TigerTedd

Retro yet futuristic at the same time. This is a great side-by-side comparison, which is all the more striking when you remember Starship is just the top portion (fully reusable second stage) of a fully reusable rocket. 
As for the mighty fully reusable first stage, the Super Heavy booster, Elon has announced a new landing plan. The enemy of every rocket is mass, so he's decided they'll try to get rid of the landing legs and reduce the mass. At the top of these boosters will be gigantic titanium grid fins, which act to steer the rocket to the landing pad. Now the Super Heavy booster will descend through some sort of gigantic ring structure which these grid fins will rest on top of, so it stops above the ground. Crazy, audacious and utterly brilliant! 

They do look very retro, for saying they are super modern. Fully expect the female on board staff to be wearing mini skirts. 

Bit of a tangent and I know these are absolutely bleeding edge in tech terms, but I do rather like the somewhat art deco styling of these rockets. 

The moveable feast that is Starship launch dates has shifted. Friday and Saturday's  airspace clearances have now been cancelled. Now we have NOTAMs (notice to airmen) running from Sunday 10 January all the way through until Wednesday 20 January. There's some thought that this will allow for test flights of both SN9 and SN10, which would be exceedingly cool.

So aliens land and are directed to their parking spot. The ones contacting the Americans get to go to Florida. The ones that contact us get to go to the north coast of Scotland. Someone picked the short straw. 

So aliens land and are directed to their parking spot. The ones contacting the Americans get to go to Florida. The ones that contact us get to go to the north coast of Scotland. Someone picked the short straw. 

So aliens land and are directed to their parking spot. The ones contacting the Americans get to go to Florida. The ones that contact us get to go to the north coast of Scotland. Someone picked the short straw. 

The Starship program is starting 2021 in good shape. While the 9th prototype (SN9) stands on the testpad, SN10 is fully built, while SN11 and SN12 only needs flaps adding. Work has progressed as far as SN17 while there's also significant progress on the first massive Super Heavy booster (this prototype is designated BN1, I suspect with B for booster).
Tonight a static fire test is planned for the three raptor engines on SN9. The rocket is held down while the engines briefly fire to check everything is in order.
Then the test flight to 40,000 feet is scheduled for Friday afternoon (UK time, 2pm-midnight), with a backup window on the Saturday with the same flight window. Bring it on!

I agree, he ought to of Learnt his trade at Chelsea before coming to Pride Park

I need to know more about graphene and it’s practical applications. I feel like it could be my next obsession. 
I heard about it recently on a show Stephen Fry did that aired just after midnight on New Years about all the firsts since the turn of the millennium. It was really interesting and made me feel very old. But he got really excited when he started talking about graphene. 
I think I remember the guys who won a Nobel prize for it, then I’ve not really heard anything since. People seem to be very excited by it, but what could it actually mean for us in the future. Could it realistically be what everything is built from in a decade?

She is spot on with what she says..they wouldnt have gone up....just like Liverpool wouldnt have won the legaue.
all 2020 winners have an * next to it and it doesnt really count.

You mean a more reasonable comment has been taken out of context to make something seem far bigger than it is?
CLICK NOW AS DCFC FANS POSTER MAKES SHOCKING REVELATION ABOUT HIS PERSONAL HYGENE! (HITC Exclusive)

Strange club. Very strange. 

What people forget is that when they watched the first ones they were kids and loved it. By the time the prequels came out, they’d grown up but Star Wars hadn’t.

Anyone who has scumbag united as a 2nd team knows nowt about ther history. 
Its like saying ” look, Osama Bin Laden is back, but he is ok now because he has got a fancy suit on”! 
Journalists and tv/radio broadcasters are having a love fest about them. Meh. 
Sooner they and their self entitled supporters are put back in their box the better. Sooooooon please.

I hope Burnley contain them all game, score in the last minute off Chris Woods backside having had 12% possession all game.
That would cheer me up no end. 
With Burnley’s game in hand, that could potentially put them a place closer to the bottom 3 where they belong.

Exactly - which I why I'm looking forwards to these new tv shows, they have the potential to be edgier or darker than the movies, which were always sci-fi light, good vs evil, family friendly affairs.
The best Star Wars stuff has always been in the Expanded Universe tbh, for any nerds out there such as myself a lot of this stuff is essential reading ?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/07/25/the-best-star-wars-books-of-all-time/

What people forget is that when they watched the first ones they were kids and loved it. By the time the prequels came out, they’d grown up but Star Wars hadn’t.

What people forget is that when they watched the first ones they were kids and loved it. By the time the prequels came out, they’d grown up but Star Wars hadn’t.

If you started from episode one, that would be a fair assessment. 
it’s funny that the first 3 have their critics, and the last 3 certainly do, and a lot of people weren’t too happy with return of the Jedi when it came out. So out of 9 films, there’s only really 2 that are actually universally loved and appreciated. And they’re the oldest two. So all the new dangled technology and big budgets hasn’t really helped it at all. 
more important than the films though is the universe, the history, the mythology that Lucas created. Which allows for a million different stories to be told (hence why we’re getting a million new series). The Skywalker saga is just one story in one period of history in a galaxy far far away. 

The next prototype, SN9, has been rolled out to the test/launch site. It's only a small improvement from SN8, with the new rocket made completely of a new version of stainless steel that SpaceX thinks will perform better. I don't know if anything has been done to address the landing failure of SN8, due to a loss of pressure in the small fuel tank in the nosecone.
Meanwhile, here's a fantastic annotated recap of the launch and landing of SN8, the proof of concept that it's possible to use this method of flying and falling to land anywhere in the solar system without a runway. Including the Moon and Mars.
 

Just heard them talking about Lampard on Talk Sport, and why some people want him to fail. Some were saying it’s not Lampard as such, it’s just Chelski, no one really likes them. But a Leeds fan texted in saying he wants Lampard to fail because of spy gate.
let it go man, let it go. 
But, you know what, Leeds may have beaten us last season on their way to getting promoted, but that was Philip Cocu’s Derby County. The last memory they’ll ever have of Frank Lampard’s Derby county is us beating them 4-2. Ah, happier times.
and he beat them again this season. I can see why they’re starting to bear a grudge. 

Showing the full match on Sky Sports Christmas Day afternoon ?

Just heard a brilliant description of Bielsa on the guardian podcast....he is just Keegan with a bucket.