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[Starver]

I haven't seen much odds-talk (beyond the actually usually reliable technically-assured places that don't go quite so hyperbolic), but I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of "odds of 1 in 320 increase to 1 in 1600" or "odds of 1600 decreased to 1 in 320" style of description, either, due to the way that ambiguity often works in everybody's minds.

[King Zultan]

Nothing says valentines day like being hit with an asteroid.

[jipehog]

Who knows it might rock your world. What it's named for? I hope nothing so doomy and gloomy like Apopis, god of Chaos.

Also in the upcoming month we might see a starship launch attempt, there is a good chance it might end up in a boom, so even Musk haters might enjoy it.

[jipehog]

Relativity's 3D-printed rocket successfully completed its proof of concept. The rocket got off the launch and made through the highest stress stage but failed to reach bonus milestones to reach orbit when its upper stage engine malfunctioned.

Personally, I believe that traditional manufacturing is superior, however, additive manufacturing has its advantages and would be critical if we want to establish manufacturing in space or the moon.

https://www.youtube.com/live/pg8v7XRcTXc?t=5295

[King Zultan]

Seems like 3D printing is the future of manufacturing.

[Starver]

Developing flexible remote manufacturing would be very useful for bootstrapping the 'advanced guard' missions ahead of other landings an dockings (manned and unmanned). Even if it just sets up the gross framework of native materials to bolt more specialist components to, having shipped in the higher-tolerance bits.

Plus, how else are we going to allow our AIs to turn the whole universe into paperclips?

[delphonso]

Manufacturing is similar to infrastructure - you have to build machines to make parts of other machines, which obviously grow depending on the size/complexity of the final product. 3D printing for rocketry is a good idea because rockets were single-use (until recently) and even so, you cut down on the investment by just making a huge 3D printing rig instead of 7 steps of machines just to make the rocket housings.

[LordBaal]

Each type has is advantages. Traditional machine tooling is superior for control and scale. 3D printing is good for insitu and flexibility.

[Madman198237]

3D-printed parts are universally inferior to traditionally manufactured parts because the technology to ameliorate the defects induced by 3D printing hasn't matured as much as the science of working with traditionally manufactured parts. Defects like voids in the material, differential heat stresses, faults, etc. are all very common in 3D-printed parts and so their strength is compromised.

BUT; you can do things with 3D-printing that other options just can't. There are engineering solutions to problems that it is physically impossible to manufacture with standard methods.

[Culise]

It doesn't seem it was posted, but following on the Roscosmos discussion a month back, we can expect even less coming out of them due to events that also occurred around a month back.  Back on March 8, Kazakhstan seized the Baiterek launch complex at Baikonur as well as other ground control facilities for Roscosmos.  While it's not expected to interfere with current Roscosmos space-directed operations (yet), it's put a giant wrench in any theoretical progress on the Soyuz-5/Irtysh LV, and the hard export restrictions will affect Russia's ability to retrieve produced goods for domestic, terrestrial use. 

[EuchreJack]

They're still looking for Planet X (actually Planet IX)
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-giant-planet-seems-to-be-lurking-somewhere-in-our-solar-system

Frankly, I think it's more likely to be either Dark Matter, a Black Hole, or someone forgetting that the Solar System also orbits something as well, which would have a minor pull to it, since it's enough to keep the Sun from flying off into the Ether.

[Telgin]

Dark matter would be exciting but probably impossible to prove with anything remotely close to modern technology.  I wonder if we could even detect gravitation lensing from a dark matter object of planetary mass.

A black hole should be impossible with that mass, shouldn't it?  At least with the current age of the universe.  That would be at least as exciting if we detected it I suppose.

[McTraveller]

I like to be problematic and say the reason we can't find dark matter is because we are actually the dark matter, and should be looking for the light stuff instead. 

[Starver]

They're still looking for Planet X (actually Planet IX)

Intetesting fact: The term "Planet X" was coined as being 'X for unknown', not 'X for Ten', as the theoretical next planet out from Neptune. This was from before (1906, vs 1930) Pluto came along and took up its temporary tenure as the ninth.

Though Pluto was "Planet Nine" for long enough to give everyone the impression that Planet X would be the tenth, and so anyone aged under 93 (and over 15) can probably be forgiven.  And they are now looking in a different 'place' for the next body out, based upon additional Pluto-era mesurements, and tends to be called "Planet Nine" in (post-Pluto) literature.

[jipehog]

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then humanity is from Earth in Sol and Dwarfs are from Planet X in Sagittarius B2.