Sweet zombie Jebus…I just read WHY there was such catastrophic damage at the launch pad…NO FLAME TRENCH, NO WATER CURTAIN!!!
It seems Elon, on a guesstimate, decided the most powerful rocket ever built didn’t need any method of deflecting the thrust away from the plain concrete launch pad. He did plan to eventually try a huge steel plate under the rocket, but couldn’t get it done so just launched anyway with NOTHING.
NASA has been using both for over 50 years with success. A flame trench is a reinforced trench designed to redirect thrust horizontally away from ground infrastructure. A water curtain is exactly what it sounds like, a huge curtain of water dropped at ignition that absorbs the initial pressure/heat wave, also minimizing damage to ground infrastructure and lowering initial sound levels.

Why Elon decided he needed neither for the most powerful launch system ever is unfathomable. His launch pad is destroyed and this launch never even came close to 100% thrust. How many times does Elon have to totally screw the pooch as an engineer before they take his drafting table away? He’s playing with public money, somebody stop this insanely poorly implemented boondoggle please.

Launch pad destruction aftermath photo https://i.redd.it/k3lgspx9qava1.jpg

...and a video of debris flying around from nearby parking lot

The damage was so massive that they have to rebuild entire portions of the Texas Launch Site. It's quite possible that the immediate failure of several engines on one side was caused by debris from the launch pad.

How build launch durable pads, especially when using powerful engines, isnt something we have to learn first by making mistakes. This is basic engineering 101 at NASA.

While i still cant get enough from vertically landing rocket stages and i deeply respect the work of Space-X engineers ... this ongoing, absolute reckless launch safety strategy (or should i say the lack of) does not bode well for manned missions.

If they learned anything then it would be a success. I think some of the engines didn't ignite which made it climb slowly and forced it to go off course.

It was said that the nose cone was added just for looks, it really didn't serve any purpose.

The launch pad and surrounding area was a mess with debris and a car was damaged some distance away from the launch pad.

The way everyone cheered I'm thinking nobody expected too much from this flight and it did better than expected.

Living in Cape Canaveral during the space shuttle era I was able to see all but 5 shuttle launches. Night launches were the best.

This video is about 10 miles from the launch pad. When you get to the 5 mile area to watch, the sound is much sharper and near impossible to experience without ear protection.

This system is used to reduce extreme heat and energy generated by a rocket launch. On Oct. 15, 2018, the Ignition Overpressure Protection and Sound Suppression water deluge system at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39B was tested, sending water about 100 feet in the air. The test is part of preparation for launching our Space Launch System rocket on Exploration Mission-1 and subsequent missions.

Modifications were made to the pad after a previous wet flow test, increasing the performance of the system. During launch, this water deluge system will release approximately 450,000 gallons of water across the mobile launcher and Flame Deflector. -yt

*related=https://videosift.com/video/NASA-water-deluge-test-at-launch-pad-39B

NASA's water deluge test at launch pad 39B has been added as a related post - related requested by Mordhaus.

Your video, NASA's water deluge test at launch pad 39B, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

The cows in those fields adjacent to the launch pad are going to have some fear-tasting meat alright.


Also, really damn cool as always.

Server reset on Florida please. Wipe it clean. Leave the launching pad.

@Kofi Did you find any yet?
Oh and I think Shineyblurry was more just trying to educate you Messenger, not just answer your questions. So here's my answers for you:

"1) Which part of, "Palestinians in Gaza are the prisoners of Israel, and Hamas is fighting against Israel because Israel has taken away the freedom of Palestinians in Gaza," do you disagree with?"
All of it. Hamas is a globally recognized terrorist group. Hamas has done more to take away the freedom of it's people than it has good. By continuing to push an antisemitic world view and continually calling for the outright destruction of Israel they have done nothing for their people over the last 40 years. If Hamas would actually accept one of the many peace agreements that have been laid forth over that time, we would not be having this discussion. Instead they kill civilians and place launch pads next to playgrounds.
"2. Do you think that Hamas would continue fighting Israel if Palestine returned to its 1946 borders?"
Absolutely. like Bicyclerepairman said, even if the borders went back to the 1946 borders the goal isn't borders it is the elimination of Israel entirely and the death of Jews worldwide.
"3. Do you think Hamas would stop fighting if all Israelis in the world were killed, but some other country kept Palestinians confined in Gaza and continued the embargo?"
Bicyclerepairman hit the nail on the head here. But I think that if all the Jews were dead and France ran Israel and kept Palestinians in Gaza they would have a much more difficult battle as it is a lot harder to identify "French" as a race and that diffuses their Nazi themed marketing machine of "BLAME THE JEWS". But I'm sure they would find a way, or slowly push Muslim and Islamic law to become the law of the land in France (Or other European countries for that matter). Something you can not do in Israel currently.
"4. Are there any rules against celebrating after killing your enemy?
5. Is killing someone worse than celebrating the killing?"
These were civilians. Not enemies. Where we can celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden in the United States, we morn when innocents die. Especially children. And if a US soldier kills civilians while in active duty he is prosecuted and sent to jail or possibly even executed. So killing is worse than celebrating, but celebrating the killing of an innocent makes you a terrorist and a blight on humankind. That's not to say that killing of innocents is off the table, lord knows plenty of it happened during World War 1 & 2 and as a measure of war, while I personally find it a disgusting tactic and something to be avoided you can reach a point where drastic actions must be taken.
For example, North Korea. If they should ever get aggressive, with the overwhelming amount of brainwashing that goes on in that country it is very likely that many of the civilians will wind up being killed in any conflict.
But Israel and Palestine should NOT be at that point.

What attracted you into conversation here is that the Sift is a de facto place for atheists to hang out. When you "speak your mind" about religion and atheism, there's two problems. The first is that since we are overwhelmingly non-believers, opinions against atheism and pro-religion are going to irritate a greater number of people, and so get the most attention. Our opinions against religion only offend you and maybe one or two other people ever, that I've seen. It's a numbers thing. Don't take it personally. The second is that, as I've mentioned already in this thread, you do come off supremely arrogant in your beliefs. Just saying, from our perspective. I'll turn it around to your perspective for a second. Consider these two sentences, a) "I consider the Bible to be fairy tales, and I don't understand why Christians people believe it's true." and b) "It's better to question the world rather than blindly accept a book of fairy tales." After which of these two sentences are you more likely to be able to continue reading for several more paragraphs, presumably all written in the same tone, with an open, clear, unangry mind? For most people —even atheists— the tone of the first sentence is preferable and more conducive to communication.

I'm not offended by your conversation, or your videos. In the past, I may have overreacted to insults, but they don't really bother me any longer. I am not sitting here enraged because some atheist suggested that God doesn't exist. I have heard just about every nasty thing anyone could possibly say about God, and then some. People have called me every sort of name that you could call someone. Even you can't resist putting in a dart here and there. That's just the way it is. If I let that bother me then I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone here.

If I've come off as arrogant, then that is unfortunate, because I don't feel superior to anyone here. I apologize to anyone who thinks that is the case. I am usually very direct in what I say, and I don't beat around the bush, and perhaps that has ruffled a few feathers. However, I always try to temper my speech with compassion and understanding. I don't think that is a fair characterization, and I think you are also ignoring the hyper sensitivity people have about their beliefs.

I've been using the sift since 06 or 07; the reason I finally signed up is because of the antitheistic bent the site had taken. Perhaps it was always there and I didn't really notice it. In any case, as a long time visitor here, I felt the site no longer represented me and I felt compelled to speak up for the other side of the argument. So I was not drawn to the sift because of atheism; I had already been using the sift for a long time.

I'll turn it back to the non-theist's perspective now. After listening to a cogent talk from Feynman explaining quite clearly why he would prefer to have no answer rather than possibly have a wrong answer, your first pitch over the plate was, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it", and then all rest of the stuff that followed that shows you didn't hear what he said at all. Feynman clearly doesn't prefer to "imagine that the answer is something else, because he doesn't like it." Then you used that as a launch pad for an assault on scientists in general through quotemining. I didn't read past the first paragraph. I moved straight down to see the reaction to your tone, and sure enough, it had started in earnest. I'd call that a failure in communication, unless you just wanted to vent, and maybe that day that's all the satisfaction you wanted. OK, but there you are. And you do this often enough, and people will see your avatar at the head of a comment somewhere else, and immediately their minds will shift into attack/defense mode, and your chances of communicating directly to their minds is almost zero – and they haven't even read a word yet.

Yet, someone who usually criticizes me agreed with me and said I had a good point. You say I didn't understand what Richard said, but apparently I understood it well enough to make a coherent point in opposition to what he said. What you're guilty of here is cherry picking. That sentence was part of an overall point and wasn't mean to be taken by itself.

In any case you say I failed, and perhaps I did in some ways, but not in the way you have asserted. You're right and you are wrong about what you've said here, but I get your overall point.

The fact is, since I've been here, this is the way people here have reacted to me. I don't get this reaction everywhere I go. Some of this is my fault, and some of it isn't. Either way I am not complaining. It is what it is. There is always room for improvement.

And to your comment about being invited. This place wasn't primarily designed for people to communicate opinions. It was designed for people to enjoy themselves while they procrastinate, feel a part of something, get some pseudo-community feelings going. There's no rule against giving any opinions here, nor against coming in large part to represent a certain opinion, but doing so runs against the main purpose of the place, organically defined by the intent of the people who come. This isn't an ideas discussion/debates forum with focus on arguing points to a conclusion. You can do that, but that's not the main purpose. What you tend to do here makes it more difficult for others to achieve their main purpose here, which is kicking up and not really thinking for an hour or two. And uh-oh, there's a comment from sb, killing the buzz. We could ignore it, but we just can't help reading what it says even though we already know it's almost certain to infuriate us with a relentless brand of reasoning that we do not understand.

Come on. People are not just here to relax, they are also here to promote their political, philosophical and (anti)religious ideologies. The sift loves red meat. People here love to express their opinions about what they love and what they hate, and they love to argue when anyone disagrees with them.

I get what you're saying. I could be more sensitive to how my comments will be perceived, and try to say things in a different way. I agree with you here. I'll keep it in mind.

In the end, however, the main purpose of this site is whatever the site operator purposes. What the site operator has said is that I am a valuable member of this community.

Fallacious arguments? Every time I point out a mistake, you invent a convenient new rule for understanding the Bible (or more likely you copy-paste what it says on some apologia clearinghouse website). I could literally find a quote that says, "oranges are black" and you'd justify it somehow. I just found a passage that gives two incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham. And in a book that's supposed to be completely true, you excuse it by telling me the writers are taking artistic licence? WTF????? This isn't a poetry slam! It's the bloody word of God! If you claim everything in it is true, so much so that you've given up sex, condemn gay people, etc., then everything else in it *must* be literally true or you have no foundation for giving up sex or condemning gay people. Those could be metaphorical warnings about the lure of great pleasures in general. Either one of those things about Joram and Joatham written in the Bible is false, or anyone can point to any passage and call it optional, or poetry, or a style of writing, or just a metaphor. You can't have it both ways.

Now this is simply your ignorance talking. When I gave you my answer about the lineage in Matthew, I wasn't just pulling something out of a hat. Apparently you haven't heard of Chiastic structure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiastic_structure

It's not false, it is simply a writing style employed by Matthew to emphasize the lineage in a particular way. This is not some kind of desperate analysis to cover up a mistake, but is a well known style used in ancient literature. I'm not making excuses, or putting off something to metaphor; Matthew was definitely using Chiastic structure, and that is why that verse is symmetrical.

First, I'm saying the effects of personal prayer *can* be scientifically measured, so either your contention that God will not be tested is bunk, or self-prayer is really just meditation. You also didn't understand the set-up of the prayer-for-other test. In that scenario, there were real ill people in the hospitals, and they compared the outcomes for patients who had had others sincerely praying for them from a distance versus those who didn't. IOW, the sincere prayer happened. There has never been any measured health benefit for the ill people. They died off and recovered in equal numbers.

No, they can't be scientifically measured. You would never know during your test whether God was simply feeding you a certain kind of result. Think about it. God knows the entire time that you're trying to test for His existence outside of what He ordained (faith in Jesus Christ). His choice is either to give you results that will prove His existence outside of Christ or results that will make it ambiguous. What do you think He is going to do?

You keep saying that my position is one of cognitive dissonance. Look at yourself. You twist your mind into any shape you need for your dogma to hold true, never once truly considering the possibility that it's all in your head. You've said the words that you might be wrong, but you've never shown it's more than lip service. I've never seen you take a critical eye to your position on God and the Bible, despite the numerous opportunities I and others have given to you.

And this is exactly what Feynman's talking about when he says the scientific approach starts from the position that all hypotheses are wrong, then goes about trying to prove it through observation. Anything that's still standing afterwards is good scientific theory.

You're acting is if I have no evidence for my beliefs. If it was just a matter of believing the bible was true because I wanted to believe it, you might have a point. The reason I believe the bible is true because of personal revelation. I experience the presence of God in my daily life. It would be illogical for me to deny the existence of God based on the evidence I have received. I do not "twist my mind into any shape" to believe what I read in the bible. My worldview is internally consistent, and it is also rational. You may find it irrational because of your presuppositions, but that is because you reject the evidence I have receive apriori. To you there must always be some other explanation, and that is the way you interpret everything I say. You've already come to the conclusion that I am deluding myself, and everything I say you filter through that conclusion. Rather than letting the evidence interpret the conclusion, you are interpreting the evidence through the conclusion.

Religion, on the other hand, starts from the assuming the conclusion that God and the Bible are real, and any observational facts that don't line up must themselves be wrong facts, no matter how well documented they are. And when those facts can no longer be denied, then the Bible passages in question are suddenly no longer considered to have literal meaning, and now have only a "metaphorical" meaning, or must be understood from a different perspective.

If every word in the Bible is subject to this convenient wishy-washy fanciful method of interpretation, then it's a lousy foundation for a system of faith. You cannot follow anything that you can change the meaning of by arbitrarily saying, "That part is meant to be understood non-literally." The Bible, as it stands now, is either a 100% true book that we humans are incapable of understanding; OR a book that we are meant to learn from that also has lots of loopholes in it. It cannot be both, not as it stands now. The whole Bible should be re-written such that what's left in it is literal unmistakable unfudgeable truth. I think it would be a very, very short book, or, a much longer book filled with qualifications, something along these lines:

I'm well aware that many Christians have compromised with the world and reinterpreted the bible to reflect worldly wisdom, but I'm not one of them. Though not everything in the bible (like the song of solomon for instance) could, or should be taken literally, I believe it contains the literal history of planet Earth. As I've explained in other threads, I didn't always believe that. I assumed where science said it was right, the bible was wrong. It was only when I questioned that and investigated the evidence that I found it was the other way around. I believe the bible is true not only because of revelation, but because of the evidence, not in spite of it. You have unfairly mischaracterized me, because I am the last person you will talk to who will turn the bible into a metaphor to avoid the facts.

Otherwise, as you seem to fear about secular morality, the Bible itself could be interpreted to mean absolutely anything by anyone at any time, if they thought hard enough about it.

I don't fear that, I know that. You're absolutely right, you could make the bible say anything you want to. People do it all the time. It's only a literal reading that makes any sense. Even atheists know that:

destroy adam and eve and original sin and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God and take away the meaning of His death

-american atheist association

>> ^messenger:

stuff

@shinyblurry

Well, the difference here on the sift is that it is not by default a place for atheists to hang out … If you look at any video on religion here, people feel free to speak their mind about Christianity and Christians but for some reason they take exception when I do the same. I understand what your argument is about and what you're saying, which I appreciate and recognize as being essentially valid, but your comment about being uninvited doesn't apply.

What attracted you into conversation here is that the Sift is a de facto place for atheists to hang out. When you "speak your mind" about religion and atheism, there's two problems. The first is that since we are overwhelmingly non-believers, opinions against atheism and pro-religion are going to irritate a greater number of people, and so get the most attention. Our opinions against religion only offend you and maybe one or two other people ever, that I've seen. It's a numbers thing. Don't take it personally. The second is that, as I've mentioned already in this thread, you do come off supremely arrogant in your beliefs. Just saying, from our perspective. I'll turn it around to your perspective for a second. Consider these two sentences, a) "I consider the Bible to be fairy tales, and I don't understand why Christians people believe it's true." and b) "It's better to question the world rather than blindly accept a book of fairy tales." After which of these two sentences are you more likely to be able to continue reading for several more paragraphs, presumably all written in the same tone, with an open, clear, unangry mind? For most people —even atheists— the tone of the first sentence is preferable and more conducive to communication.

I'll turn it back to the non-theist's perspective now. After listening to a cogent talk from Feynman explaining quite clearly why he would prefer to have no answer rather than possibly have a wrong answer, your first pitch over the plate was, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it", and then all rest of the stuff that followed that shows you didn't hear what he said at all. Feynman clearly doesn't prefer to "imagine that the answer is something else, because he doesn't like it." Then you used that as a launch pad for an assault on scientists in general through quotemining. I didn't read past the first paragraph. I moved straight down to see the reaction to your tone, and sure enough, it had started in earnest. I'd call that a failure in communication, unless you just wanted to vent, and maybe that day that's all the satisfaction you wanted. OK, but there you are. And you do this often enough, and people will see your avatar at the head of a comment somewhere else, and immediately their minds will shift into attack/defense mode, and your chances of communicating directly to their minds is almost zero – and they haven't even read a word yet.

You're one of the only people here placing a high priority on communicating anything, let alone representing a specific point of view. The rest of us are just here for fun, and there is no success or failure except inasmuch as we enjoy ourselves. So when jinx says, "We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it", jinx doesn't care how to take it, or how you feel the next time you see the handle. If you're here to represent something, you should really think about the effect you think your message and tone will have every time you hit the "submit" button.

And to your comment about being invited. This place wasn't primarily designed for people to communicate opinions. It was designed for people to enjoy themselves while they procrastinate, feel a part of something, get some pseudo-community feelings going. There's no rule against giving any opinions here, nor against coming in large part to represent a certain opinion, but doing so runs against the main purpose of the place, organically defined by the intent of the people who come. This isn't an ideas discussion/debates forum with focus on arguing points to a conclusion. You can do that, but that's not the main purpose. What you tend to do here makes it more difficult for others to achieve their main purpose here, which is kicking up and not really thinking for an hour or two. And uh-oh, there's a comment from sb, killing the buzz. We could ignore it, but we just can't help reading what it says even though we already know it's almost certain to infuriate us with a relentless brand of reasoning that we do not understand.

The space shuttle had lift off. Finally. After several weeks of delays, National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided to break with custom and the Space Shuttle launched. Though the mission was delayed for a number of weeks, the Shuttle Endeavour recently lifted off the launch pad and thundered to the skies. It is the final journey of the Endeavour.