It sounds like this corresponds to an atmospheric contraction. They are lowering to avoid extending the lifetime of possible debris, but that also probably means the regular lifetime is not shortened. They are just staying in the designed density to match their designed service lives. The field of view of the satellites will be reduced, but presumably they have enough units up there to maintain full coverage.
This is distinct from the FCC application they have made for another Starlink shell in VLEO (~330km) for another 15000 satellites to better serve cellular phones.
At 480km there will be increased drag, even as we get closer to the solar minimum. The trade-off may be between using propellant for collision avoidance vs using it to counter altitude loss and for station keeping.
Maybe it is also linked to the falling altitude of the ISS? 480km is about the upper bound of its altitude but they seem unlikely to actually raise it that high before it is deorbited.
is it conceivable that collision avoidance maneuvers become cheaper in fuel consumption by using the slightly less thin atmosphere to steer a satellite (only use propellant for attitude control, less direct linear acceleration?
i.e. if the propellant consumption for collision avoidant steering at 550 km in practice turns out to be higher than the consumption to negate the drag incurred for using atmosphere for steering, it could be a logical choice.
Yes, you can do that. But you do need to alter your attitude for long periods and that usually means you point away from the optimal position for the solar panels and for the antennas pointing towards the ground. So yes, but only at the cost of some loss of efficiency.
At 45°N latitude, I keep mine nearly vertical year round. I used to adjust them 4 times a year for more optimal production. There are issues beyond angle of incidence. Being nearly vertical keeps the snow off in the winter. In the summer it reduces the cleaning required (it's a sea bird rookery, so that's kind of a lot). Beyond that, the telemetry needs are constant year round so if the panels can cover the needs in the winter, then summer is no problem.
My current strategy for small installations when you have an equator facing wall or fence is slap the panels on it and be done with it.
I dried three red oak trees using a dehumidifier kiln. ( 4'x4'x16' 1" pink insulation foam box assembled with packing tape with a household dehumidifier and fan inside. Very low tech. Knock it down when not using it.)
The process is mostly: measure moisture content of wood, pick a humidity to maintain, check wood periodically to see if it is drying too fast or too slow. Weigh water coming out to monitor process.
Very low effort if you have space to allocate while in use. The wood came out well, no complaints.
One downside is you won't kill insects with heat, so you could have trouble if it is buggy wood.
Bucket seats. I need a bench seat so I can take my wife and dog.
Ah, there's the problem. You have violated Pauli's "spouse/dog size exclusion principle". You need to either have a dog that can sleep curled up on the spouse's lap during the trip, or a dog big enough that the spouse can sleep curled up on the dog.
Bench seats also aren't a panacea, I still feel the burn of my dog's stink eye when then girlfriend was prompted to center of bench seat and dog on the side.
Don't be boring. A quick triage with an AI and a spot check suggest that the guitar solo at the end of Hotel California has just about the right number of notes (depending on how many '7' you get).
Sweet Child of Mine probably works.
Comfortably Numb(ber) allegedly works, but I doubt any of the singers I have access to can enunciate fast enough. For the most relaxed of the options, it has amazing little clouds of fast notes.
MUST RESIST: this is worse than waking up to a Saturday morning "Nerd Sniping", I could lose the whole weekend to this… I'll bet Nate isn't busy… With him and the girls from (redacted) Bohemian Rhapsody could work…
UPDATE: There goes the weekend. So far I've been in a fight with ChatGPT about counting syllables in copyrighted lyrics where I ended up suggesting it get help for its obvious emotional trauma at the hands of an IP lawyer and lined up 5 singers. "enjoy the ride" has beaten "they are just intrusive thoughts".
Probably because you don't find a list from the EPA.
The two categories are very similar, they are sort of aimed at the same result but have slightly different criteria. e.g. the EPA considers exposure levels, IARC requires at least some human evidence. So you wouldn't say one is stricter than the other, just different ways of skinning a cat.
• There is evidence of carcinogenicity in animals. (Multiple, consistent studies)
• The substance is shown to directly or indirectly cause chromosomal damage or mutations in a way that is relevant to humans.
• There are no or limited human studies, they are inconclusive, or otherwise inadequate. ((Note: This is sort of a "Why isn't this classified higher?" factor.)). ((If a substance isn't in widespread use, it is kind of hard to design an ethical human study. I mean, you aren't going to have some of your test subjects drink a bunch of likely carcinogen each morning.))
So this is a a classification for "Let's maybe not go nuts with this stuff, and someone really ought to check this out. And if you plan to ship tons of this stuff you might want to talk to your lawyers and lawsuit judgement mitigation team."
I didn't manage to find an exhaustive list of things the EPA has listed with this, but I found one that included higher risks as well, and in my little warehouse/workshop I identified 8 things at a casual glance that I have in inventory or generate. Proper use of these have minimal exposure to my squishy bits for most of them, and the others a well informed user should know to take adequate precautions. (e.g. "wood dust": wear a respirator)
The US does not currently fund the EPA to commission studies to further investigate likely carcinogens, so they stay on the list for ages.
Does one not suppose that a fair bit of this is the trial and starter doses that they give to doctors? Surely the drug company values them at list price for purposes of a business expense.
Free samples aren't include. Look up the Sunshine Act, it's only direct payments to doctors.
But this can include things all the way from doctor getting $250 for spending 60 min consulting for a company (i.e. answering questions about how they treat a disease, what they look for in a new drug) to a doctor leading multiple speaking engagements throughout the year and making tens of thousands.
Another interesting variant of "annotations are the star" is "But What of Earth?" by Piers Anthony. It's an old school sort of sci fi story, but the publisher rewrote it in the publishing process. Eventually Anthony got the rights back and published the first draft with the editor's changes and his commentary on it. I think it was intended to be commentary on the publishing business, but as a way of knowing an author, you come away feeling like you know the guy in a way you don't get from carefully crafted stories.
It's one of those old paperbacks I know I wouldn't have tossed, but darned if I can find my copy to reread. Maybe I loaned it and it found a new home. Maybe you have it.
(Do remember, he is a 55 year old man writing this in the '80s. Some of his world view is… archaic?… in the greater society today.)
You want the Tor version from 1989, not the Laser version from 1976.
As a person responsible for maintaining a harbor in Lake Michigan, I am allowed to move 1 cubic yard of material a year, by hand, with a shovel (last time I checked, the rules change). Anything else requires a detailed permitting process with lots of limitations on what is even possible.
You are looking at a body of rules built up to prevent draining large wetlands without permission, destroying your neighbors waterfront, dredging huge plumes of PCB contaminated sediment into the active water zones, wiping out a regional spawning bed, or casting an intermittent shadow on a patch of lake bed of the great state of redacted. This is administered by a staff who will be held accountable for unforeseen damage and has limited resources.
So you do the paperwork, wait for your permits, only work during the weeks of the year when work is allowed, and try to generally make do with less than you wanted.
Yes, but was the fellow considered a harbor maintainer? I don't know what this constitutes, but there's nothing in the story to indicate he had any such designation.
This is distinct from the FCC application they have made for another Starlink shell in VLEO (~330km) for another 15000 satellites to better serve cellular phones.
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