Do you have information from Google or independently as to whether this is AI driven or building a Google Cloud region in Texas?

Their immediately prior video had steel battens on 90 cm spacing. Not exactly unsupported…

Apparently we can’t joke about woodchippers anymore, but perhaps pantsing and chasing out of the building with whiffle bats?

You usually hereabouts want the roof to be able to support people walking around on it, so if it’s not plywood solid deck you have a lot of other wooden beams.

If you just want to meet wind + rain + snow whatever loads then yes, you can do without most supports. Quonset huts lasted fifty years.

I demonstrated this conversing with John McCarthy in the early web 1990s. You should probably spread out the panels so plants and animals can still thrive under the array, and that’s not that much bigger. But it’s much less than we have already built up. Lots of deserts, panels cheap.

We have credible accusations of that but it’s not proven yet. An unbiased investigation of the US data without political interference is needed. Unfortunately in about three years… 🫤

I do spacecraft design part time and have had some interesting interactions with the budget process. I understand that. But it’s a fight worth fighting.

The additional science returns if both work are a bonus. Yet another strong reason to advocate for redundancy.

There are exceptions like limited RTG availability, which constrains redundancy over small scales. But even there splitting spacecraft busses with lower power per spacecraft often wins.

This has been pointed out to NASA management and congress over and over, but the system is resistant to the message. Part of the reason to build pairs is launcher reliability and spacecraft unique (non design systematic) failures, the odds of one full success are much higher.

I’m aware of the other programs in the pipeline. There is a mismatch between all available observatory time and good research efforts that want to use that time, and has been for a while. Categorically the hardest part for space based observatories is R&D; multiple copies built & flown are cheap.

It’s a broken fucking system when we can zone away convenience, zone away a kid being able to walk to go buy a Freezie on a summer’s day without parental supervision, zone away laundromats & ice cream shops, zone away those little everyday interactions with our neighbours.

Just that one at the port entrance or the one where the valley reaches the port as well?

13:1 oversubscribed. Yikes. We should build another one.

A CBD ban? Really??