xorxornop

I wouldn't be concerned about this, personally, for the precise reason that it is a fusion device - not fission!

Fusion is incredibly difficult just to start, let alone keep burning - unlike fission, which is only too happy to enter runaway conditions if not very carefully regulated. Fusion is like a little ember in your fireplace you have to carefully blow on to keep alight; fission is like keeping a fireplace lit by pouring gasoline into it.

Quite intentionally, too. One of their parties is looking jealously at the cashflow that a US-style system might provide them. At the cost of everyone else, sure, but what's that to the allure of profit?

I mean, they are being systematically under-funded by one of the UK parties such that it will fail, so they can then point at it saying "I told you so", and so then get to adopt a US-like system, so they too can get in on that sweet, sweet cashflow :/

Haha, yep. At least they're honest about screwing you.

Depends if you're using it with ORMs or not. It's equally as useful with data in memory. Definitely slower for some things though (yes, it's always slower in one sense... But its also easier to make parallel, so it can even out in the end)

Still, I now prefer doing such things in Rust.

Yes, it does. Also a C# programmer. I really like Rust. About as easy to use to transform, filter, group etc, but considerably faster.

Oh, it is, it just makes them a lot easier to use. The compiler does method restructuring magic behind the scenes to build the necessary state machines. Everything gets a lot easier to understand.

Yup. Even carbon composites don't really work out (minimal payload) until the rocket is very large (see: ITS)

Running a vacuum-optimised engine in atmosphere means the exhaust is overexpanded, which causes severe flow seperation and chaotic flow. Even small amounts of overexpansion are harmful to the nozzle; overexpansion to vacuum-type ratios is likely to cause an Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.

It just got covered in soot from the ablative protection (okay, probably some Al2O3 too, from the subsequently burning grid fin) on the grid fins burning off. GTO/GEO missions come in _really_ hot!

True enough, but it's going an awful lot faster since it's aimed for orbital trajectory to inject the 2nd stage. So, it has tremendous horizontal velocity. Shepard, by comparison, just goes straight up (vertical only), so it's total velocity is far lower.

Falcon is in a totally different class of difficulty and complexity. I mean, the grid fins caught on fire and began to melt. That gives you a good idea of what sort of forces are involved in the descent.

Ya. I imagine they'll simply swap out the Merlin engines for scaled-down Raptor engines once those are fully ready.

Because its historic. Latter ones will not "suffer" this fate.

No doubt it was hefty, because of first-mover advantage - SpaceX badly needed an entity willing to take the _perceived_ risk, and SES was not only willing but eager to do it. I bet they got a great discount.

It's simply not possible to test that. This much is obvious if you've thought deeply about the nature of rocket testing.

You MUST fly to _really_ test.