zizee

Falcon 9 (spacex's other rocket) wasn't human rated at first either.

The point of starship is to reduce the cost of kg to orbit, by being a fully, and rapidly reusable launch system.

The other long term and loftier) goal is to enable Mars colonization, a mission who's current main blocker is cost of kg to orbit.

By reducing the cost of putting things to orbit, you can do a whole lot more. Starlink is a good example, but if starship works it will be a paradigm shift that will result in a whole new space economy.

As I write this comment, it is Oct 12, 3:30 pm Central time. So the launch window starts in 15 and a half hours.

https://mytime.io/7am/CT

I don't think the ship being launched has all of the planned improvements to the fins/hinge. This launch is S30, with the big improvements coming with S33.

Newer versions of the ship have smaller flaps, hinging from points offcenter, so that they are protected by the body of the ship.

Images probably demonstrate this better than words.

Current: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;...

New: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;...

I'm not say no one would want this. I'm saying that it's odd play. Most people that own their own cars do not want the limits of 2-seaters. 29k is a price point that appeals most to private buyers. If robotaxis exist, a lot of people would opt to not own a car at all.

Who is the customer for this? Sub $30k appeals to regular people. But why would regular people want to own a robotaxi? I want robotaxis to exist so I don't have to own a car. I want someone else to own it, and I pay to use it once in a while.

If this works, wouldn't just Tesla operate as a taxi company?

"You're trip is important to us, please hold and the next available operator will assist you as soon as possible."

That Reddit thread reads like /UFOs, i.e. unhinged. Do you have a link to anything more reputable?

Do I understand that you like/appreciate grocery store brands, but dislike Amazon's store brand? If so, what is the distinction you see between the two?

Given that it is proving near impossible to get everyone to "do the right thing", technology is the only realistic way out of this.

Why not make the silicon Carbide into bricks, and build stuff out of it?

I'm not sure that "humans will still dominate work performed in uncontrolled environments" leaves much opportunity for the majority of humanity.

This is very close to my feelings about the swathe of AI tools being released. The ability to write an essay, create unique art, spit out a SQL script, write a pithy limerick... all these things are being cheapened somewhat.

Depends on what your definition of a product is? My head cannon says the majority of open source projects are products, as they are published to be consumed/used by others.

Hopefully they recorded it in their commit log.

What about with StarShip tha, whilst unproven, looks to be on path to the goal full reusability?

Slight conspiracy theory time: WFH has caused a drastic and sudden change to the economics of CBDs. Gradual change can be absorbed into economies, but a massive change leaves many people overexposed. For instance, office space valuations are taking a big hit. Here's the conspiracy: someone is ringing alarm bells behind the scenes, warning of another GFC sized event, and governments and people of influence like Schmidt are being urged to act.

It's really hard to give advice without knowing the complexity of the software, desired SLOs, how much you currently spend on your currentvendot, and how many $$ your current solution is costing in lost productivity/growth.

You haven't named the third party product. I presume because it reveals too much, but perhaps you could name it along with its competition so that we can get an understanding of complexity?

> I wouldn’t bat an eye buying a house in my partner or a parent’s name if it saved 3x property taxes.

That sounds like the policy had the desired effect. I.e home ownership is spread out across many people.

Those people cannot then own properties without being subject to those extra taxes. They'd be giving something up to help you, so would presumably benefiting somehow from your scheme.

It would be much easier to develop talent in an org if your employees were not allowed to leave on a whim, and you have a lot of availability of unpleasant "grunt" work that can be assigned, that people are not allowed to refuse.

Cars are already shipping with Sodium based batteries, and you can buy the cells yourself on Alibaba

https://electrek.co/2023/12/27/volkswagen-backed-ev-maker-fi...

https://www.alibaba.com/premium/sodium_ion_battery/---------...

Thanks for the correction. So this pumped hydro storage is at least 200x cheaper per kWh than current LiPo based solutions.

The Onslow pumped hydro scheme is estimated to store 4,000 – 11,000 GWh, with an estimated cost of $16 billion NZD (9.7 billion USD), and be delivered in (at least) 10 years time. Is that a cost of $881-2450 USD per kwhr?

I presume there is ample room for cost blowouts as well.

LiPo cells are currently costing about $110 to 130/kWh (USD), and trending downwards. Now large scale storage batteries are more than just the cells (Tesla megapacks are selling for 1.39M for 3.916 MW or about $410/kwhr), and cells probably wear out quicker than a dam, but it seems the Onslow scheme is not giving great bang for buck. The best you could say for it is that a lot of the spend would stay in NZ because a lot of the spend is in labour.

Am I missing something? Is my math wrong? It seems to me spending 16 billion becoming experts in assembling large scale batteries would be a better long term investment for NZ. And they can get access to the storage as it is build, instead of waiting 10 years.

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/28349-identifying-poten...

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/03/06/battery-prices-collap...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack

Isn't deleting the PII associated with a user id sufficient?

It also seems like a process that should scale horizontally pretty predicably.

Is this true? What are the costs per km for HVDC?

Perhaps you're just talking about the Eurasian continent? What do the people of Western Europe do? Connect to the US?

Even then, we've seen with the recent Russia-Ukraine war that control of energy is a useful geopolitical tool with Europe being softer on Russia because of their reliance on their gas.

It's simply a demonstration of scale. The number of people helps those amongst us that find it challenging to visualize the size of these things.

Why avoid these brands? Serious question.

Perhaps installing a big battery bank that trickle charges would smooth the load.

How many MWs would a carpark roofed with solar panels generate? My calculations say you need about 4k square meters to get 1MW whilst the sun is shining bright. That's about the size of medium sized supermarket carpark. Double that if you cover the building as well. You might get a good 2MW at peak, enough to allow a few cars charging at once. Not much good at after the afternoon sun has gone down and the after work rush is happening at the supermarket.

Given most drivers will be charging at home, I wonder what percentage of cars we can expect to be wanting to charge whilst shopping?

A friendly fyi just in case it wasn't a slip of the tongue: grid fins are only on the booster.

Define "unreasonable".