Thomas Leps

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

The May 15-16 lunar eclipse at the South Pole with Aurora Australis and the Milky Way guest starring. -80F and 15kt winds.
#eclipse #eclipselunar #aurora #southpole #antarctica @TweetAurora @TheSunToday @TheAuroraZoo

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip Best I can do is on a table in a living room with a few beers and maybe a 100 dollar buy in.

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip @KenCondon1 Stop trying to make an icecube out of interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 ʻOumuamua

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip Is it time to make straws straw again?

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip I’m team ‘we just don’t need straws’

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip As a mostly water and mostly non ice drinker I don’t have too much of a problem with either, but it is bizarre that we haven’t solved this yet. I wonder if you don’t care about cloudiness if you can make cellophane thick enough to function as a straw

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@KenCondon1 @andrewmccalip It’s true, our average summers throughout most of the US have temperatures higher than the worst heatwaves all but the hottest European cities get. Maybe we just need fewer, larger, ice cubes so they don’t go through a jamming transition

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip Why is everyone ok with blindly geoengineering by accident for 150 years, but somehow doing it on purpose will definitely kill us all with unintended consequences?

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@HusbandOfAyn @andrewmccalip Steel square tube. It’ll probably end up stiffer and lighter, even accounting for the strength to weight difference, since it’s fully boxed. It’ll also cost less even including the price of the welder.

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip It’s a “metaphor.” But that actually happened, though.

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip @no_inventions Burying all the lines requires a shift to high voltage DC to minimize reactive losses

[Varda Space Industries @VardaSpace]

coming in hot

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@IGamecast @TheProjectUnity I lived at the South Pole for two years. That webcam is on the ARO atmospheric observatory. There are two winterovers who do observations at the observatory and everyone has red headlights they use when outside. That light is likelyglare from one of the ARO winterovers headlamps.

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

Happy 249th birthday @USMC #USMC249

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

Happy 247th birthday from South Pole to the @USMC. We had a C-17 airdrop supplies today. I suspect c17s flying overhead was a welcome sight for a lot of marines. I flew the flag this winter to give my brother. Thanks for your service! #USMC247 #USMCBirthday #southpole

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@skdh ‘Oh man, you did it this time, you assasinated our archduke! We’re gonna make the biggest particle accelerator you’ve ever seen, do some fundamental physics research, and start collecting antimatter. We’re gonna get you good in a few decades.’ -Some leader, probably

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@andrewmccalip Definitely! I’m hoping to see it in person someday!

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

We released the footage of our reentry in to Utah last week. I think there were a few views of Greenland where my buddy is hanging out in summit station

[Varda Space Industries @VardaSpace]

Below is a longer 5-minute edit from separation to touchdown:

The full unedited raw footage and audio from separation to touchdown is available on our YouTube: https://t.co/ipdBvx93iB

[Varda Space Industries @VardaSpace]

Below is a longer 5-minute edit from separation to touchdown:

The full unedited raw footage and audio from separation to touchdown is available on our YouTube: https://t.co/ipdBvx93iB

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@dr_hartzell

[Phil Metzger @DrPhiltill]

I could write a 50 page paper answering this :)

A few points in outline form only:

1) The rocket exhaust is expanding into vacuum, so viscosity breaks down, so the gas does not obey the Navier-Stokes equation, which is the basis of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) models. /1

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@aman_chokshi @matplotlib So harmonic

[Thomas Leps @LepsThomas]

@SPTelescope T-shirt cameo in our video of the conclusion of synthesizing LK99

[John Coogan @johncoogan]

LK-99 Replication Vlog (August 3rd, 2023)

Insane that @andrewmccalip @zebulgar & team pulled this off so quickly.

Clearly yields need to improve dramatically for more testing (you'll see them attempt a heating test in the video).

Excited for more experimentation here!