efaardvark
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Status Replies posted by efaardvark
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Looks like the rumors were true. The Whitehouse is officially calling for a 20% reduction in NASA's budget, including a 47% decrease in funding for planetary science. Now it is up to Congress. Planetary science is pretty much all we do at at the Jet Propulsion Lab so if this request by the President gets through Congress it is going hurt bad, especially coming after 3 previous rounds of layoffs at JPL in the past couple years.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/-
@Animedragon tbh I don’t know if or how this will affect me and my group. In previous rounds of layoffs we already got rid of two people that I worked with directly and several more that I know by name but didn’t work with on a daily basis.
What I’m doing is integration, testing, and deployment of the data processing systems in support of the DSN (Deep Space Network). We’re also on call 24/7 as sort of front-line tech support for real-time operations. The group has plenty of work… even more on a per-person basis now that we’ve already cut staff in previous rounds of layoffs. (Pic is of our typical daily tracking schedule. We’re always tracking about a dozen spacecraft at a time, all the time.) Not sure if we could keep up with the work if we lose any more people, but If they’re cutting the planetary science budget by that much then it will probably means significantly fewer spacecraft/missions to handle. Maybe that’s their plan?
Management here doesn’t seem to have any details on how this will affect us. At least if they do then they’re not sharing it yet. But I don’t see how anybody’s job here is safe if this Whitehouse budget request gets through Congress.
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Presidential assassination attempt. Global Windows outage. Rumors of a Xi stroke. Russia sending advanced anti-ship missiles to the Houthi. What a week. Who had all that on their bingo card? Who had any of that on their bingo card?
Anything else I should know about before I attempt the weekend?
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@Sakura I checked the space weather site and there's no civilization-ending solar mass ejections headed towards Earth at the moment. That would have been my first guess but that doesn't look likely atm.
However, I did hear on the news that China has sent PLA troops to Russian-allied Belarus for a series of combat drills. They're doing their "drills" near the city of Brest, which is just across the border from Poland and only about 17 miles from the Ukraine border. So my guess is that somebody does an "oops" during one of these "drills", fires a missile in the wrong direction, hitting either NATO troops lined up along the border in Poland or Ukrainian troops in the battle zone and starting WWIII. I could be wrong.
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Presidential assassination attempt. Global Windows outage. Rumors of a Xi stroke. Russia sending advanced anti-ship missiles to the Houthi. What a week. Who had all that on their bingo card? Who had any of that on their bingo card?
Anything else I should know about before I attempt the weekend?
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@Zeref For me I have a few web sites such as the maps.wildfire.gov bookmarked that let me keep tabs on things in fire season. There's a so-called "reverse 911" system in this area that pushes warnings of imminent danger to all land lines and cell phones in the affected area. I also subscribe to a warning system that sends texts to my phone about conditions that might affect my specific address. (This includes things like bears and mountain lions in the area as well as fires, floods, etc.) For a forest fire the big cloud of smoke itself is a good indicator. If it starts to get close then maybe you want to be somewhere else.
As the fire gets closer to civilization there will also typically be a lot of commotion in the form of helicopters and water-dropping planes flying low overhead, though sometimes strong winds will ground them. Around here there aren't too many areas whose escape routes would take you through the forested area so a good indication that it is time to evacuate would be if you can see the flames then it's probably time to start packing up to leave. Finally, as a last resort the fire department and / or police will also drive through the area(s) with a bullhorn telling people it's time to go. We usually get plenty of warning and this unfortunately happens pretty much every year so people around here know the drill.
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Presidential assassination attempt. Global Windows outage. Rumors of a Xi stroke. Russia sending advanced anti-ship missiles to the Houthi. What a week. Who had all that on their bingo card? Who had any of that on their bingo card?
Anything else I should know about before I attempt the weekend?
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@Zeref@Sakura The fire is about 25 miles from me so I'm not really worried.. yet. But this is how it always starts. The area of the fire is mountainous and filled with brush so it's really hard to fight except by air, which is expensive, Typically the fire will kind of wander around within the national forest area eating trees and brush until a wind comes up and pushes it out of the forest and into one of the surrounding urban areas. I'm literally only a few blocks outside of the national forest boundary so things can escalate quickly if conditions conspire against me. No wind in the forecast so I'm good for now, but it's definitely something I'm going to be keeping an eye on.
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Presidential assassination attempt. Global Windows outage. Rumors of a Xi stroke. Russia sending advanced anti-ship missiles to the Houthi. What a week. Who had all that on their bingo card? Who had any of that on their bingo card?
Anything else I should know about before I attempt the weekend?
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@sakura It got worse.
(At least for those of us here in the L.A. suburbs.) A couple hours ago they announced that there's also an out-of-control fire in the nearby national forest.
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Presidential assassination attempt. Global Windows outage. Rumors of a Xi stroke. Russia sending advanced anti-ship missiles to the Houthi. What a week. Who had all that on their bingo card? Who had any of that on their bingo card?
Anything else I should know about before I attempt the weekend?
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@Zeref The software at work all runs on unix and linux so I had to work. I did get a couple Teams meetings canceled or rescheduled. Calling that a win overall.
Not sure I want to know what the weekend has in store tho. It's supposed to be over 95F / 35C here too. I think I'll just plan to hide out in the air conditioning. Best to be safe.
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I hereby apologize to the rest of the world for the sorry state of US politics. I've tried my best. I have not voted for either the Dumbos or the Repugs for the last several decade now but I live in a republic and there's not much more I can do. Trying to vote rationally in the US is a lot like swimming against a tide of rabid lemmings determined to be the first over the edge.
Two takeaways from the "debate" from my point of view...- First, unless they really, really, really want Trump to win, the Deez need to find a new candidate immediately. At this point even they realize that. Probably. Of course knowing them they'll probably pick Clinton again.
- All Trump really needed to do for the win was to keep his mouth shut and let Biden speak whatever was on his mind. Amazingly, he actually managed to do it. (For the most part.) WTF?? Maybe he's had a lot of practice holding back in court recently and that has carried over into his political speaking in public outside the courtroom. Maybe the age of miracles is not over. Whatever. I still think he's beyond hope as a human being but after last night I'll allow that there's a real chance he could be reincarnated as a cicada instead of a bedbug in the next life.
Not that I'm endorsing either camp, just to be perfectly clear. Overall the "debate" didn't change my views on either the parties or the candidates. If anything the opposite in fact. I was sure going in that there was nothing good that would come of the event and it did not fail to fail to be something the nation could be proud of. At this point even if you held a gun to my head I'd pick the guy with the boot on his head over either of the candidates on stage last night. The most succinct post-commentary remark that I've seen online so far was: "The winner of yesterday's presidential debate was the Voyager probe, currently in interstellar space and headed away from Earth at 17 miles per second." I wholeheartedly agree. Personally I'm still hoping the Starship works out. And the sooner the better.
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@Animedragon & @Sakura I'm absolutely sure that these are NOT the best candidates for office. No question in my mind. Going by the Constitution there are literally hundreds of millions of qualified candidates in the country. Two of them have GOT to be better that the ones the parties have picked for us to choose from. That's why I say at every opportunity that both the Democrat and the Republican parties are utter failures, and have been for years now.
Not that anyone listens. I'm sure I'll be throwing my vote away again at the next vote but at least I can claim it isn't my fault.
Looks like I'll be breaking out my "Jack" sticker again...
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I hereby apologize to the rest of the world for the sorry state of US politics. I've tried my best. I have not voted for either the Dumbos or the Repugs for the last several decade now but I live in a republic and there's not much more I can do. Trying to vote rationally in the US is a lot like swimming against a tide of rabid lemmings determined to be the first over the edge.
Two takeaways from the "debate" from my point of view...- First, unless they really, really, really want Trump to win, the Deez need to find a new candidate immediately. At this point even they realize that. Probably. Of course knowing them they'll probably pick Clinton again.
- All Trump really needed to do for the win was to keep his mouth shut and let Biden speak whatever was on his mind. Amazingly, he actually managed to do it. (For the most part.) WTF?? Maybe he's had a lot of practice holding back in court recently and that has carried over into his political speaking in public outside the courtroom. Maybe the age of miracles is not over. Whatever. I still think he's beyond hope as a human being but after last night I'll allow that there's a real chance he could be reincarnated as a cicada instead of a bedbug in the next life.
Not that I'm endorsing either camp, just to be perfectly clear. Overall the "debate" didn't change my views on either the parties or the candidates. If anything the opposite in fact. I was sure going in that there was nothing good that would come of the event and it did not fail to fail to be something the nation could be proud of. At this point even if you held a gun to my head I'd pick the guy with the boot on his head over either of the candidates on stage last night. The most succinct post-commentary remark that I've seen online so far was: "The winner of yesterday's presidential debate was the Voyager probe, currently in interstellar space and headed away from Earth at 17 miles per second." I wholeheartedly agree. Personally I'm still hoping the Starship works out. And the sooner the better.
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@Zeref Yeah, that was probably the worst of many on the Biden side. Trump also made quite a few questionable remarks. It also seemed like the debate organizers were using a "mute" button on both candidates for this debate, otherwise I think they would have made far more.
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Been super busy this week but I finally got enough of a sit to watch the entire Starship reentry. Quite a show! But the vehicle held together and accomplished the mission perfectly. I'm sure they got plenty of extremely valuable data from the intense reentry portion of the flight envelope, which was pretty much the entire point of the test flight. Booster did it's thing quite well too. SpaceX says they might have up to 7 test flights this year, including a ~70-80% chance of an attempted booster catch with the "chopsticks" back at the launch tower!
I have to add that I am also (almost) equally amazed at the quality and continuity of the real-time video feed. I am old enough to remember the live video of the Apollo flights. 4k HD all the way through (well, most of the way.. it did cut out for a bit here and there) reentry was amazing.
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A moment of appreciation for the camera (circled in red in the X pic) and the starlink antennas that played a critical role in providing the video downlink. The two rectangles in the unshielded part of the main fuselage to the left of the flap are the starlink antennas. There's actually 4 of them, the two visible and two on the other side. (Maybe a thin sliver of one is just visible around the curve of the fuselage in the pic.)
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TGIF!
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Both mine and my Mother’s birthday have passed. I’m all the more closer to 30 years old. My mom is getting older too.
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That does tend to happen. Don't let it get away from you.
@Animedragon ditto.
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Seems the other shoe has dropped at work. Employees have been instructed that the Lab will be physically closed and everyone should plan to attend a virtual meeting with management where they'll discuss the (lack of a) federal budget and what that means for NASA centers like JPL. Afterwards around 600 employees will be let go. (That's ~10% of the Lab's total workforce.) This all according to an email from Lab management earlier today.
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@Animedragon Thanks. We got an informal pep-talk from our "group soop" (group supervisor) after the official email from upper management came out. The soop said he said that he doesn't think that the DSN (deep space network) that I'm affiliated with will be hit too hard. We've taken cuts in previous years and we're already at our limits. Any more and we'd be cutting bone. We also have a lot of customers and commitments, including with high-profile ones like JAXA and ESA.
The counter argument to that is that a Mars sample return has been at or near the top of the planetary scientists' wish list in NASA's decadal survey for literally decades yet that has been one of the programs hit the hardest. This is all driven by DC politics too, so logic need not necessarily apply.
Well, I'll know later Wednesday afternoon. One way or another.
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I want an high school romance… already in my second year though
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Got some (probably) bad news today at work. According to Laurie Leshin, JPL's director, next year's budget for NASA - and therefor the lab's - will be around 10% less than expected. One of NASA's flagship missions, the Mars Sample Return has had its budget for next year slashed to around $300M from $800M to $900M. Ouch. Other missions are in a similar predicament. "It is also becoming more likely that there will be JPL workforce impacts in the form of layoffs, and the way such JPL workforce actions are implemented means that the impact would not be limited to MSR", according to an email Leshin sent to the Lab's employees this afternoon.
I say "probably" because all this is due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed a few months ago by the US Congress and the management is still recalculating and rearranging the budgets for FY 2024 and 2025 based on the mandates contained therein. We don't know the details yet, but the broad outline is pretty clear. Some layoffs have already happened. Others are likely as the details are worked out.
Happy New Year!
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I found out today that the day after that email came out the lab did actually let about 100 contractors go. Very abruptly from the sound of things.
Meanwhile the "leaders" in Congress are complaining that NASA should have waited for... something. Waiting for Congress to deliver a final budget is a non-starter because they'll no doubt argue until the last minute. (Or later! And if they can't agree then across-the-board cuts automatically kick in that would be even deeper than what's been proposed.) When you're told next year's budget will be between 30 and 90% of what you had planned for then you need to get started NOW. The FRA passed in July. Since then all Congress has done is go on break for the holidays. What's NASA management supposed to do?
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100F temps lately means replacing the A/C air filter in the car gets top priority on today's todo list. Having to choose between breathing oven-temperature air or air that smells like moldy socks is not a choice one should have to make.
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@Bulleje76 Sunny Southern California. Only it wasn't so sunny today.
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From my cheesehead brother…
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@Animedragon.. to tell the truth I’m not sure either.
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Got married March 17th 2023!
Obsessed with my wedding ring
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Question, what cakes would you like to eat at a maid cafe?
The con im working at in 2 weeks has given me 8 slots to fill and im struggling to think of cakes to make/get
rough ideas so far are
-black forest gateu
-trifle
-eton mess
-blondies
-carrot cakeI also need to take these cakes down to the very bottom of the UK. halp me decide or give suggestions
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I like cheesecake.. but also the "foam" cakes like angel food and sponge cakes. Angel with a bit of fruit topping of some sort is yum. Then there's lemon bars, maybe with a cup of tea or coffee.
Thank you, now I'm hungry.
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Taking a break from anime this week. I miss Carl Sagan.
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I always get so surprised when people on this forum actually know stuff about me
I'll be like 'OMG HOW DID THEY KNOW I LIKE DANGANRONPA??
' even though it's in my profile and I've talked about it excessively 
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Listening to Japanese radio stations through an international radio app is such a trip. The talk show hosts all talk a mile per minute. Music choices range from American punk to the latest J-pop (and the occasional traditional ballad). The weirdest station was one in rural Hokkaido that was nothing but religious talks about kami-Sama (God). Japan isn't a religious country, so that one really stood out.
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@Neb Yes, a Christian-specific station would be a bit rare. The "other" category (in terms of religion) in Japan after Shinto and Buddhism is somewhat less than 10% and Christianity specifically is maybe 1-2% overall.
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Listening to Japanese radio stations through an international radio app is such a trip. The talk show hosts all talk a mile per minute. Music choices range from American punk to the latest J-pop (and the occasional traditional ballad). The weirdest station was one in rural Hokkaido that was nothing but religious talks about kami-Sama (God). Japan isn't a religious country, so that one really stood out.
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I would not call that Hokkaido station weird. You will find the same thing on the radio in the more rural regions of places such as Kansas and Alabama. Japan actually IS pretty religious. 80%(ish) of the population practices Shinto rituals to some degree. (And/or Buddhism, though some would say Buddhism is more a philosophy than a religion.)
Um.. do people still use AM/FM radio? Am I revealing my age?
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I've been really sick all week. i would wake up at 12am and sleep at 6 pm because my body can't handle it. I hate this
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Looks like of the two cubes that I liked, OMOTENASHI and NEAS, neither one is looking too good.
OMOT was a JAXA-sponsored lunar lander that was supposed to have landed on the moon this morning via (intentional) “lithobraking”.
It may or may not have done so. Unfortunately it hasn’t been heard from since it was deployed last week so nobody knows for sure. The other JAXA mission, EQUULEUS, seems to be functioning as expected however.
The other one I liked was the Near Earth Asteroid Scout. Or as I liked to call it the rainbow sail mission due to its propulsion & maneuvering system. It was supposed to use a new type of solar sail to visit a couple near-earth asteroids but it too has not been heard from since deployment.
So far 4 of the 8 cubesats have had problems post-deployment. (Artemis itself seems to be doing well.)
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@Animedragon The cubes' were always "stretch goals", and most of them were done on a shoestring budget and supported on a best-effort basis. A few of them were just in the right place at the right time when the Artemis folks said, "hey, we're headed for the moon.. anyone need a ride?" There were originally (I think) 13 that said "yes" to that offer but couldn't make various integration or test dates. The rest have been tucked away incommunicado in their interstage bays while Artemis went through the last year and a half of launch slips. I think at least two of them hadn't even had so much as their batteries recharged in all that time. Not surprising that a few aren't behaving as planned.
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Found out a coworker tested + for C19 so I’m getting myself tested as well. No symptoms <knock knock> but I’ve got a big week ahead at work and an 82yo mother in memory care that I have to visit regularly & I need to know.
