Recent Posts

21

Engineering / Re: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

« Last post by Tus-XC on July 18, 2026, 07:03:52 pm »

China just did their first successful landing of an orbital class booster.  A little less cargo capacity than Falcon 9 but in the same class.

Also looked like it needed more support infrastructure to land

22

Engineering / Re: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

« Last post by Nemesis on July 14, 2026, 12:25:36 pm »

A couple of items

When IFT 12 Starship had done the simulated landing and cut the engines it quite naturally fell the remaining distance and exploded.  One of the COPVs survived under pressure and went across the water like a torpedo and struck one of the floating "kiddy pool" buoys which seems to have survived due to the flexibility of the inflated rings.  The odds of going straight at a buoy seems quite low but it happened, there is video of it.

It seems that the problem on hot staging was tiny timing differences in the startup of the engines causing the booster to tilt 90⁰ from the targeted angle.  Hopefully they have corrected for this now. 

23

Holodeck / Antoinette Bowers (Sylvia in the TOS Episode "Catspaw") has died.

« Last post by Panzergranate on July 12, 2026, 01:27:32 pm »

TOS "Catspaw" episode actress, Antoinette Bowers, death announced.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/movies/star-trek-actress-antoinette-bower-93-dies-after-hollywood-career-spanning-four-decades/ar-AA27I51j?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=f728fe045e084f46ee7dd318b1e12fb0&ei=27

24

Engineering / Re: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

« Last post by Nemesis on July 10, 2026, 10:41:44 pm »

China just did their first successful landing of an orbital class booster.  A little less cargo capacity than Falcon 9 but in the same class. 

25

Starfleet Command Models / Re: U.S.S. Star Union Federation Dreadnought (FDNG/H) <Ready for D/L!>

« Last post by MajorRacal on July 08, 2026, 10:23:20 am »

I found this in an old archived drive.  Now available to download again from https://www.gamefront.com/games/starfleet-command-iii/file/uss-star-union-ddn?n=1

M/R

26

Engineering / Re: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

« Last post by Nemesis on July 08, 2026, 06:53:57 am »

IFT 13 now has a date (as always subject to delays)

Tue • Jul 14th, 2026 6:45 PM - 8:56 PM EDT

So next Tuesday.  I've seen one quote allegedly from Shotwell placing the first orbital flight as possibley IFT 15, people (including me) have been assuming that if IFT 13 went well then IFT 14 would be orbital.  Why the delay?  Unknown to me.  That might place it in September if the 1 flight a month she mentioned is lived up to. 

With Vulcan there is an "oddity" when it comes to launch dates.  The source I use www.spacelaunchschedule.com when I look for any ULA launches lists a Vulcan launch in September but when I look just for Vulcan launches it only lists them as December and one for June next year.  I don't know why so I haven't been listing it. 

Edit 1:  That didn't take long: 

Wed • Jul 15th, 2026 6:45 PM - 8:56 PM EDT

Edit 2:

Thu • Jul 16th, 2026 6:45 PM - 8:15 PM EDT

Edit 3:

Launch scrubbed during the ignition sequence.  Why unknown as yet of course as is the next launch date.  Hopefully Friday otherwise likely next week.

Edit 4:

"Some of the engines didn't start, triggering an automatic launch abort," Musk said in ​a post on X, without disclosing the number ​of engines on the Super Heavy rocket that did not start. "To ‌be ⁠confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed & replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week."

27

Starfleet Command Models / Re: Hopes and Questions...

« Last post by Captain Adam on July 07, 2026, 12:35:29 am »

Most people use Discord to chat all day and post things like progress on mods or models. Etc….
People still use gamefront for uploads and downloads, Hot&Spicy forum has more foot traffic for SFC than here these days, MSFC is very active and would not mind SFC related topics even though it’s primarily for Armada.

Adam

28

Engineering / Re: The SCO Group vs IBM - judge takes weed whacker to SCO claims.

« Last post by Nemesis on July 06, 2026, 06:03:34 pm »

In 2021 the corpse of SCOG settled.  Essentially IBM gave them enough money to wind down the company. 

Long before SCOG had sold what was left of their Unix business to a company called Xinuos which then moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands.  It was explicitly stated publicly at the time (as I recall) that Xinuos had no interests/rights in the lawsuit and could not restart them in its own right.  A few years ago there were mumblings that Xinuos WAS restarting them - now they have with IBM as the target.

Ought to be interesting as long ago SCOG got permission to destroy all the business records.  Hard to fight a lawsuit with no records and there may be binding commitments about them not getting (or using) the rights to restart the lawsuits.

Interestingly this is just happening as there has been a flurry of news articles about people fleeing Win 11 for Linux.  Wonder if they got "investments" or suddenly sold "licences" from the same people as SCOG got when they started the lawsuits?

29

Starfleet Command Models / Hopes and Questions...

« Last post by jayvt3 on July 05, 2026, 02:58:42 pm »

first up, i hope that every single one of you, and all of yours, had a wonderful 250th, 4th of July.

second, where is a good place to post models for SFC, SFC:EAW, SFC:OP?
i gotta boatload that i want to upload and i really don't know of a decent site.

thank you all.

30

Engineering / Re: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

« Last post by Nemesis on July 03, 2026, 10:59:34 pm »

I haven't mentioned Starfall.  It is a SpaceX "capsule" more shaped like a hockey puck used to bring cargo down from space. 

My thought is that this may be the practical result of all the hoopla of the idea of SpaceX flying point to point on Earth for the military.  I think that this is more to put cargoes of a few tons at most in a diverse array of orbits where there will be payloads in place to come down where ever needed with either military supplies or emergency gear to help in disaster recovery.  The landing at present is by parachute in water. 

They seem to have just tested it without warning.