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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • So the two systems are completely different. Classic steam cats use the steam generated by the propulsion plant to pressurize the catapults and propel planes off the carrier. EMALS uses the steam generated by the propulsion plant to generate electricity to launch planes similar to a railgun (as I understand it; might be wrong but the core concept is there). You can’t really have both, and retrofitting is costly and expensive, because now you need to be able to transport the steam to the right place, be able to contain the steam, etc. and that is not to mention any issues with whether or not the propulsion plant can produce the steam required to operate the cats. I have a hunch electricity generation is more efficient from a steam use perspective than steam cats.








  • This stunt actually has nothing to do with “fraud” in government spending, but as someone with experience in government procurement, contracting is where the waste is. The government actually doesn’t do too badly when we keep the work in-house. It’s these multimillion dollar contracts to some private company that are where the waste, fraud, and abuse are. Go fucking audit SpaceX. Revisit those contracts. Bet we can save billions every year on just one companies stupid fucking defense contracts. Then go after the rest of these contractors. Threaten to bring the work back in house and see how they react. Follow through and actually bring the work back in house, build the public sector engineering and manufacturing expertise, and see where we are.






  • In the offhand chance this is a genuine question, it’s because a large number of people in this country are essentially traumatized at the prospect of a pedophile, convicted felon, rapist, fascist in the white house, and schools know that students who are so preoccupied won’t be able to learn/pay attention in class, so they give them a break to allow time to focuse on processing the trauma from the election.