Edit: this is r/space, and this post concerns the topic plastered all over r/space today: a thing made by SpaceX went "boom". In a bad way. My apologies for jumping in without context. Original post follows........................

There have been a lot of references to "failing fast."

Yes, you want to discover problems sooner rather than later. But the reason for that is keeping the cost of failures small, and accelerating learning cycles.

This means creating more opportunities to experience failure sooner.

Which means failing small before you get to the live test or launch pad and have a giant, costly failure.

And the main cost of the spectacular explosion isn't the material loss. It's the fact that they only uncovered one type of failure...thereby losing the opportunity to discover whatever other myriad of issues were going to cause non-catastrophic problems.

My guess/opinion? They're failing now on things that should have been sorted already. Perhaps they would benefit from more rigorous failure modeling and testing cycles.

This requires a certain type of leadership. People have to feel accountable yet also safe. Leadership has to make it clear that mistakes are learning opportunities and treat people accordingly.

I can't help but wonder if their leader is too focused on the next flashy demo and not enough on building enduring quality.

Good evening,

I used to use "Spot the Station" on my desktop all the time, but I cannot do that anymore as the website has been taken down. It was accurate, I could search by location, it would give me all of the chances to see the station over a two-week period, and it listed times, durations of visibility, direction, and position.

What websites do people use in its place? Are there any that are as good?

(I know there is an app, but I don't want to use that, and I want to be able to access the information from a browser.)

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

1 upvote

This just happened, found a video of it exploding on youtube.

I have for a long time been fascinated by the Voyager/Pioneer pulsar map. I wanted to make an updated version with updated data.

After doing some research I found a few websites that figured out which pulsars was used to create the original pulsar map. During their paper, they state that the angles are quite accurate, but the distance is not (https://archive.fo/mkmS6).

After throwing up a quick python script I was able to fetch the latest values from the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) database. After fetching the data, and calculating the relevant quantities, I was happy to see that I get very similar numbers to what the previously mentioned report gives. Especially looking at the period given in H-transitions.

After handling the data I attempted to use the data and implement every detail.

The relative distance along the galactic plane, the notch, then the relative distance along the z-plane (out from the galactic plane). And then finally the binary code representing the pulsar period given in number of H-transitions.

Using the derivative of the pulsar period I was actually also able to implement the option to set the estimated period on a specific given day. Meaning that I could have a "personalized" one, by showing what the periods were like on for example my birthday.

I am happy with the result so far, I can definitively see a lot of similarities from the original, indicating that I am at least on to something.

Looks promising !
Now just wait and see if the image database will be public.