Short Takes – 7-17-25

The ISS is nearing retirement, so why is NASA still gung-ho about Starliner? ArsTechnica.com article. Pull quote: “While the cost of a seat on SpaceX's Dragon is well known, there's low confidence in the price of a ticket to low-Earth orbit on Starliner or Starship. What's more, some of the commercial outposts may be incompatible with Starship because of its enormous mass, which could overcome the ability of a relatively modest space station to control its orientation. NASA identified this as an issue with its Gateway mini-space station in development to fly in orbit around the Moon.”

In defense of air-conditioning. TechnologyReview.com article. Pull quote: “I’m not letting AC off the hook entirely here. There’s obviously a difference between running air-conditioning (or other, less energy-intensive technologies) when needed to stay safe and blasting systems at max capacity because you prefer it chilly. And there’s a lot of grid planning we’ll need to do to make sure we can handle the expected influx of air-conditioning around the globe.”

Norway Unveils Floating Greenhouse That Produces Food, Fish, and Clean Energy — All in One. IAmCivilEngineer.com article. Pull quote: “Norway envisions Ocean Bloom as the first of many — a scalable solution designed for a planet facing rising seas and shrinking arable land. The government has announced plans to export the technology to archipelagos and low-lying nations most vulnerable to climate change. Pilot partnerships are already being explored in Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, and parts of Africa.”

Flash flood dangers far from over as storms reload across US. Yahoo.com article. Pull quote; “A tropical rainstorm will travel along the north-central Gulf coast into Thursday. As this occurs, the tropical rainstorm may evolve into a tropical depression or tropical storm. Regardless, tremendous rainfall will be unleashed where it moves inland and stalls over the Gulf Coast states.”

What to know about the extreme U.S. flooding — and ways to stay safe. ScienceNew.org article. Pull quote: “But that’s not the main point. The main point is, if you have that many inches of water dropping onto any landscape in a short period of time, it’s going to flood. It won’t stay within boundaries, because too much water is being forced into channels that just were never built for that much water.”