hey @NASA was there some plan you weren't telling us about
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) March 24, 2023
Sir Terry Pratchett was correct: Everything will be all right, as long as you’ve got a potato…
Engineers have created an intriguing concrete alternative using simulated Martian or lunar soil, potato starch and salt.
The “space concrete” is twice as strong as conventional concrete, the researchers say. They hope the new material will eventually facilitate construction efforts on the moon and Mars.
In a new study published in the journal Open Engineering (opens in new tab), two researchers from the University of Manchester in England demonstrate the effectiveness of potato starch as a binder to create the novel “StarCrete.” …
Stronger concretes typically last longer, but that isn’t StarCrete’s major advantage as a potential building material on the moon or Mars. The scientists estimate that just 55 pounds (25 kilograms) of dehydrated potatoes could be used to produce nearly half a ton of StarCrete, which is enough to sculpt over 200 bricks. For context, you need about 7,500 bricks to construct a three-bedroom house here on Earth.
Typical materials needed to mix concrete come with considerable weight. For future lunar and Martian constructions, as with any space mission, weight reduction is a big priority. Whether it be a satellite, cargo to the International Space Station or materials to build a house on the moon, the heavier a payload, the more cost-prohibitive it is to launch into space. So, the less weight, the better…
Concrete from the researchers’ trials using blood and urine also produced strengths above traditional mixtures, measuring around 40 MPa. These bricks’ construction, however, would require that astronauts repeatedly drain their own bodily fluids, which was viewed as a drawback.
Aled Roberts, the lead researcher for the StarCrete project and research fellow for the Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub at the University of Manchester, concedes that using potato flakes is preferable to blood and pee.
“Astronauts probably don’t want to be living in houses made from scabs and urine,” he said in a statement…
(You just know the future ‘Emperor of Mars’ will insist that his colonists *prefer* scabs and pee.)
A rocket made almost entirely of 3D-printed parts has finally taken flight, but didn't last long. The second stage failed three minutes after liftoff from Florida late Wednesday, and the mission failed to reach orbit. https://t.co/DHFyN1oh3v
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 23, 2023
Ah, well, better luck next time:
A rocket made almost entirely of 3D-printed parts made its launch debut Wednesday night, lifting off amid fanfare but failing three minutes into flight — far short of orbit.
There was nothing aboard Relativity Space’s test flight except for the company’s first metal 3D print made six years ago.
The startup wanted to put the souvenir into a 125-mile-high (200-kilometer-high) orbit for several days before having it plunge through the atmosphere and burn up along with the upper stage of the rocket.
As it turned out, the first stage did its job following liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and separated as planned. But the upper stage appeared to ignite and then shut down, sending it crashing into the Atlantic.
It was the third launch attempt from what once was a missile site. Relativity Space came within a half-second of blasting off earlier this month, with the rocket’s engines igniting before abruptly shutting down.
Although the upper stage malfunctioned and the mission did not reach orbit, “maiden launches are always exciting and today’s flight was no exception,” Relativity Space launch commentator Arwa Tizani Kelly said after Wednesday’s launch…
BUT SERIOUSLY…
Very pleased to say that this column has no @washingtonpost paywall! A tale of how Biden is moving to undo a Trump political play that could harm our national security. https://t.co/HTEBG3cAGu
— David Ignatius (@IgnatiusPost) March 24, 2023
The aftershocks from Donald Trump’s presidency reach even to outer space, but the Biden administration is quietly moving to repair one piece of the damage that could affect national security.
The White House appears ready to reverse a Trump administration plan to relocate the U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala., because it fears the transfer would disrupt operations at a time when space is increasingly important to the military.
The Space Command siting decision has been a political football for the past four years. Trump made the decision on Jan. 11, 2021, five days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He had said earlier that he wouldn’t decide until he knew the 2020 election results, “to see how it turns out.” Colorado voted against him, while Alabama gave him strong support and its representatives backed his false claim he had won…
Rep. Mo Brooks made one of the earliest announcements of Trump’s selection of the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Brooks, who represents the area, was one of the leading GOP congressional apologists for the Jan. 6 riot, arguing falsely in a tweet the next day: “Evidence growing that fascist ANTIFA orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.”…
Trump emphatically took personal political credit for steering the Space Command toward a friendly state. “I single-handedly said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama,’” he told the hosts of “Rick and Bubba,” a Birmingham-based radio show. “They wanted it. I said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama.’ I love Alabama.’”
Trump’s long shadow reaches to some unlikely places, but few as important as the prompt establishment of the Space Command headquarters. President Biden is right to listen to the generals on this one and keep the locus of space operations where it is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Somebody had fun writing that sentence.
Baud
It’s like Jesus feeding the multitudes.
Pussies.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Defending the freedoms of our precious bodily fluids one drip at a time.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Didn’t the character in The Martian live on potatoes grown in his own poop? Is that relevant to this discussion?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I wonder what they do with the leftovers? Soup? Hash browns? Mashed taters?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Isn’t all food to some extent grown in poop? Usually the poop of strangers.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He ran out of ketchup and then went with crushed vicodins as his condiment of choice.
Baud
Pharaoh: “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota.”
Israelites: Tis ok, we’ve got potatoes.
Suzanne
Space concrete, that’s wild.
The limitation of concrete building construction here on Earth is that concrete is really weak in tension without steel reinforcement like rebar. So…..lots of Roman arches on Mars?
Jeffro
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m keeping this part
in the back of my mind for future (droll) use. =)
evodevo
Uh…yeah…where ya gonna get the water to do this on Mars/Moon? And don’t the space station astronauts get their water from recycling pee, etc.? If you use that for concrete, where ya gonna replenish it?
Low Key Swagger
Open thread? Did anyone else read the article about DeJoy in Time magazine this week? Pretty interesting, he doesn’t come off as quite the villain we thought. The article did not mention (and I don’t remember) if Biden was successful in getting the Board in friendlier territory, and if so, perhaps that was a come to Jesus moment for DeJoy. But even Shumer has admitted that absent his leadership, they would not have been successful in making important and long overdue reforms. Perhaps this has been covered here and I’ve missed it.
sdhays
Elmu has a sad that people won’t have to harvest their blood to build housing on his Mars base. He’ll now have a group of Twitter engineers brainstorming ideas for exploiting those precious bodily fluids.
Baud
@Low Key Swagger:
I didn’t see the article, but DeJoy seems more like someone who wants to please his masters than a pure ideologue. Still could be dangerous if a Republican wins next year.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Oh God. An election. (Another one.) Next year.
I’m tired and it’s too early for this level of stress.
Baud
As Dan Quayle would say, yay, potatos!
Baud
@Suzanne:
Don’t stress. The next election could be the last one!
Low Key Swagger
@Baud: I can see that being a common perception, and it may be true. But he doesn’t need the money, has he has been wildly successful turning businesses around. The article makes it sound as if he relished the challenge. Could be part of a wholesale rehabilitation gambit (the article) but I intend to give the man another look.
Baud
@Low Key Swagger:
The USPS is subject to a consent decree after the 2020 shenanigans. Hopefully that will work to deter future problems.
Baud
@evodevo:
Trade!
oatler
The Jack Vance novel “The Blue World” has the inhabitants of a landless planet draining themselves to the point of anemia to produce iron for weapons. Like all Golden Age writers, Vance assumed a magic power source that would transport humanity to non-Bolshevik worlds…
Matt McIrvin
@evodevo: There’s lots of water on Mars, frozen, in the polar caps and in permafrost in the high latitudes. The Moon is a harder case, but there are craters near the poles that have permanently shadowed interiors with ice in them; it’s been proposed that these are good places to build bases.
WaterGirl
@Low Key Swagger: @Low Key Swagger:
DeJoy used the post office to subvert democracy.
That makes him dangerous. What else do you need to know about this guy?
Brit in Chicago
Potatoes and salt—how about a little butter, and a grind of black pepper?
Eyeroller
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, but what does one need to convert ice to water? Energy! Maybe from something like solar concentrators, I don’t know. Also with the most accessible water in or near the polar caps, where we presumably do not want to build colonies, it would have to be transported, and what do we need to transport water long distances? Energy! The energetics of getting humans to Mars, much less sustaining them there, are very unfavorable and this is just being ignored IMHO. There is an assumption we’ll just figure it out. Or we’ll spend the large amount of money it would take to preposition supplies, send supplies, etc.
Why do we want colonies on Mars anyway? What’s the point? Is the idea that they’d be something like the scientific station at the South Pole?
Butter Emails
@Eyeroller:
1. Build up a self sustaining colony on another planet so all of humanities’ eggs aren’t in one basket and the entire species isn’t wiped out by one boloid or other cataclysm.
2. Gain access to and exploit the resources of another entire planet.
You know bacteria gaining access to another petri dish.
Scamp Dog
@Eyeroller: I think that is the best reason for going to Mars. Learning more about another world is more of a scientific goal than a practical one, but it’s a better use of our country’s wealth than making our billionaires even richer.
RepubAnon
@sdhays: Musky probably thought the bricks would be made BY Scabs, not from them.
PST
@Suzanne:
That will be pretty. But with only 40 percent of the gravity of earth, the problem ought to be manageable. Especially since there can be, by definition, no earthquakes on Mars.
Layer8Problem
@Butter Emails: And nothing’s funner than living in an environment more hostile than Antarctica. The more-baskets-for-the-eggs idea is prudent at least, given all the extinction event possibilities but we really have to work on fixing things up here and making physics-defying warp drives.
Butter Emails
For Melon Husk and his ilk there’s also the attraction of being able to select their own Adams and Eves, dictate the layout of their own Garden of Eden and control it as they see fit. You know, be gods and practice eugenics without actually needing to bloody their hands
OzarkHillbilly
@Butter Emails: More like parasites finding a new host.
Kirk Spencer
@Layer8Problem: i think of the orbital, lunar, and martian habitation projects as training and development in preparation for when we have those interstellar options.
Given my layman understanding of it, we have gone from physics defying to physics niche currently not feasible.
raven
Tornado hit in Troup County GA and they think there may be a tiger on the loose.
dmsilev
A couple of points re: Relativity. First, they said ahead of the test that they’d be happy if the rocket made it through what’s called Max-Q, the point during the launch when the aerodynamic stresses are largest. They did that, demonstrating that the 3D printed structure was up to handling the stresses. So, at least a partial success, even if something went wrong with the second stage. Second, arguably the point of the company is to develop the technology for large-scale high-strength 3d printed …whatevers, and they’re using rockets as basically demonstrations of their capabilities. See point 1. So, all in all, they’re probably reasonably happy with how this flight went.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@raven: oh my!
Layer8Problem
@raven: Could it be a (wait for a beat) tigernado?
Seriously, I hope minimal damage and no injuries.
Barney
Symbolism and bodily fluid extraction aren’t dead yet in outer space, though:
Suzanne
@PST: I would guess that lateral stresses imposed by high Martian winds will be more difficult to deal with than gravity loads. That would indicate that relatively low buildings, even sunken buildings, might be the way to go.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Isn’t that what happens every time LSU comes to town for a game?
Brachiator
@Brit in Chicago:
Martian colonies. Ingenious, and delicious.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suzanne: Mars’ atmosphere is so thin I’m not sure how much of a concern that is.
Frankensteinbeck
@Eyeroller:
It inspires people, making them feel like humanity has achieved a new height, figuratively and literally, and they have been part of it. Any other consideration is tacked on as an excuse. That is the actual reason people want it.
And it’s a great reason. It’s living rather than surviving. It’s the big, group version of the motivation that drives individuals to make art or climb mountains or improve the world for other people rather than themselves.
While practical considerations are excuses, a significant one does exist. We have nowhere near the tech to do this, and there is no telling what useful discoveries will be made along the way, like vastly improved concrete.
EDIT – @Dorothy A. Winsor:
Growing food crops in human waste is highly problematical, unfortunately. Diseases and parasites.
Low Key Swagger
@WaterGirl: Well that’s not as clear if you read the article. I’m not saying he’s an angel, just, perhaps, he’s not acting with malice. The unions are on board with his performance thus far. He protected overtime pay, is building a large sorting center in Atlanta, and is modernizing the fleet of vehicles. I think Baud has it right, he is facing restraints not previously in place before, and I would add that he is legacy building. As always, YMMV
Geminid
I’ve been looking forward to the Senate acting on former New Mexico Rep Xochitl Torres Small’s nomination for Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. She was nominated a month ago. Now it looks like commitee hearings will have to wait until after April 14, when the Senate comes back from the recess that starts Friday. Although now I see that the Senate does not take recesses; they have “State Work Periods.”
Ms. Torres Small is currently Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development. Her nomination to the Department’s second highest position received good reviews from just about every interested group, so this nomination should sail through the Committee and the Senate.
I hope Senator Fetterman will attend the Agriculture Committee hearings and help interview Torres Small. Maybe the docs at Walter Reed will spring him in time to spend the State Work Period at home in Braddock, with his family.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: The last time they were here they had a tail-gate around the corner with a huge inflatable tiger! We beat them but they were an affable group. I remember one guy kept saying “nobody moves, nobody gets hoit!”
Butter Emails
@Suzanne: The wind on Mars is actually quite gentle. The atmosphere is thin so even at higher velocities it doesn’t have as much of an impact.
Steve in the ATL
Where’s raven this afternoon? I’m wearing my Wuxtry Records tshirt at the rooftop bar at Círculo de Bellas Artes! The Euro poseurs in their faux Yankees hats and Carhartt hoodies are jealous!
JPL
@raven: BTW They want you to call 911 if you see it. I had no idea that there was a zoo there. I do hope that there was no loss of life due to the storms though.
Steve in the ATL
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
When is eating food grown in your own poop not relevant here?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Heh, When my youngest was in Baton Rouge they had their apartment in Tiger Town. Unfortunately, or maybe not, we weren’t there for game day.
Frankensteinbeck
@Steve in the ATL:
An analogy for American politics if I’ve ever heard one, including the diseases and parasites.
Also a damned fine rotating tag.
dmsilev
@Suzanne: The atmosphere on Mars is really thin; even the strongest storms we’ve seen there are basically nothing by Earth standards.
Yes, the setup in The Martian resulting in Matt Damon getting left behind was nonsense. The author admitted as much.
Matt McIrvin
@Butter Emails: Yeah, the windstorm sequence in The Martian was actually the one thing that Andy Weir admitted he fudged for the sake of the story. It’s unlikely that that would happen.
Dust gets everywhere in the dust storms, though.
I suspect the biggest problem with settling Mars isn’t water or energy, both of which can be gotten, it’s that the soil contains toxic perchlorates that would be a hazard to astronauts and might make it difficult to use to grow anything. We already know from lunar exploration that it’s really hard to keep the dirt from getting everywhere (and lunar regolith is nasty stuff too, not good if you breathe it in).
Well, that and the lack of a global magnetic field to shield settlers from solar eruptions and cosmic radiation. Same problem as with the Moon–you might need underground shelters.
Suzanne
@OzarkHillbilly: From what I understand, the winds there are significant. Strong enough to move lots of sand around.
The bigger issue I would see with building is how to do foundations. Not sure how far down it would be to get to bedrock, or if you would need to. On earth, if you want to do slabs on grade, you have to remove sand and gravel and then compact the soils. And of course, there’s a limit to the structure size you can do that way.
The best analog I can think of for (what seems likely to me) an appropriate building type would be the igloo or the pueblo.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d love to go to a night game there.
prostratedragon
Wonder how relieved Dr. Fauci was when he could stop worrying about NIAID suddenly having its major operations consolidated to Hamilton, MT.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Kirk Spencer: couple questions- are those potato bricks going to stop the cosmic radiation that bombards the surface of both Mars and the Moon due to lack of an atmosphere? And who is going to live on either permanently as the effects of one sixth(the Moon) and one third(Mars) the gravity of Earth are debilitating on adult humans long term and no one knows if a full term human pregnancy is possible on either? Low gravity has bad effects on eyeballs and bone density, what does it do to a developing fetus?
Suzanne
@dmsilev: I saw The Martian but I don’t remember a storm sequence. I am thinking the wind problem would be more of a foundations problem….like the wind would move the sand and the whole building would shift sideways. From what I understand, Mars’ storms have shifted sand dunes over time, so I don’t know if there’s enough stability there.
It’s really hard to build corners in concrete without steel. That’s why indigenous builders usually did masonry buildings with wood or thatch roofs, or built dome structures (but those are harder to do with bricks).
Frankensteinbeck
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Super powers.
OzarkHillbilly
It can be done safely but it has to be well composted, to kill those diseases and parasites. Still not recommended.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Low Key Swagger
@raven: Used to live in LaGrange, the local paper is awful and I have had trouble trying to find out the impact. Still know a bunch of people there.
WaterGirl
@Low Key Swagger: He destroyed brand-new VERY EXPENSIVE machinery!
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Remember the whole post from Cole that was on shit?
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Are you talking about #ColonoscopyDiaries?
raven
@Low Key Swagger: Here’s all the AJC has now.
Baud
@WaterGirl: You’ll need to narrow it down.
Mo MacArbie
One wonders if they also explored the properties of sement.
Aw, c’mon, it’s right there!
raven
@Low Key Swagger: And 11 Alive
https://www.11alive.com/article/weather/storms-weather-live-updates-south-atlanta-georgia/85-dee32db5-f1d7-4759-9c02-bf640a7362dc
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: No, I think one of the pets was having intestinal issues, shall we say.
prostratedragon
I should think one would like to be sure.
(Drat, about the tiger. Whar reply links?)
WaterGirl
@Baud: You’ve got me there!
OzarkHillbilly
@Suzanne: Others have made the same point as I and explained it more fully.
I’m not sure how deep one would have to go for a foundation on Mars. Here, it’s to get below the frost line (24″ in this part of Misery, so the minimal depth is 30″). I worked a job at Fort Lost in the Woods for 6 years building barracks on slab foundations and the foundation walls were all at 48″ deep, and yes, compacted gravel and sand inside the walls. I think the main reason* for getting below the frost line is to negate the expansion and contraction of freezing water in the soil, which would not be a problem on Mars. Grade beams (of sufficient size) might be all that is necessary there.
*If I am wrong about that please educate me. I never did much concrete work.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: My son says it is quite a show. And that was just in the surrounding areas, never mind the stadium.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mo MacArbie: Ooooofff…
Geminid
@Suzanne: If the bricks were molded with a slight taper across the long dimension, they could make a dome. If the rows were staggered the brick could be set without mortar or adhesives. With the lower gravity the bricks could be oversized..
The circular foundation would have to make a good tension ring. I wonder if Mars has materials to make something like fiber glass, that could add tensile strength.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: you have me pied or something?
Suzanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Yes, getting below the frost line is to avoid expansion/contraction problems. But Missouri is mostly organic soil that holds together if compacted. Sand and gravels are harder to build on because, even if it doesn’t freeze, they don’t hold together when compacted. They constantly shift and erode, from rains but also from winds (think big Saharan sand dunes). So in places that have those conditions, they can do grade beams, if there is something more stable not too far under the sand, or they do deep foundations down to bedrock. So it really depends on what we don’t know, which is what the conditions are like below the surface. If it’s all sand, the building becomes like a ship, moving because the surrounding conditions are moving.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Yeah, agreed. An igloo-type structure seems like a good analog. They’re made of bricks, after all.
Another Scott
@Baud: If Darth weren’t hibernating, I’m sure he would be all over this story.
I haven’t clicked the link, but it’s my understanding that concrete needs to have stressing agents (e.g. rebar) to be strong enough for many applications. Similarly, glass is very strong, but can be brittle (like lots of ceramics). Glass is heavy, also too. Citing a particular materials metric has to be taken with a grain of salt, so to speak.
Still, organic materials are vast and we’re still figuring them out. Billions of years of organic chemistry have a lot to teach us.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Steve in the ATL: Don’t most of us?
I kid, I kid. Where are you?
rikyrah
This TikTok Viewer talking about Pope Frankie and his bubble jacket😂😂😂😂
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTRvHpp9S/
Anyway
@Geminid:
Any update on NC electric grid sabotage from last month? I’d have thought with cameras everywhere they would have some idea of the culprits.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
He appears to be in Madrid. That’s where the Círculo de Bellas Artes is.
frosty
@Suzanne: Buckle up. The older you get, the faster they come. I’m not ready to knock on doors again.
Steve in the ATL
@Elizabelle: Madrid. And if you don’t, you should!
Steve in the ATL
@Steeplejack: there could be one at Myrtle Beach too!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: hell no, I hit the rack at 10 so that may account for it.
Geminid
@Steve in the ATL: Look around. Do you see any miniature golf courses? Pancake houses? If you do, you’re probably in Myrtle Beach.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: I used to play ball at Stegman with Dan Wall from Wuxtry. Good guy but a total asshole on the court.
Steve in the ATL
@Geminid: well, there is Taco Bell and Godfather’s Pizza here. And, weirdly, Tim Horton’s, eh?
rikyrah
We have said it over and over. They didn’t mind socialism when it was WHITE SOCIALISM.
It’s only when policies would benefit someone other than White people, it’s when it started to be called SOCIALISM😒😒
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTRvHbaxS/
raven
@Steve in the ATL: In more important news, I’m sure you have seen that the Senator is back.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: any relation to Jeff? My seafoam Strat buddy.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: yeah, but one post every other day or so doesn’t cut it! We missed the combine and pro day.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: No, that was Jeff Walls. He married Phyllis Bridges after her first husband died. I see Rhett Crowe at the dog park most days and she lives around the corner.
raven
News is they captured one tiger but another is still on the loose.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: LSU, Auburn, or Missouri?
MomSense
@raven:
Tigernado!!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Try to keep up counselor!
Baud
@MomSense:
Haha. 🐅🌪️
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Mars is more developed than I realized.
trollhattan
Can you imagine how many people they would shed upon being informed they’re moving from Colorado to Alabama? Talk about a poison pill.
They did the same nonsense with the Bureau of Land Management–moving from DC to Colorado, Grand Junction, Colorado. Biden admin is moving them back to DC.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: haven’t seen a Dunkin yet….
Kirk
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
Dunno, doubt they will do it fully but they’ll probably make a good reinforcement structure for underground spaces.
And odds are there are a lot of people who would be willing to do that despite the risks, despite the unknowns. Also, while we know the effects of microgravity, we’re not so sure if the effects are linear or if there is a curve for 1/6 and 1/3 gravity effects.
See “layman” and “learning” in my prior post.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
That’s the thing that blows my mind about conservatives’ reactions to liberal, educated cities, and their constant comments that people don’t want to live in them. Uh, my dudes, property values are how you measure where people want to live. If people wanted to live in red places, their property values would be higher.
Geminid
@Anyway: No news on the Moore County substation attacks. This tends to make me think it was a culprit, not culprits. The two attacks were spaced twenty minutes apart, so one person could have done them.
Law enforcement agencies say they have brass rifle shell casings from the scene and that they’ve subpoenaed cell tower records. Plus they say they’ve looked at video from parking lot cameras that show traffic on a road that might have been used by the saboteur(s). Authorities posted a $75,000 reward for useful information.
There were a couple less successful power station attacks in North and South Carolina, maybe two months ago, that the FBI says are being investigated as acts of domestic terrorism. But no progress has been announced. These may have been copycat crimes.
Moore County has a population of 100,000, and I think there are a few hundred thousand more people within an hour’s drive. My guess now is that this was a lone wolf from another county, and that the attack was a one-off and not a spree.
I also expect that power companies everywhere are rigging their substations with cameras and silent alarms, and from now on they’ll be catching the dumb ones. That appears to be the case with two guys who were caught in the Pacific Northwest a few weeks ago, and charged with damaging at least one substation. Police say they were thieves, who decided that committing a major federal felony would make burgling a some local businesses easier.
karen marie
@Scamp Dog: You sweet summer child, thinking the money would come from the billionaires.
PAM Dirac
@Suzanne:
As far as I know the only attempt to get more than a few scoopfulls below the Mars surface was the Insight mission. The temp probe was supposed to go down ~5 meters and it only made it about 0.3 meters. The Martian soil did not behave as expected. It is only one attempt in one place, but I think it is clear that even the best current guesses for conditions below the surface are likely to be wrong.
Baud
@Geminid:
I haven’t seen much buzz about Waco, which makes me think the rally was a dud.
Omnes Omnibus
@karen marie:
Hey, we are talking about colonizing Mars. Why not talk about other unlikely wish list items?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like Selena Gomez?
Baud
@Suzanne:
Their main political strategy is to make red areas unattractive places to live so liberals move away.
oldgold
@Baud: The opening was a puke fest on steroids.
Another Scott
@Baud:
“Thousands”:
Low energy.
Sad.
(Lots of pictures of white Texans.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Anoniminous
In the light of current knowledge by the time the colonists reached and settled Mars:
1. They’d have various & sundry cancers from the solar wind particles sheeting through their bodies due to the loss of protection from the Van Allen belt
2. Their brains would have turned to snot due to change of fluid dynamics in low-to-zero G thus affecting brain functioning, e.g.,the volume transmission of neuroactive ligands such as Dopamine, Neurotension, etc. through the extracellular matrix.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
Who am I to judge?
Baud
@oldgold:
To which country?
trollhattan
And Waco, TX and Donald Trump.
So much winning.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Well, I mean, mission accomplished.
Seems like taking a bath with a toaster, tho.
Geminid
@Baud: I think Trump’s team got what they wanted as far as production values: enough people to fill bleachers behind the speaker’ platform, and enough to fill an area in front; a blue sky to silhouette Trump in pictures taken at platform level, etc.
Trump’s speech was about two hours long and full of complaints. Tom Nichols retweeted somebody who live-tweeted the speech as she looked at a video feed. It sounded boring overall.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: well, we talked about moving enough liberals to Wyoming to change the political bent. Pretty much the same.
@Omnes Omnibus: you’re a former judge, which gives you some license.
NotMax
@Baud
The dearth of extensive coverage makes my heart soar like a hawk.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
That’s how you maintain control with a popular minority: be so obnoxious and/or dangerous that your opponents are herded into smaller and smaller areas, then use “land gets votes” constitutional features to solidify minority rule since you control most of the land. The endpoint is rule through representation of depopulated rotten boroughs as legitimate political constituencies.
Baud
@Geminid:
Boring is good. Too many people these days are interested in ugliness, hether too cheer it on or be outraged by it.
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: Sounds like Putler’s rally where they started leaving when the buckwheat porridge ran out.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Hahaha
Steve in the ATL
@Baud:
Dude, your campaign advisors suck.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Really? You don’t think “Baud! will put you to sleep?” is a winner? People want rest.
Anoniminous
@rikyrah:
We’re seeing less of it in New Mexico as the white rancher and oil patch families die off.
Another Scott
@Baud:
Aljazeera:
Every accusation is a confession. He’s not even trying to be subtle any more.
Sad.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
@Scamp Dog:
I agree but there are more urgent needs. On a planetary basis, climate change. In America, our declining life expectancies compared to other wealthy nations as discussed in this NPR piece.
And because “freedom”
Life expectancy lags in US
raven
Additionally, two tigers were captured after being reported as unaccounted for at the Pine Mountain Animal Safari, a more than 250-acre drive-through zoo about 18 miles east of West Point, according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities had initially said one tiger was missing.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: “Baud=‘Diagnosis Murder’ rerun”
Can’t lose!
Dangerman
@raven: Loose tiger after a tornado? Luckily, you can get a prop bet for just about anything in Vegas. Seeya, I’m going shopping for an Island.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: Ali Velshi just played a clip of trump recuonting DeSantis’s request for an endorsement into a “tears in his eyes”, really he said that, Sir Story, which made me chuckle.
Baud
@raven:
When the question is “How many tigers are missing?”, the wrong answer is “We don’t know?”
Another Scott
[ snort! ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@NotMax: The attendance was not that great, either. Waco and the county around it holds ~250,000 people, and there are plenty more in the Dallas-Ft. Worth 90 miles to the north. I think a second-tier county music act could have drawn a bigger audience.
The stand-alone rallies Trump did last year, like the one in Cummings, Georgia did not attract a lot of people either.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Fo’ sho’.
But on the whole, it’s really really stupid and self-defeating. It gives you outsize political power, but only at the cost of everything else. Property values I’ve already mentioned, but also broader cultural influence. Hell, even their kids can’t stand where they live and move away.
Another Scott
@Geminid:
The Nacho Daddy Car and Bike Show looks like it was a better time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@Geminid:
It sounds like those TFG rallies are turning into Spinal Tap’s big American tour.
Scamp Dog
@karen marie: oh no, I’m not thinking the billionaires will volunteer their money. I’m just saying that devoting resources to space exploration is better than giving more to billionaires. Come to think of it, just about anything is better than giving more resources to billionaires.
Steve in the ATL
@Geminid: Cumming, not Cummings, not that it’s any better…
Was also the last home of the Klan in Georgia
Steve in the ATL
@Geminid: there was a longer line yesterday at FNAC for an Ana Mena autograph session and she is clearly no one because I’ve never heard of her!
But the line of tween girls and gay guys wrapped around the entire block
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: smell the glove!
ETA: trifecta! Time to cut off the rioja…
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: What’s wrong with being sexist?
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: your sexism goes to 11!
Suzanne
@Geminid: I went to a Trump rally back in, like, 2015 or something, and it was boring AF. And his schtick has gotten really stale since then. And Meatball Ron doesn’t seem to scratch the same itch for the MAGAt types.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: Attendence was decent for a political rally in the “off season.” Trump’s theory, though, is that he’s the charismatic leader of a mass movement and he clearly is not.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne:
I was going to say this is a safe space but that may be a bridge too far
Scamp Dog
@Sure Lurkalot: I think you’re absolutely right about that. Our billionaires are perfectly content with the current trajectory of our economy, however disastrous it turns out in the long run, and they lack the imagination to realize it will work out badly for them, too. Or at least their successors; most of them will be dead before things get really bad.
Abnormal Hiker
@Steve in the ATL: I wish Tim Hortons in Toronto had that menu!
Anyway
@Geminid:
Thanks for the update on the Monroe County investigation. I am glad there seems to be done progress.I want copycat “disgruntled” elements to be deterred/ scared off.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Which is why Trump could sell stuff like medical coverage and social security expansion that no other Republican can. His Nazi-ass followers knew brown people wouldn’t be getting any.
@oldgold:
The message I’m reading there is that the dumb fuck thinks an actual widespread violent uprising is his only way to save himself, and he doesn’t want to face that no one cares about him that much anymore.
EDIT – This is some ‘It’s the pictures that got small!’ shit going on right here.
Geminid
@Anyway: This reminds me that I haven’t checked Cheryl Christie Bowman lately. She’s a citizen journalist who lives in Moore County, and reports on the politics there. Moore is a rural/exurban County near Fayetteville and the Fort formerly known as Bragg.
Kristine
@Suzanne:
Would force of higher winds be offset by thinner atmosphere
ETA: and I should’ve known this would’ve already been discussed so Never Mind
Uncle Cosmo
@Suzanne:
Might be more difficult, but not much of a problem. Strongest winds observed on Mars during dust storms have been ~110 kph (70 mph), far less than a Category 3 hurricane – and the atmosphere is 1/100 as thick as ours.
With neither magnetosphere nor ozone layer, UV and cosmic rays would probably be far more problematical, and much better reasons for covering habitats with a couple of meters of Martian regolith, if not putting them deeper underground or digging them into canyon or crater walls.
planetjanet
@dmsilev:
Can someone tell me why I should be excited about 3D-printed anything? It seems more like a toy than anything else.
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: I wonder if all those Martians who are already living underground will start complaining about gentrification.
Another Scott
@planetjanet: It’s exciting because 3D printing enables fabrication of things that are difficult (or impossible) to make any other way.
Computer aided design and engineering has progressed to the point that many improvements in all sorts of areas are known and proven by the physics built into the models – the limitation is being able to actually make the things.
Plus, imagine being able to make nearly any metal part by having a tabletop device and an appropriate mixture of starting powders or wires. Rather than having to buy a billet of the magic alloy you need and then cutting away everything that isn’t the part you want… ;-)
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Steve in the ATL:
I was there to heckle and protest. I commented here the whole time.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: I started college the fall of 1979 and soon thereafter the Spartacus Youth League on campus started having seminars on why we should support the Iranian “students” who took over the embassy in Tehran, why the USSR was correct to invade Afghanistan (“women are getting and spreading TB because they have to wear dirty face coverings all the time!!”), etc. I went there to argue with them.
It’s kinda interesting to see “true believer” humans up close. :-/
I could imagine some future goateed-me running for office and the GQP trying to use attending a meeting like that as evidence that he is a secret anarchist/communist/etc…
tl;dr – Good for you!
Cheers,
Scott.
GibberJack
@Geminid: I think the perp has sympathizers who are helping him hide, just like Eric Rudolph. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some Army of God asshole who did it.
bbleh
@Baud: The Poop Of Strangers. An attention-demanding, and at times gut-wrenching, look into the biological fibers that connect the families of a small American town. Coming soon to Amazon and your local bookseller.
cintibud
Get the water from the poles by digging canals! (h/t Percival Lowell)
Geminid
@GibberJack: If this guy was careful enough, he wouldn’t need any help hiding. He could have driven home that Saturday night, gone back to work Monday, and kept his mouth shut. If he’d driven from 60 miles away he still could have gotten home by 10pm. He’d have a better chance just laying low and not involving other people.
Uncle Cosmo
@Geminid: “Gentrification” my royal terrestrial arse, when we translate the first message from beneath the red sands it’ll probably read