Technology, Science and the Environment.

[SpacedX]

After the partial success of New Glenn for Blue Origin earlier this morning, the launch of Starship Super Heavy Fight 7 is scheduled for later today @ 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). SpaceX are stepping up the pace this year and today's flight will likely be the first of many for Starship in 2025. They plan to make serious progress on the megarocket in the coming weeks and months with increasingly ambitious objectives. 

[Zear0]

26 minutes ago, SpacedX said:

After the partial success of New Glenn for Blue Origin earlier this morning, the launch of Starship Super Heavy Fight 7 is scheduled for later today @ 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). SpaceX are stepping up the pace this year and today's flight will likely be the first of many for Starship in 2025. They plan to make serious progress on the megarocket in the coming weeks and months with increasingly ambitious objectives. 

Think I read this was the flight they were focused on the Starlink deployment systems.  Hope for a catch though.

[SpacedX]

44 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Think I read this was the flight they were focused on the Starlink deployment systems.  Hope for a catch though.

Correct, although obviously a sub orbital trajectory and they will follow Starship down into the Indian ocean. 

 

Yes, in terms of the catch, although successfully done, this was aborted during the last flight. This year, they plan to 'catch' Starship itself. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, SpacedX said:

After the partial success of New Glenn for Blue Origin earlier this morning, the launch of Starship Super Heavy Fight 7 is scheduled for later today @ 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT). SpaceX are stepping up the pace this year and today's flight will likely be the first of many for Starship in 2025. They plan to make serious progress on the megarocket in the coming weeks and months with increasingly ambitious objectives. 

Not been relevant since 1987's Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now.

[SpacedX]

1 hour ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Not been relevant since 1987's Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now.

They couldn't continue to call themselves Jefferson Starship, since the last remaining founder member of Jefferson Airplane Paul Kantner took legal action over using the name when he left the band in 1984. So you could contend they became irrelevant then despite their highly irritating hit single the following year. 

[whoareyaaa]

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

Yep.

 

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

 

This gives more detail.

 

But, because we started it, we can also stop it, or at least mitigate it. No room, nor need, for nihilism.

[leicsmac]

Latest Starship launch not exactly according to plan, then.

 

Super Heavy first stage came back as wanted but Starship upper stage had a fuel leak and went full pyro before reaching orbit.

[SpacedX]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Latest Starship launch not exactly according to plan, then.

 

Super Heavy first stage came back as wanted but Starship upper stage had a fuel leak and went full pyro before reaching orbit.

The ascent (and capture) footage was the best yet - magnificent. Shame about the "upper-stage anomaly". The debris falling back to Earth was spectacular at least. SpaceX's production cadence is absolutely nuts. They have a 'rocket garden' consisting of a "stable of hardware" and are nearing completion of the 1 million sq.ft star factory that will facilitate the manufacture of hundreds of boosters and ships a year. The problem that resulted in the destruction of Starship appears to be a recurrent one and a repeat of an issue last observed in March 2024, so it will be eradicated.

 

Looking forward to Flight 8. 

[BKLFox]

@leicsmacsomething for you & like minded minds if you’ve missed it unless it’s already been mentioned on here.
 

https://news.sky.com/story/the-wonder-material-which-could-hold-the-key-to-near-limitless-energy-13290834

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14n01d7d0po
 

 

[The Bear]

I was literally just reading that article and came on here to post it! 

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

@leicsmacsomething for you & like minded minds if you’ve missed it unless it’s already been mentioned on here.
 

https://news.sky.com/story/the-wonder-material-which-could-hold-the-key-to-near-limitless-energy-13290834

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14n01d7d0po
 

 

Thanks for posting these.

 

Fusion always seems the same amount of time away, but it is so important - nay necessary - to crack it.

[AmyLGK]

20 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Thanks for posting these.

 

Fusion always seems the same amount of time away, but it is so important - nay necessary - to crack it.

And, as well as developing a future technology, the research we're doing now benefits a range of sectors now 😊👍

[davieG]

Mark Aldridge   · 

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There are many reasons we cannot presently transition to EVs completely, here is a minor one.

A University of Michigan study has concluded that it is impossible to mine enough copper to meet the push for EV transition. Not only can't it meet the copper needed for the vehicles themselves, but the power grid would be lacking as well.

"A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper. Onshore wind turbines require about 10 tons of copper, and in offshore wind turbines, that amount can more than double," said Adam Simon, U-M professor of earth and environmental studies.

"We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce."

The study found that between 2018 and 2050, the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in ALL of human history up until 2018 just to meet "business as usual" needs. This would meet the US's current copper needs as well as supporting the developing world without considering the green energy transition. And that is simply impossible.

So as predicted by myself and others, "ain't no way". The push for the move from internal combustion engines to EV's is not simply unrealistic given the stage of technology, but impossible based on actual material needs. And copper is only ONE material which is being shown to be lacking; there are others.

 

 

[samlcfc]

10 hours ago, davieG said:

Mark Aldridge   · 

Follow

 

There are many reasons we cannot presently transition to EVs completely, here is a minor one.

A University of Michigan study has concluded that it is impossible to mine enough copper to meet the push for EV transition. Not only can't it meet the copper needed for the vehicles themselves, but the power grid would be lacking as well.

"A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper. Onshore wind turbines require about 10 tons of copper, and in offshore wind turbines, that amount can more than double," said Adam Simon, U-M professor of earth and environmental studies.

"We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce."

The study found that between 2018 and 2050, the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in ALL of human history up until 2018 just to meet "business as usual" needs. This would meet the US's current copper needs as well as supporting the developing world without considering the green energy transition. And that is simply impossible.

So as predicted by myself and others, "ain't no way". The push for the move from internal combustion engines to EV's is not simply unrealistic given the stage of technology, but impossible based on actual material needs. And copper is only ONE material which is being shown to be lacking; there are others.

 

 

Couldn't access the link, but had a look at the wider context of the research.

 

Completed with regards to policies looking to replace 100% of cars with electric alternatives by 2035, it recommends altering goals to include hybrids as a stepping stone whilst material demands are met.

 

It discusses how many copper mines would be required opened to meet current goals, although I'd imagine that material science and energy efficiency will have an impact on future resource requirements too.

[davieG]

 

[Daggers]

Before the idiots had Twitter, they used to appear on television

 

 

[blabyboy]

Excellent. Almost of EuroTrash quality. Good find and some good debate 

Edited 30 January by blabyboy

[leicsmac]

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/28/epa-fires-science-advisers-00201156

 

Acting EPA Administrator James Payne has ousted all members of two of the agency’s most influential science advisory panels, giving President Donald Trump’s administration the opportunity to reshape them with its own appointees.

In an obliquely worded email sent late Tuesday afternoon, Payne said a decision had been made to “reset” the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and Science Advisory Board “to ensure that the agency receives scientific advice consistent with its legal obligations to advance our core mission.”

 

The core mission being making as much money as possible at the expense of every living being save cockroaches and other disaster taxa, present and future, naturally.

 

The Chinese must be pissing themselves laughing that their major rival for scientific progress is tying its shoelaces together like this.

[Trumpet]

Asteroid 2024 YR4 currently has about a 1/78 chance of hitting Earth in 2032. Must be the highest chance of something known that could do some serious damage, in recent times if not of all time?

 

https://neo.ssa.esa.int/risk-list

Edited 30 January by Trumpet

[leicsmac]

17 minutes ago, Trumpet said:

Asteroid 2024 YR4 currently has about a 1/78 chance of hitting Earth in 2032. Must be the highest chance of something known that could do some serious damage, in recent times if not of all time?

 

https://neo.ssa.esa.int/risk-list

Pretty sure it is of the ones we have had advance notice of.

 

But there's so many variables, chief among them the vast difference in possible damage between the lower and upper estimates of its size.

[ajthefox]

Now probably is a good time for armageddon. Maybe the universe just knows we've fu cked it

[The Bear]

23 minutes ago, ajthefox said:

Now probably is a good time for armageddon. Maybe the universe just knows we've fu cked it

The universe cares about us as much as we care about bacteria living on a cow pat. 

[dsr-burnley]

1 hour ago, Trumpet said:

Asteroid 2024 YR4 currently has about a 1/78 chance of hitting Earth in 2032. Must be the highest chance of something known that could do some serious damage, in recent times if not of all time?

 

https://neo.ssa.esa.int/risk-list

Rumour has it that when it gets closer, they could ram it with a spaceship (unmanned, unlike Hollywood) that would give enough momentum to change its course.

[blabyboy]

Why bother causing fragments that could potentially make the problem worse when could either paint it or attach a tether and let physics do the hard work for us