The Guild of Icarus: Aerospace Engineering and Aeronautical Club

[J. Wilhelm]

Uber and NASA to develop Sky Taxis by 2020? I just hope they plan on developing 4 rotor VTOL vehicles and not the mostly dangerous 2-rotor design used in the V-22...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/flying-taxis-uber-and-nasa-just-paired-up-to-make-that-happen/ar-BBEIAWl

Uber is taking a big step towards making its vision of flying vehicles a reality, announcing on Wednesday an agreement with NASA to develop a fleet of air taxis by 2020.

While the ride-hailing service and the U.S. space agency may seem like an odd couple, the relationship is necessary in order to keep everything running smoothly when Uber ultimately takes to the skies.

"The space act that we signed with NASA is initially about collaboration around air traffic management," Jeff Holden, Uber's chief product officer, told NBC News. With so many aerial vehicles flying at a low attitude, the collaboration will be necessary to help manage the skies.

Uber also announced that Los Angeles will be the second U.S. city where it will test its uberAIR service. Dallas-Fort Worth is the first U.S. launch partner, while Dubai will be the first global city.

Holden said he expects Uber will have its first flight demonstrations in 2020 and have the service commercially available by 2023. That's well ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, where the service could be especially useful as an already congested city prepares to host athletes and fans from around the world.

Uber's air travel initiative was announced last October with the promise of putting an end to long commutes, letting passengers hail an aircraft ride with the push of a button. In the case of Los Angeles, Uber has 20 strategically placed locations around the city for the Uber network.

The idea is to build a network of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that would greatly reduce commutes, while also helping to ease vehicle pollution in major cities.

In a video released Wednesday by Uber, the company showed what it will be like to order a seat on one of the aircraft, which will take off and land vertically.

"It's an inspirational way to travel, too," said Holden. "You push a button, fly over the city, and you land. No volatility."

And have you seen this crazy contraption the Volocopter? The first 2 passenger Volocopter flew last year and it's being considered for air taxi projects to come very soon. Basically a Volocopter os just an electric drone. I don't think Uber will use this one in particular as they just announced a development programme with NASA (see my last post)

Dawn of a revolution in urban mobility - first manned flight with the Volocopter VC200

[J. Wilhelm]

In the news feed:

Static firing of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy two days ago... ahead of a launch scheduled for Frebruary 6. Controlling 27 engines simultaneosuly is always a bit tricky. That was one of the reasons why the Russian "Moon Shot" never happened... If they succeed, Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful rocket in operation... at least until NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) high capacity vehicle becomes a reality.

SpaceX - Falcon Heavy Static Fire 2018.01.24

[Peter Brassbeard]

The Soviet N-1 didn't have modern silicon pixie-aetherwave controller technology.  And signs suggest SLS schedule will continue to slip until eventual cancellation.

[J. Wilhelm]

The Soviet N-1 didn't have modern silicon pixie-aetherwave controller technology.  And signs suggest SLS schedule will continue to slip until eventual cancellation.

Shame, really. We're not very serious about having a national space program, whereas a few visionaries like Musk are left to carry the basket. Not complaining, I think he's doing a great job, and given that he's one a single few who are trying, I guess I'll forgive him the eccentricity of launching his cherry red Tesla coupe past Mars.

I do envy the Indian space programme, though. My whole adult existence was based on the never materialised promise of working on something similar to the Space Shuttle.

[J. Wilhelm]

Well here it is, the three-core, two-stage Falcon Heavy rocket was launched today from Cape Canaveral with its "Space Oddity" payload, Musk's own Tesla Roadster:

SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch

I must say, they did organize a good party on the ground...  

The cat's out of the bag on the destiny of the Tesla roadster. If I understand correctly (correct me if I'm wrong or missed something or I read something wrong) the Tesla, now christened "Starman," will traverse an orbit past the sun to an apogee that nearly matches the farthest distance from the Earth to Mars (400 million Km). The implication is that the Tesla roadster will be captured by the Sun's gravity (hyperbolic orbit during slingshot, then elliptical again toward Mars)*, and attain a highly elliptical orbit that will interesect all the inner planet's near-circular orbits, while playing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (in the vaccum if space, so no one will hear it  ). So there is a microscopic chance of colliding with any of the inner planets in the very distant future or burning in Earth's atmosphere. But most likely it is now just another, very odd and queer metal, plastic and rubber meteor.  

*Edit: Big correction here. They released the orbital path. The Sun is nowhere close to being between Mars and Earth, so the Starman was actually launched directly toward Mars but not close enough to Mars and way too fast to get captured by Mars. Instead the Sun's stronger gravity will determine its fate. Still that is way more energy than I anticipated in the upper stage.

Because the Starman was travelling so much faster than I thought, the orbit is a lot less eccentric than I anticipated. While still eccentric, the orbit is a much "fatter" orbit that does not need a "slingshot" past any celestial body, and instead only allows the Sun to capture the Starman away from Earth's (and Mars') gravitational pull.

I was not expecting that. The orbit has so much energy (Starman 's speed) that its orbit does not even intersect the orbits of Venus and Mercury, it just lies outside their orbits, going around them altogether. That is one hell of a shot.

PS I wonder what happened to that wheel of cheese aboard the Dragon/Falcon 9 in 2010... did they serve it at the party?

[J. Wilhelm]

Apparently there is a third (upper stage) still attached to the Tesla ("Starman") . The idea is to do  a final burn to aim for Mars. Some interesting live video from the 3 cameras. A mannequin dressed in a space suit is sitting in the driver's seat. This is your chance to make a memorable screen saver. I just did mine :

(Live feed from @SpaceX)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

Cheers,

JW

[Banfili]

I'm glad the launch went well - if any 'visitors' manage to snag that car, they are going to wonder what the hell happened!
Love the "Don't Panic" touch in the roadster!

[J. Wilhelm]

I'm glad the launch went well - if any 'visitors' manage to snag that car, they are going to wonder what the hell happened!
Love the "Don't Panic" touch in the roadster!

Well, for one, they'd wonder why people on Earth are so stiff  Watching the Live feed now, I'm waiting for the second biurn. I think I see some liquid drops coming out of the left front hand side of the car... 

[morozow]

Congratulations on Cosmonautics Day!

[J. Wilhelm]

Congratulations on Cosmonautics Day!

We need to celebrate advances in space exploration more. It's just a foot note or small print in nespapers nowadays.

[morozow]

On the eve once again was a good event. Max has a heavy Falcon. And Israeli satellite reached the moon, though not prizemlilsya, but still.

[J. Wilhelm]

On the eve once again was a good event. Max has a heavy Falcon. And Israeli satellite reached the moon, though not prizemlilsya, but still.

More changes are coming. New people are coming in after developed countries. When India launched a probe to Mars, very few people paid any attention. Most people I talk to don't even know India had a small prototype space shuttle. I'm hoping more countries will participate. I don't regret new companies like "SpaceX," because they're bringing back retro-rocket type technology that was abandoned in the late 1960s, but SpaceX is still a limited endevour, and hypersonic space-planes in US and Europe are now just on the desks of military services.

[Prof Marvel]

Apparently there is a third (upper stage) still attached to the Tesla ("Starman") . The idea is to do  a final burn to aim for Mars. Some interesting live video from the 3 cameras. A mannequin dressed in a space suit is sitting in the driver's seat. This is your chance to make a memorable screen saver. I just did mine :

(Live feed from @SpaceX)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aBr2kKAHN6M

Cheers,

JW

looks like an homage to the ancient animated movie "Heavy Metal" ....

yhs
prof marvel

[Prof Marvel]

On the eve once again was a good event. Max has a heavy Falcon. And Israeli satellite reached the moon, though not prizemlilsya, but still.

More changes are coming. New people are coming in after developed countries. When India launched a probe to Mars, very few people paid any attention. Most people I talk to don't even know India had a small prototype space shuttle. I'm hoping more countries will participate. I don't regret new companies like "SpaceX," because they're bringing back retro-rocket type technology that was abandoned in the late 1960s, but SpaceX is still a limited endevour, and hypersonic space-planes in US and Europe are now just on the desks of military services.

India, Israel, Japan ( sent a satellite to explore an asteroid! can you say asteroid mining?) and China.

Except for private efforts, it looks like the US is out of it. The Great Unwashed doesn't care for anything but pizza, beer and foot/basket.baseball.

yhs
prof marvel

[Miranda.T]

Well, SABRE just passed another important test (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47832920) and, wheather it's in a SSTO or TSTO vehicle, hopefully it will get a chance to power something up to orbit by the end of the 2020s. Also, there seems to finally be a real push to the moon (https://www.space.com/lockheed-early-gateway-moon-2024-landing-plans.html). In terms of the latter, I'm wondering why the sudden rush? Is it simply national pride, or have the powers that be decided there is something of real interest on the moon? Maybe someone is quietly on the verge of commercial fusion using He-3, or maybe the recent Chinese probes have glimpsed the outline of a black obelisk...

Yours,
Miranda.

[J. Wilhelm]

On the eve once again was a good event. Max has a heavy Falcon. And Israeli satellite reached the moon, though not prizemlilsya, but still.

More changes are coming. New people are coming in after developed countries. When India launched a probe to Mars, very few people paid any attention. Most people I talk to don't even know India had a small prototype space shuttle. I'm hoping more countries will participate. I don't regret new companies like "SpaceX," because they're bringing back retro-rocket type technology that was abandoned in the late 1960s, but SpaceX is still a limited endevour, and hypersonic space-planes in US and Europe are now just on the desks of military services.

India, Israel, Japan ( sent a satellite to explore an asteroid! can you say asteroid mining?) and China.

Except for private efforts, it looks like the US is out of it. The Great Unwashed doesn't care for anything but pizza, beer and foot/basket.baseball.

yhs
prof marvel

Unfortunately it is turning out to be that way. All we have today is politics. There are no dreams anymore, other than politically beating the other 50% of your countrymen at the polls. At best the hope for many seems to go back to 1955, as some sort of horribly misguided nostalgia for the past.

Well, SABRE just passed another important test (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47832920) and, wheather it's in a SSTO or TSTO vehicle, hopefully it will get a chance to power something up to orbit by the end of the 2020s. *snip*

It's great news to hear about any progress on that side. If liquefying air can be done to generate the oxidizer, and the engines can be used is low supersonic range through Mach 5-6 when you will need to rely on liquid oxygen (basically), then this will be the only working engine capable of achieving horizontal ascent to orbit. For some reason SCRAMJET engines we never made reliable.

The presumtion is that generating the proper mixing of fuel and oxygen in a supersonic turbulent flow is unreliable at best, as shown in SCRAMJET technology. A supersonic turbulent boundary layer is simply not understood yet; we don't have a picture of what happens when there is a range of speeds from zero through suprsonic in turbulent boundary layers.  We've made great strides in understanding and (hence controlling) *subsonic* turbulence for incompressible flows, like water flowing over a flat surface, using Spectral DNS methods (Full Navier Stokes simulations using sine wave Fourier Transforms to process differential equations - what I used to do in my second stint in graduate school). But the supersonic turbulent BL has to be a very complex and severe environment for air. Ther large amount of heat generated by friction inside the boundary layer affects the mass density of the flow and the turbulent air becomes even more viscous* and that in turn affects the nature of turbulence.

In this case, you want to maximize turbulence to promote mixing of fuel and oxygen. There may be statistically emergent properties that we haven't discovered yet. Not knowing how to sustain combustion in supersonic flow forces you to slow down the intake of air to subsonic speeds in the combustion chamber. Normally we do that anyway in supersonic craft, because turbojet compressors and turbines are not designed to handle supersonic flows at all, but in theory, Ramjets eliminate all moving parts - that was the best hope for supersonic compression before combustion.

The Sabre engine bypasses all that by foregoing any mixing at any speed. It simply brings to near stant still (hot) air into the combustion chamber, or plain liquifies the oxygen (cold) which you then use in the combustion chamber - basically like a regular rocket. The idea was pure genius from the beginning, and it's no wonder it eluded all other engineering projects; it brings the speed of the oxidizer to zero! Engineers' attempts at handling oxygen all involved slowing air down, but saving the kinetic energy in the form of pressure energy and heat. The argument being a thermodynamic one, in that one should not dissipate the thermal energy of a compressed airflow, because then you have to make up for it later on by burning more fuel. And it's NOT a small loss in energy. The amount of energy stored in hot gas can be tremendous, you don't want to let it go. It's a mantra we have use to design air breathing engines since the first British centrifugal turbojets. The turbine is the part of the engine tasked with recovering that pressure and temperature and directing the energy back into kinetic energy in the form of a jet of air. By then all heat you lose in that exit nozzle of hot exhaust is the net loss for the engine (usually not a small amount of energy loss; jet engines -Brayton Cycle- are very lossy compared to your car's 4-stroke internal combustion engine).

But in this case the mantra is wrong because the physics don't seem to let us perform the combustion beyond a certain speed. And you can't ram all that air you need into a conventional turbojet. It simply gets too hot for the engine parts to handle. The thermodynamic efficiency goes to hell when you stop and cool the air like that, because the pre-cooler they've designed simply can't process ALL the heat so fast and recycle it into pressure energy. There will be large losses in thermal energy. But the alternative to that is nothing at all. And even with all that energy dissipation, the efficiency of the Sabre is STILL much better than a conventional rocket, simply because you don't have to carry all the oxygen with you. It's just thinking outside of the box.

UK engineers developing a novel propulsion system say their technology has passed another key milestone.
The Sabre air-breathing rocket engine is designed to drive space planes to orbit... the team at Reaction Engines Ltd has developed a heat-exchanger for the purpose. It has shown the ability to handle the simulated conditions of flying at more than three times the speed of sound. It did this by successfully quenching a 420C stream of gases in less than 1/20th of a second. The REL group is confident its "pre-cooler" technology can now go on to show the same performance in conditions that simulate flying above five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.

*https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.fl.26.010194.001443
*https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142727X15000247

[J. Wilhelm]

*snip* there seems to finally be a real push to the moon (https://www.space.com/lockheed-early-gateway-moon-2024-landing-plans.html). In terms of the latter, I'm wondering why the sudden rush? Is it simply national pride, or have the powers that be decided there is something of real interest on the moon? Maybe someone is quietly on the verge of commercial fusion using He-3, or maybe the recent Chinese probes have glimpsed the outline of a black obelisk...

Yours,
Miranda.

There is a valid argument about rehearsing extraterrestrial missions on the moon, or using the moon as a launch pad, or even exploiting the moon's resorces, but I see the endeavour somewhat flawed. I'm afraid it's not a black monolith or cold fusion what is driving us there. I'm under the impression this is part of the nostalgia trip the US seems to be suffering at the moment for the atomic age.  More about a 50-70 year old's pleasent childhood memories of winged cars and diners along Route 66, and the horrific nightmares of 1960s hippies handing out flowers in the street, and 1970s Disco dancing horrors like afros and cheap polyester suits. The time frame is set to coincide with a presumed Presidential re-election.

Vice President Mike Pence, who is head of the National Space Council, directed NASA to speed up its plans to land humans on the moon and to target a human moon landing in 2024, or four years earlier than NASA had been planning. Now, the agency's commercial partners, who are providing much of the components for NASA's moon plans, must also scramble to meet the agency's new goal.

[Prof Marvel]

I fear the U.S. has been overcome by the greed for profit at any cost. 
space exploration , medicine, and public good have fallen by the wayside.

the other thing thing that concerns me is the ever growing chinese cyber threat. Everyone who used the much touted "Elemental Servers" is at risk,
This includes the Big Corporations worldwide as well as DOD, pentagon, and many 3 letter agencies.

Apple, Amazon, and Google quietly replaced some 7,000 to 10,000 servers (quite possibly more), and claimed  "never happened".

It all stems from some micro-microchips, about 2mm long, disguised as other components,
showing up on super-server motherboards that were outsourced to be manufactured in mainland china.

This article from Bloomberg Business week is pretty lengthy, but worth the time. it reads like a Tom Clancy book.

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies?srnd=businessweek-v2

(i have downloaded text, html, and an image of the full article, along with footnotes and links, just in case the article somehow disappears....)

all i can say, is I am so friggin glad i am out of the business, and hiding in the foothills.

I am letting the next bunch of technonerds worry about all this crap, and sending little emails saying
"hey did you see this article? I told ya so ya stoopid barstiches!"

now it's spring, and time to fire up the greenhouse.  

I'll just be Wilfred Mott, gazing at the stars with my celestron

hoping  for a  "Bad Wolf"  to show up ( I do love me a good ontological paradox.  )

my celestron


Wilfred Mott, his telescope, and the tardis


Badd Wolf



yhs
prof tired

[J. Wilhelm]

Very interesting article. That does explain the odd marriage between brainless politics and security concerns regarding US Chinese trade tensions.

Wonderfully telling, and somewhat obvious that The first customers or Elemental would be televangelist religious organisations and the porn industry. I've always said porn drives the development of video technology  

As to the security. It is touted that finding a Chinese military chip inserted into a motherboard at the manufacturing stage and then discovering the attack after somehow it was correctly distributed to the victim customers would be akin to finding a unicorn, according to Bloomberg.

The problem is that you're assuming that there is a localised target. There is not. Many companies use similar image compression servers (BTW I'm getting old, I haven't seen that server blade design before). That means that the Chinese government is targeting ANY kind of company using such servers. Then they build a global network to listen to the servers and somebody behind a terminal chooses which companies they want to listen to, assigning agents to target specific industries or companies.

Therefore you have to work on the assumption that ANY motherboard made in China is potentially compromised. Whether their government wants to spy on Apple technology or Apple customer's personal information or snoop into someone's late night visits to sketchy websites, is the prerogative of some bureaucrat.

So what to do? The answer lies in the supply chain. Doing what is described in in the article: the final seller MUST send the motherboards for inspection to a third party *regularly* checking that the motherboards are performing EXACTLY as you designed. There is no other way. The responsibility lies on the seller, who I'd make legally liable for damages. Claiming damages to the Chinese government is as useful as dog barking at a waterfall.

This means electronics costs will rise for the consumer due to the necessary inspections. But I can't see alternatives. Don't think you can avoid risk if instead of China you pick Singapore, for example, to make the motherboards. Sure, a Mexican or Singaporean motherboard will be less likely to be targeted, but that in itself is no guarantee.

And also remember: what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Now that we know, the US can retaliate in kind, regularly buying motherboards and analysing them for reverse hacking. It's something that is best done without announcing your intentions. These safety checks should be routine by now. The "scandal"  today is all about corporations being too innocent a decade ago to realise they were used as pawns.

And what makes you feel that this could not be exploited by individual actors as well? Google, Amazon, Apple can perform a bit of the same snooping of they choose to. Even individual actors strategically infiltrating a company can do it we can point the finger to China, but you may be dealing with a Stand Alone Complex, where multiple unrelated actors across the world are doing the same, leading you to believe that there is one boogeyman when in fact it's many.

The days when we have direct neural interface with the human brain will come sooner or later in this century. Then you will see some real hacking! In that sense, I'm glad neural networks (of the Machine Intelligence kind as defined by IEEE) embedded into the living brain are still not here, and instead all we have is digital simulations of neural networks, confined within conventional computers (Artificial Intelligence as defined by IEEE).

But I digress. Let's go back to simple Aerospace Engineering, shall we?

[Prof Marvel]

Hi J & Friends

sorry, this may seem like an off topic rant, but it really is all related to Aerospace in The Real World
if you stick with me to the end you'll understand.

The problem is that you're assuming that there is a localised target.

Actually , I am not assuming a localized target.
I am assuming they are targetting the world.

The Chinese Smart Phones have been shown to ship with spyware and malware installed , now these servers with built-in hardware remote backdoors.
China is systematically and deliberately building backdoors into every product. And we are letting them do it, and not calling them out.

Therefore you have to work on the assumption that ANY motherboard made in China is potentially compromised.

Based on the evidence, we have to assume EVERY piece of electronics from Red China is spyware until proven otherwise.

So what to do?

The only real solution is to restore localized international manufacturing.
That is the only way to ensure what is actually in the product .

Remeber history, or be doomed to repeat it:
- Remember the Major Name Brand (from china) pet foods poisoned with melamine to increase "tested protein"?
- Remember the Major Name Brand toothpoaste from china that was laced with anitfreeze because it was the cheapest sweetener?
- Even now, mainland Chinese citizens still flock to Hongkong and Shanghai to buy commercial Western made Baby Formula by the pallet
     because Chinese Baby Formula is tainted and cannot be trusted.
- At the Bejing Olympics, athletes were banned from eating local Chinese food because they were so full of chemicals, drugs and hormones that the
     athletes would fail the drug screening tests.

- RIGHT NOW there is an international shortage of common Blood Pressure Rx medicine,   ( valsartan, losatran and irbersartan) 
    the recall began in mid 2018 due to The impurity, known as NDEA, was found in the drug's key ingredient made by Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co. in China.
    the base drug is used worldwide by EVERY Pharma manufacturor and Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical is the ONLY source for the base medicatiuon.

    NDEA is used to make rocket fuel and can also be a created through certain chemical reactions and as a byproduct of industrial processes.

https://www.webmd.com/drug-medication/news/20181113/losartan-latest-bp-drug-recalled-for-contamination
https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/valsartan-losatran-bp-med-recalls-2018-19
http://fortune.com/2019/02/27/fda-blood-pressure-medication-recall-list-losartan-2019/
http://fortune.com/2019/02/13/cancer-causing-chemicals-contaminated-heart-medicine-cardiovascular-drugs-fda/


The Big Corporations outsourced all manufacturing to maximize  profit.
which means the technology was "given away" as well .

That also meant that good technical jobs, including product design , product engineering, QA, technical security, etc are all gone.
Which means none of those jobs (including AeroSpace!!!! ) are available in the Western Hemisphere, and damn few in EU.
Which means the current and next generations will not have jobs that pay enough to support buying anything but food and rent

which means the Consumer-driven economy is slowly collapsing upon itself. - nobody can afford to buy the products! ( except the new chinese middle class)

even now, kids with EE an IT degrees are moving to India because that's where the jobs are.

yes it will "increase costs".  But perhaps it will be back to a more "normal state".
instead of $20 DVD players and $80 TVs sold in grocery stores that break after a year.
we should be able to have $100 players & electronics that last 5 years.

But I digress. Let's go back to simple Aerospace Engineering, shall we?

I would love to, but the entire outsourcing debacle means there will be little or no  Aerospace Engineering
going on in the western world , which is actually why I put this rant here.

You yourself have found no jobs in the US even tho you are overqualified for those few available.

We have seen the Boeing 737 grounded because the Aerospace technoweenies never tested the "smart software" enough
and Boeing Management refused to fix it even when it was thrown in their faces by the pilots.
Similar problems occurred with the Airbus 320 family.

When I worked for Honeywell and Sperry, we built triple redundancy in all MODULES of  fly-by-wire systems, with extensive POST (Power On Self Test)
and Background running BIT ( Built In Test) software, which included 3-way voting and shutdown of an "out-of-spec" module, switchover to
dual-redundancy and a RED FLAG to replace the module upon landing.  That software was then leveraged into Ground based STD (Self Test and Diagnostic) software,
and FAT  (Factory Acceptance Test) software that could be run any time the plane was hangered.

The Acceptance Testing and Selloff software/ firmware  was run on EVERY box prior to shipment, in a "shake and bake" temperature and vibration test stand
and a factory or DOD rep (or both) witnessed and signed off on the whole thing. The checklist was a book several hundred pages long, and we generated a
printout from the test stand detailing the serial numbers of the chasis, the serial numbers of the circuit cards, testers and witnesses names, and chip lot numbers
so we had a permanent paper archive as well as electronic record. .

Q/A  of the development process was done IN PARALLEL with flight system and test software, hardware, and firmware development by a completely
independant Q/A team that answered to a different VP.

Q/A also did destructive testing, and failure analysis of all failed components . They had an electron microscope and disected the chips. Almost
all failures were due to failed/blown internal chip paths. Q/A could  tell which chip paths had failed and how. They were so good they were able to determine
"what " caused a path failure with a greater than 90 % certainty. Most were due to ESD (Electrostatic discharge).  Some were pre-installation, some
after the chip had been wave-soldered to the board.  Q/A were even able to determine what kind of ESD - ie: static from a 1 foot piece of scotch tape
pealed off the roll next to the componant blew a different hole than static from an ungrounded worker touching a board.

Q/A also took samples from every chip lot and dissected them. They used Xrays to examine the layers and they compared the actual chip guts to the
archived design LSI layers matrixes.  One time,  they found some ass-hat had etched their initials into a corner. The ass-hat was pilloried, held up as an
example of STOOPID and that batch of chips destroyed.

It was pricey, but as I told folks we were responsible to keep airplanes from falling out of the sky.

This included the 727, first gen 737, 747 and first gen 767 as well as the  AV8B, F4-G, F14, F15, F16 and first FA-18, and several black programs. 

Guess what?

Neither Honeywell, Sperry, Boeing or McDoug  do that anymore . Their LSI chip fab plants as wel as TI's and Motorolla's and Intel's plants have been closed
and outsourced to Asia.

That's the Aero part.

The Space part is just as bleak. The available jobs suck, they are mainly paper-pushing "project manager" jobs meant to give lip service to
Western oversight of Asian contractors.  and commercial endevours are the only thing going forward.
Since Asia manufactures all electronics,  I actually expect backdoor hardware to be in all commercially launched satellites.

I actually have to appologise for sounding so bleak, but this is actually the same pattern that followed technology at the turn of the 1890-1920 era.
change the names and it's the same. The huge rail, telegraph, and  oil corporations dominated the country at the cost of the common folk and pollution.
Jobs were outsourced from EU for "cheap labor" and sweatshops and factor mill jobs and mining jobs were dangerous and killing workers, and
child labor was the norm.

The FDA did not exist yet, so poison was sold as medicine, and COCAIN was the active ingrediant in Coca Cola.
Tainted and rotten or adulterated food was common.

So now it's come full circle again, and we just have to fix it.

My basic advice is go live where the jobs are.
If automation is replacing your job, get training and a job the build and fix the automation.

If you want to work in Aerospace, figure out a "niche" that can't be outsourced.

Tesla and Musk and Bezos spend millions on PR to look good, but they are legends in their own minds. They are working their people to death,
workers hate them, they are all constantly trying to get around laws and regulations.

space rant over, more on next post

yhs
prof realist

a realist is one of those grumpy barstiches
that  see things as they really are
instead of how we tell them.

[Prof Marvel]

oops I lied, one last bit

And also remember: what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Now that we know, the US can retaliate in kind, regularly buying motherboards and analysing them for reverse hacking. It's something that is best done without announcing your intentions. These safety checks should be routine by now. The "scandal"  today is all about corporations being too innocent a decade ago to realise they were used as pawns.

Actually the West started it when they weaponized a virus to cause ultra-centrifuges that were in extremely specific facilities to destroy themselves .

And analyzing  purchased componants has 2 drawbacks
- firstly destroys the ability for the corporation to claim "Plausible deniability"
- costs money that was saved by outsourcing and we see from the article that management is not willing to jeapordize the huge potential market called China

These safety checks should be routine by now. The "scandal"  today is all about corporations being too innocent a decade ago to realise they were used as pawns.

actually, they were not innocent "decades ago". People like me were regularly reporting up the food
chain on hacks, attacks, and obviously stolen IP (intellectual properties) .

NOBODY WANTED TO HEAR IT
one guy had to work for over a year to convince any govt agency that their univeristy computer had been hacked and was
being used to access the (then ) darpanet to steal secrets.

We were told "not your job, sit down and shut up , or find another job in another company"

And what makes you feel that this could not be exploited by individual actors as well? Google, Amazon, Apple can perform a bit of the same snooping of they choose to. Even individual actors strategically infiltrating a company can do it we can point the finger to China, but you may be dealing with a Stand Alone Complex, where multiple unrelated actors across the world are doing the same, leading you to believe that there is one boogeyman when in fact it's many.

I am not so stupid as to believe there is only one boogeyman. I spent far too long in the biz
with electronic security as a "side job". I have a huge list of doco regarding the sins of
Amzon, Google, Yahoo, and the individual 11 ( I saw what you did there!) individual Internet
Service Providers.

"we" are actually being "watched" constantly via the web. PM me if you care to chat offline....

My point is that this is one of the first large scale massive built-in hardware backdoors ever
perpetrated, GLOABALLY, even bigger than the so-called "security holes" in the internet ready devices.

AND THEY KEPT IT QUIET!

yhs
the grumpy realist

[Prof Marvel]

And now back to Aerospace


So, prof grumpy, can you summarize ANY of this?

glad you asked!

basically, it looks like the U.S. and Russia are virtually dead as far as Manned Space
exploration goes. All I see is satellites, exploratory remote thingies, and maintaining
big rockets like the Vostok

India, Japan, and China are definitely moving forward with some sort of plans.
It appears as tho japan is looking into mining asteroids, but I cannot begin
to guess what India and China are doing beyond Earth Orbit stuff, some of it
will probably be weaponized.

what about the Aerospace Commercial Sector?



Ford Aerospace was bought by Loral in 1990; all they did was build missles

Sperry Aerospace bcame part of Unisys and was then sold to Honeywell Aerospace ~
Honeywell Aerospace is ramping down and closing facilities

Northrop Grumman Aerospace and defense company still exists, but is mainly "defense"

McDonnell Douglas was bought by Boeing
North American Rockwell ( ie: Space Shuttle) was bought by Boeing

The U.S. manned space flight programs are essential dead. During the three decades of operation,
various follow-on and replacements for the STS Space Shuttle were partially developed but not
finished.

NASA is now a place to get a job doing "satellite" stuff.

----------------------------------------
NASA employees earn $62,500 annually on average, or $30 per hour,
which is 2% higher than the national salary average of $61,000 per year.
According to our data, the highest paying job at NASA is a Lead Engineer
at $126,000 annually while the lowest paying job at NASA is a Student
Researcher at $21,000 annually.


Boeing still builds planes but very little "space" and  is *still* doing "staff up and layoff"
and you saw my opinion earlier.
-------------------------------------------

The typical Boeing Engineer salary is $89,000. Engineer salaries at Boeing can range from
$55,880 - $158,413.

--------------------------------------------

airbus still builds planes, mainly EU based

Salaries at Airbus range from an average of $47,943 to $147,776 a year. Airbus employees with the
job title Vice President (VP) of Product Development make the most with an average annual salary of $199,230,

--------------------------------------------

Lockheed Martin is like Boeing

An Entry-Level Aerospace Engineer at Lockheed Martin Corp earns an average salary of $64,921 per year.


--------------------------------------------

SPACEX is a "maybe" and one of the few "space" places left.

But until "somebody" builds a large scale permanent manned orbital platform
bigger and more robust more self-sufficient than the EU space station, they have no place to fly to.

------------------------------------------
How much do SpaceX employees make?
The average SpaceX salary ranges from approximately $42,441 per year for Laser Technician
to  $111,709 per year for "Engineer. "

When factoring in bonuses and additional compensation, a Mechanical Engineer
at SpaceX can expect to make an average total pay of  $90,000

Average SpaceX hourly pay ranges from approximately
$18.80 per hour for Welder to $31.00 per hour for Inspector.
-------------------------------------------


but be aware, Musk is a visionary and that can also mean "psycho"

"real people" hated working for visionary Saint Steve Jobs at apple, his behavior can
be described as schizophrenic, just like Tesla.

yhs
prof grumpy realist

[J. Wilhelm]

Don't talk to me about SpaceX. It took all but 45 minutes for them to send me an email rejecting my application. Clearly they are a boutique company who don't really follow normal hiring procedures.

On Boeing and Airbus. Please note the new frontier is short haul and smaller passenger jets. The jumbo jet market is sputtering. The A380 is being discontinued in 2020, and Boeing has hinted the old venerable 747 might follow. Last summer Boeing, embattled and bleeding for its spat with Bombardier ended up buying or merging (I don't know which) with the commercial division of Embraer. This after Bombardier won the unfair competition lawsuit last year and by Winter they had merged their commercial division with Airbus, as a workaround to US rules on foreign government aid.

The battle is now Boeing / Embraer in Brazil vs. Airbus / Bombardier in Canada and Mexico. Like I wrote before, Dr. David Dolling former Chairman of the Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Dept at the University of Texas at Austin (and my Hypersonic Fluid Dynamics professor) told me about one year ago that Mexico is graduating MORE Aerospace engineers in Mexico than the whole of the United States.

As an aside, I wrote somewhere else that according to Forbes, several years ago, Mexico produces about 1/2 of the number of engineers who graduate in the US annually. The US is currently #2 at over 200 k engineering graduates per year and Mexico is at over 100k ahead of France. The number one country in graduating engineers is Russia, with over 400 K. There's perfectly good reasons for those numbers. And if its not a military "cold war" or political response (like Iran), then it has to be an economic response to domestic demand or industry migration from the First World.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/09/the-countries-with-the-most-engineering-graduates-infographic/#76688186667d

What it means is that American educated Mexican and Brazilian students have gone back to their respective countries to teach a new generation of engineers.  I could see the Brazilian students in the 1990s and 2000s at Austin. Some like a Japanese-Brazilian were my friends. He got a PhD and returned to Brazil, where his parents are wealthy.. There's no place for him to go other than academia or Embraer.

Same for India. It's full of institutes teaching Aerospace Engineering, full with graduates from MIT and Caltech serving as professors - you can tell if you come to any of our AIAA meetings or read our technical papers. Those new engineers in Mexico, last I checked 5 years ago were perfectly happy earning $40000 at General Electric designing aircraft engines. This process is not something you can reverse. What you can do, however, is join the new generation of engineers.

I would have liked to follow my career and have grown a family in the US. But due to real life problems like death, family business and bankruptcy I was held back. Perhaps national pride would have still kept me here. But national pride for me is now useless; it died when I was attacked one and a half years ago in the street by people telling me that the Great Ompaloompa in Washington would "take care of me and my people." And by "care" I don't mean in a good way.

That is when I made my decision. The world is changing and so must I. I feel sorry for America, but America needs to decide who they want to be. What I see is that they don't want to be an immigrant nation any longer. Thereby stopping the influx of fresh blood that made this the most dynamic nation on Earth. If you take out all immigrants the birth rate will fall below 1.2 children per family, and the US population will start to decline, like most other developed countries. The "consumer economy" is already blowing up in our faces, like you implied - and everywhere in the First World. So maybe being the wealthiest is not all that is cracked up to be, right? But the current path I see is self-destructive. 30—40% of the population is far too many voices against what what I thought we were all about, and that is a grass roots movement.

Alas, I'm too old to contemplate that change. If the next 25 years pass as fast as the last 25, in the blink of an eye, I will be in my 70s.. It's not like I'm going to hang a poster of El Ché Guevara in my bedroom, raise my left fist and scream "for the people" to the tune of "Sleep Now in the Fire" by Rage Against the Machine, and go fight the "Fascists" in the streets of America. To begin with, that's not my political ideology, and I'm too old for that. I'm very much a pro-European culturally and politically I was so inclined in Mexico, but that is something my fellow Americans don't understand, because they just don't know who we are.

I'm poor and old but still young looking and not old enough to retire, so I have to keep moving. My family descends from people who came from France Italy and Spain and they didn't hesitate to move when it was necessary to do so. Now it's my turn. I have to do the same again. Others in my family are Native to Mexico. They survived the conquest. So I will do that. I'll move and I will survive.

My offer is this: anyone who wants to come to Latin America with an open mind can do so and expect to see the re-emergence of this industry. But first you must free your mind from misconceptions, and be willing to suffer a little by way of personal comforts.

Rage Against The Machine - Sleep Now in the Fire (from The Battle Of Mexico City)

[Prof Marvel]

Greetings My Dear J and Friends

firstly I must appologise , I fear I fell into taking certain things a tish personally, when I misread the pronoun  "you" to mean "me".
In order to avoid that I deliberately  try to use "one must this and that"  vs "you must this and that" .....

I think in the two decades of  the 21st century the U.S. has  become stupid and complacent. Somehow "those in charge" stopped listening
to the very experts that they hired.

I fear the Great Morons worldwide have beat the drum of "national pride" (facsim) and brought the scum up from the pond bottom, to the greater
detriment of everyone. As you said, each person needs to decide for themselves how best to deal with it, and many are leaving or on the cusp of it.

J, I must have missed some of your posts... I hope you can make the move and transition to Mexico succesfully! Cost of Living is certainly less.
Ford and several other major players built quite a few manufacturing facilities in Mexico, and if you can land a spot with GE down there I
believe you would be in fat city!

I have many colleagues in Mexico City, with the Former Sun Micro, Oracle Corp, IBM etc, and they have been rather succesful and living well on
$30k-$40k !  It has been my limited experience in the past that technical management in Mexico City doesn't care about age as much as ability .

Since the US and Russia are passing the spaceflight torch along, I will continue to actively monitor and cheer on the Aerospace successes of  others!

yhs
prof marvel

[J. Wilhelm]

Greetings My Dear J and Friends

firstly I must appologise , I fear I fell into taking certain things a tish personally, when I misread the pronoun  "you" to mean "me".
In order to avoid that I deliberately  try to use "one must this and that"  vs "you must this and that" .....

I think in the two decades of  the 21st century the U.S. has  become stupid and complacent. Somehow "those in charge" stopped listening
to the very experts that they hired.

I fear the Great Morons worldwide have beat the drum of "national pride" (facsim) and brought the scum up from the pond bottom, to the greater
detriment of everyone. As you said, each person needs to decide for themselves how best to deal with it, and many are leaving or on the cusp of it.

J, I must have missed some of your posts... I hope you can make the move and transition to Mexico succesfully! Cost of Living is certainly less.
Ford and several other major players built quite a few manufacturing facilities in Mexico, and if you can land a spot with GE down there I
believe you would be in fat city!

I have many colleagues in Mexico City, with the Former Sun Micro, Oracle Corp, IBM etc, and they have been rather succesful and living well on
$30k-$40k !  It has been my limited experience in the past that technical management in Mexico City doesn't care about age as much as ability .

Since the US and Russia are passing the spaceflight torch along, I will continue to actively monitor and cheer on the Aerospace successes of  others!

yhs
prof marvel

Thank you! It's like pioneers in the old west, "Mexico or Bust."
I hope you're right about the age thing in hiring. But I'm not holding my breath, I know at my age I'm less than desirable, and Mexico is a country where the majority are young! But honestly, I'd be happy just helping the Aerospace students in any capacity and using my English and Technical skills simultaneously.

I'll start by creating an income that is independent of physical location (internet based) before even trying to move! I need very little to live on. And in Mexico even less.