

No, basically. They would love to be able to do that, but it's approximately impossible for the generative systems they're using at the moment

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You're mistaken. Dark matter, whatever it is, isn't affected by anything except gravity. It interacts with gravity just like "normal" matter.

The evidence is also significantly better than you're describing

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

By that logic, you should object to cheese being labelled as "cheddar" cheese, because that's a place too and you've almost certainly never seen cheese which came from there.

It's a stupid rule

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

People down voting you for bringing up Kessler syndrome were correct to do so. It's a complete non-issue for starlink-sized objects at that altitude.

Light pollution is a more reasonable objection, and the effects on the upper atmosphere of all those satellites burning up would be as well, but not Kessler syndrome

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Then you'd be defeating the careful planning which went into making sure the satellites don't become a long term problem, by raising them out of the orbits which decay in just a few years and into orbits which never decay.

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I have at least a little sympathy for SpaceX's position that the regulations are unfit for purpose if they need a modification to their licence to use a different fuel tank, that seems totally immaterial to the flight

[–] MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

For an emergency ascent, they'd probably have dropped more than two. They also probably wouldn't have taken the time to type a message to the surface if it were going wrong that quickly.

It seems more likely to me that they were controlling their rare of descent. I'd expect them to lose a little buoyancy as the vessel compresses, so it seems reasonable that they'd drop the occasional weight as they descend.

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