A new feed could be created and people gradually migrated to it.

They're scraping to automatically update the wallpaper on their desktop. That's not something a website can do, even with fantastic UX.

We don't need a bloated React framework to show a plaintext file with the fuel tank levels. It's NOAA, not Microsoft.

Hah originally making an animation was my plan, but as so often happens it fell on the backburner and then I ended up with a massive archive. I just deleted it once I realized that A) Better archives exist elsewhere and B) I wasn't going to do anything with it.

I still have the script somewhere. I should throw an LLM at it and see if I can't sand off a few rough edges.

They even have their own design system and CSS framework: https://design-system.service.gov.uk/get-started/

I'm sure they take detailed close out photos and likely video of the entire handling process.

“Measurements taking of the person: foot and shoe weight, total weight including clothing, height and leg length, estimated velocity of travel at time, estimated duration of load”

Since it went into space with the stepped-on part, clearly nobody DID write it up.

They really don't care. If the satellite blows up or fails, they get to build another.

I learned recently that it can also mean "the spacecraft exploded on the launchpad in an enormous fireball."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-29/blue-origin-rocket-ex...

I feel like we're all forgetting the most obvious root cause... "aliens"

Or it has failed catastrophically and gone under voluntary rapid disassembly to help engineers to diagnose the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9icOKGJ94

> multiple people signed the paperwork attesting that they verified that it was bolted down correctly.

In my experience, the more people who are assigned to do something, the more those people assume that someone else did it and slack off. Of course, I've never worked on something as difficult to fix as an orbital satellite.

> Stuff happens.

> There is the famous case of dropping the NOAA N-Prime weather satellite on the ground. They were trying to turn it from vertical to horizontal and they forgot to bolt it to the adapter. Worse: multiple people signed the paperwork attesting that they verified that it was bolted down correctly.

That wasn't a case of "stuff happens." It was a case of systemic issues with defense contractor employees not doing the work they were supposed to be, cutting corners, and "not giving a shit because if it breaks the government will just order another one from us."

It was basically fraud/grift/incompetence, not "stuff happens."

> If I remember it right because the man who usually assembled that part had to leave during assembly because his wife was giving birth. Someone put it together but appearantely not correctly.

And why was the process so poorly documented only one guy could do it right?

Why didn't someone check the assembly?

Answer: defense contractor laziness and incompetence.

Upside IMU is my favorite if only for the stupidity and spectacular video that resulted.

There was also a test of the Apollo Launch Escape System wherein an unmanned CSM was launched on a Little Joe rocket with the plan being to manually trigger the LES at a specific point in the flight. The problem was that the roll accelerometer in the Little Joe had been installed backwards, so it quickly developed a substantial roll rate once it left the ground and the resulting centrifugal force acting on the innards of the SM turned them into rapidly escaping outards. This tore the SM skin apart and satisfied the automatic abort conditions for firing the LES. The LES operated as designed, the CM was pulled free of the SM, then went on to become stable and reach successful recovery conditions. The result was determined to be a successful test of the LES and the mission did not need to be reflown.

In 1968, a team of Perkin-Elmer technicians were carrying the million dollar Copernicus space telescope mirror to the other side of the lab. They tripped over a piece of scrap lumber. Shaka, when the walls fell.

> a solar worship break

It'd be easy to optimize with some additional religions too, since from that distance pretty much all possible Earthly [0] holy sites are in the same direction.

[0] I just stumbled onto a fun grammar question! Is it "earthly" (non-supernatural) or is it Earthly (proper-adjective related to the planet), or both? I submit that it's possible to have an "earthly Martian holy-site", and therefore only the capitalized version works here. :p

Sure, GEO sats are almost always in full sunlight. But still, if you loose orientation, you could end up with the solar panel wings pointing in the wrong direction or overheating parts of the satellite not meant to be in full sunlight for long time.