Comments on: March 3, 2026 Quick space links

By: Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:08:02 +0000

On steel
“A University of Houston engineer has developed a method to detect possible damage in concealed cold-formed steel construction framing materials hidden behind walls, without having to tear the walls open…Hoskere published his new method in the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering. It includes development of his new AI tool called InternImage.

Also…”Hubo Cai and Yuxi Zhang are improving upon traditional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data to better estimate the location, orientation and radius of underground utility pipes. Cai is a professor and the associate head of Purdue’s Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering and Zhang is a doctoral candidate in civil engineering. Cai and Zhang’s research has been published in Advanced Engineering Informatics.”

Maybe useful to locate iron meteorites?

By: pzatchok

pzatchok — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:35:59 +0000

Blue Origin is going to destroy the environment we need a few years of study to investigate this before we take them to court over it.

Oh wait did I get ahead of the industry hating dope smoking hippies?

By: Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:26:20 +0000

There has been an improvement on 3D printing for aerospace:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ai-3d-pressureresistant-materials-aerospace.html

AI for engineering
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-chatgpt-spreadsheets-difficult-faster.html

By: Richard M

Richard M — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:03:00 +0000

By the way, someone took a photo of the Mobile Launcher 2 a few days ago, in case anyone was curious what this gold plated Bechtel homunculus looks like in its current state of glacial construction:

https://x.com/i/status/2028968961656734171

By: Richard M

Richard M — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 13:32:49 +0000

Gentlemen, your points aren’t wrong; but I think we must agree that the NASA statement is far too vague to be certain. I concede that I was rolling with what seemed to be the consensus interpretation of this on NSF and social media. (I suspect Edward may be right.)

(Either way, the the ICPS still has to rank low on the scale of objections to SLS.)

On the other hand, we DO have some good news from yesterday: Ding Dong, the Mobile Launcher 2 Is Dead.

“[…] the agency is no longer planning to use the Exploration Upper Stage or Mobile Launcher 2, as development of both has faced delays.”

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esdmd/nasa-strengthens-artemis-adds-mission-refines-overall-architecture/

Room for criticism of Jared Isaacman remains, but credit where credit is due: He is the slayer of Exploration Upper Stage and Mobile Launcher 2.

By: Dick Eagleson

Dick Eagleson — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 04:26:54 +0000

Richard M, I'm not so sure about that. There are two sides to a quick-disconnect, one on the vehicle and one on the ground support equipment. The wording of the NASA press release seems to finger the part on the vehicle as the culprit. In any case, there still remain a formidable number of battery swap-outs and recharges to do and even a troublesome oxygen seal to deal with. So, anent cryo and ullage gas seals, this vehicle has now completed the hat trick of elements, having had problems with hydrogen, helium and oxygen seals. This vehicle has more obstreperous seals than Sea World.

By: Edward

Edward — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 04:05:57 +0000

Richard M,
I interpret that as being the quick disconnect assembly on the rocket, but it sounds like it is at the stage adaptor rather than the Centaur stage itself.

By: Richard M

Richard M — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:38:19 +0000

An update from NASA on the Artemis II SLS stack: “…a seal in the quick disconnect, through which helium flows from the ground systems to the rocket, was obstructing the pathway” was the culprit behind the WDR failure.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/03/nasa-repairs-upper-stage-helium-flow-preps-continue-ahead-of-rollout/

So it seems the problem was in the ground systems, not the upper stage. ULA is off the hook on this one.