Blue Origin Completes First Test Launch in 10 Months

Blue Origin has been working toward this mission for some time, and today successfully completed the 13th suborbital flight of one of their New Shepard rockets in West Texas.  

The complete mission video is 52 minutes; this video should be starting with about 60 seconds left in the countdown.  

The story is carried by Teslarati, the “unofficial but affiliated” SpaceX site I follow, and they naturally compare the New Shepard to the Falcon 9, but we'll let Blue Origin take their bows first by quoting their statement on YouTube.

Blue Origin successfully completed the 13th New Shepard mission on October 13, 2020. New Shepard flew 12 commercial payloads to space on this mission, including the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate under a Tipping Point partnership. This was the first payload to fly mounted on the exterior of a New Shepard booster rather than inside the capsule, opening the door to a wide range of future high-altitude sensing, sampling, and exposure payloads.

Also on board were tens of thousands of postcards from students around the world from Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future, some of which will include a special NASA Artemis stamp.

and by quoting their Tweet about the mission:

NS-13 was a total success. 7th consecutive successful trip to space and back for this particular vehicle, 12 customer payloads including @NASA's lunar landing demo, and tens of thousands postcards from @ClubforFuture. Replay the #NewShepard mission: https://t.co/NP7XDzxJXi

Teslarati points out the while the New Shepard is essentially the same diameter as the Falcon 9, it is about half the height.  It carries one engine, a  liquid hydrogen and oxygen (hydrolox) BE-3 engine capable of producing 110,000 lbs. of thrust.  (For comparison, each of the nine Merlin-1D engines on a Falcon 9 has 190,000 lbs. of thrust.)  In practice, Blue Origin has only built four New Shepards in about 6 years and has never flown the same booster twice in less than 60 days.  

 

Blue Origin is working on a massive orbital class vehicle, larger than the Falcon Heavy, as seen here:

Picture by Everyday Astronaut.  Each of the side boosters on the Falcon Heavy in the middle is a slightly modified Falcon 9.  The little stub on the left is the New Shepard.  There will be a three stage version of the New Glenn, and while larger than the two stage version shown, it's still smaller than a Saturn V at 365' tall.  The Starship on its Super Heavy booster will be bigger than a Saturn V. 

The New Glenn is meant to be reusable (they claim 100 times) and it will feature the methane-oxygen version of the BE-4 engine, which will also power ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.  The two stage version is a large-diameter, 82-meter (270 feet) tall rocket with the capacity to lift 45 metric tons (100,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit and an impressive 13 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit.  Teslarati reports both the engine and the New Glenn appear to be in the throes of technical difficulties and delays.  During Blue Origin’s 52 minute New Shepard Flight 13 (NS-13) webcast, the company didn’t mention either New Glenn or the new BE-4 engine once.

 

 

 

This Has Been One Weird Hurricane Season

It's hard to avoid the talk about how active this hurricane season has been, and yet there's an undercurrent of weirdness I'm not picking up anywhere.  I'm approaching this from my viewpoint as an interested observer because we get storms here and I'm used to following them (I've called following the weather in the tropics my summertime hobby).  Let me start with a couple of obvious oddities.  If you watch much TV, like the Weather Channel, you'll see something like this graphic (dated yesterday, which means you may have seen something slightly different): 

Yes, we've had a lot of storms: over twice normal.  But the majority of those have been weaker, milder storms.  While we have over twice a normal season's number of named storms, we've only had 33% more hurricanes than normal.  That, in turns, means the others have all been tropical or subtropical storms.  Subtropical storms never used to get named.  To finish the chart, we've had 1/3 fewer Major hurricanes (Category III or higher) than normal, too.

Perhaps you're familiar with the metric used for evaluating storm seasons called Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE.  The ACE agrees with the statement that it's an above average season, but not extreme.  

You can see that the North Atlantic season is running 143% of average but nowhere near where the 200% number of named storms implies, so the ACE also says most of the storms haven't been hurricanes.  There was one landfalling, category IV storm, Laura, which struck in almost exactly the same place as the Category II storm Delta hit last week.   Delta briefly attained Category IV, for a few hours between crossing the Yucatan, and hitting Louisiana as a Cat II.  Worldwide, the ACE level is at 2/3 of normal Year To Date, with the lowest ACE in the Western North Pacific at 39% of normal. 

The area referred to as Hurricane Alley has been the weirdest this year.  This is where low pressure systems come off the coast of Africa, then move west across the Atlantic toward the Caribbean, Central America, or the CONUS.  There have been several that resembled a Hurricane Alley storm that just never developed; others developed and went northwest far earlier than typical.  There hasn't been one storm that fit the pattern.  If you look at the NHC five day forecast right now, there's an area currently rated at a 30% chance of developing.  It's currently west of the Windward Islands and has crossed most of the Atlantic with a 10 to 30% chance of developing.  

If you follow these forecasts, areas the forecasters are concerned about are first called an invest (area of investigation), then go through the sequence of being a depression, a tropical storm (which gets named), then a hurricane.  One of things that may be adding to our number of named storms is that the standards for naming storms have changed.  According to one source, 

When comparing the number of named storms, historically, the criteria for receiving a name was loosened in 2002. … Tropical storms and hurricanes were named, lesser subtropical storms and depressions were numbered. 2002 and beyond, the lesser tropical depressions and tropical storms use up names from the list.  Gustav, in 2002, was the first subtropical storm to be named.  Those that peter out and never become hurricane-magnitude or storm-strength artificially elevate the count of storms that year, when compared to 1950-2001 historical records. 

A vivid example of the impact of naming is this year's Subtropical Storm Alpha.  Thanks to the satellites watching 24/7, an area of low pressure and storms was noted well north of the Azores - which are well off the coast of Portugal.  They kept an eye on the system for a couple of days, and finally gave it the name Alpha at 1630 UTC on September 18th.  Within two hours Alpha went onshore onto Portugal crossed over the Iberian peninsula and dissipated by the 20th.  Since it never was a tropical storm, it wouldn't have been named under the old system.  Neither naming convention tells me why the US National Hurricane Center should have anything to do with naming a subtropical storm that develops offshore Europe and only affects Europe.  I think they have their own weather service. 

All in all, it has been an active season, but not extremely so.  Dr. Maue has a graphic of his ACE chart that marks off prior years that were more active than this record year.  

Do I need to put in a disclaimer that I don't mean to disparage people who went through Laura, or Delta or any other system?  I feel their pain because I've been through more tropical storms than I can recall and about a dozen hurricanes up through Category III.  I'm just always inclined to look farther when I find things that make me say, “that's funny.”  Of course, you've noticed the climate alarmists are blaming all of this on global warmening (or whatever they're calling it these days).  The overall downward trend of the ACE doesn't support that at all.

A Good Day to Keep an Eye on SpaceX Boca Chica

Since I subscribed to the Lab Padre YouTube channel, I keep an eye on it.  Can't say I join the chat much or just sit watching for hours, but I check in and see what's going on.  If they're on the verge of doing something important, I'll watch more, but I mostly just check in to see if anything interesting is going on.

 

Today was interesting. Today the engines for SN8 started showing up.

 

Starship prototype SN8 has completed all its tests to date: static pressure, cryogenic loading, cryogenic pressure and everything that can be done without engines.  All tests were done on the overnight shift, with the roads closed from 9PM to 6AM (Central).  On one night's testing, a leak was detected and the test aborted.  The leak was fixed on the day shift the next day and the test completed that following night.  I'm not sure it was within 24 hours, but it was close.  

Elon Musk has always said that once the vehicle is fully tested, it will have three raptor engines installed, and testing will resume until they complete two static firings of the three engines.  After the engines have been static fired, the nose cone and forward control surfaces will be added.  

According to Elon Musk, SpaceX will static fire SN8 twice before attempting its 15 km (~50,000 ft) launch debut. More likely than not, SpaceX will attempt a triple-engine static fire with the Starship as-is, install SN8’s nosecone and forward flaps, and attempt a second static fire while only drawing propellant from the rocket’s smaller header tanks (one of which is located in the tip of its nose). Only time (or Elon tweets) will tell.”

Teslarati.com — October 1st, 2020

Photo credits in the picture, of course.  

 

This might be an appropriate time to mention that three raptors have never been fired together at the same time.  The raptors can be fully throttle controlled, but have been measured at half a million pounds of thrust on the test stand.  While modelling software to make sure nothing bad happens is continually improving, there is nothing like testing to help convince you that your design works. 

Teslarati reports that two of the three raptors were installed today.  By blind luck, I loaded the Lab Padre Nerdle cam and saw a platform like the one pictured above lifting an engine into place.  Later, I saw the second engine off to the right of the test stand, before it was lifted into place.  It's expected that the third raptor is in one of the buildings in the area they call the shipyard and it will be installed tomorrow.  

I believe it's possible that testing could resume quickly and a static firing could be as soon as next weekend.  I still remain optimistic we could see the hop to ~50,000 feet by the end of the month. 

Not Exactly Ham Radio, Just Amazing Radio Monitoring

Although this isn't the kind of radio hobby stuff that requires a ham license, at least here in the US, Spaceweather.com reported perhaps the most remarkable radio monitoring story I've ever heard.   

On Oct. 4th, amateur radio operator Scott Tilley picked up a carrier wave from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling the Red Planet.  

Earth and Mars are pretty much at opposition now, and the closest approach since 2003, so he had that working for him.  Still, at the point of closest approach on October 6, the red planet was 38.6 million miles away.  How much signal is lost over that distance?  

The free space path loss is computed with the expression:

dB = 37 dB + 20log(f) + 20log(d)

Here, f is the frequency in MHz and d is the distance in miles. 

That says the path loss is 37+ 20log(10,000) + 20log(38.6x10⁶) or 266 dB

Off the top of my head, that implies a lot of antenna gain on both ends.  We don't know about the details on the MRO orbiter, but we know the hardware Scott used.  This dish measures a mere 60 cm aperture - 23.6 inches.  Using a standard formula I get about 33 dBi gain from an antenna this size.  Very high gain compared to a typical ham's Yagi beam but since gain is a function of diameter, it pales compared to the gain NASA gets on much bigger antennas.  

 

Still, let's say that NASA put the same gain antenna on the MRO.  That's 66 dB gain between them and that turns the path loss into 200 dB.  Start with about 1 Watt at the transmitter and the signal comes out around the thermal noise floor in a receiver.  I'm sure this BOTE (Back Of The Envelope) arithmetic must be overlooking something, but it seems close. 

Scott Tilley's hobby is looking for satellites.  Sometimes presumed dead, sometimes kept hidden.  Spaceweather puts it this way:

Tilley is a leader in the field of satellite radio. Dead satellites, zombie satellites, spy satellites: He routinely finds and tracks them. "But this was a first for me," he says. "A satellite around Mars!"

It's not easy picking up radio signals from distant planets. NASA does it using the giant antennas of the Deep Space Network. Tilley uses a modest 60 cm dish in his backyard in Roberts Creek, BC. This week's close encounter with Mars set the stage for his detection.

"MRO's signal is weak, but it is one of the louder signals in Mars orbit," says Tilley. "The spacecraft has a large dish antenna it uses as a relay for other Mars missions. With the proximity of Mars these days, it was the perfect time to try." 

That link is to his personal web page, Riddles in the Sky.  Not updated very often, his Twitter feed seems to be his emphasis, but both are full of nerdy goodness.  I've stumbled across web references to guys who search for satellites before and never paid it much attention.  This is pretty cool.

 

 

 

Rated M - For Mature Audiences

It's time to address another one of those topics that requires us all to be adults.  It concerns the US debt.  

The US Federal debt has crossed the $27 trillion dollar mark.  On May 12, just five months ago, the debt had just crossed $25.1 trillion.  That was right after the $3 trillion "stimulus and rescue" package in response to the Covid-19 lock downs was passed, so in April of this year, that was $22 trillion.  

I don't need to point out that we're a matter of weeks before the election.  We've seen some of the expenses that Biden/Harris/Hillary/whoever will put forward.  While the Biden/Harris team is drastically different from the Trump/Pence team, and it seems support for Trump/Pence is essential for a variety of reasons, perhaps even critical, I've been saying since '17 that deficit spending is Trump's weakest area.  The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) released a study earlier this week, called “The Cost of the Trump and Biden Campaign Plans.”  Yes, Biden's plan is worse, but the differences aren't that great - on the order of 10 to 20%.  CRFB analyzed three different approaches for each candidate based on things the campaigns published, breaking them into three cost brackets. 

Note that the capture of the US Debt Clock says we are currently at debt of nearly 138% of GDP, nearly $217,000 per taxpayer, and things will get worse from here.  

The report included this summary:

Under current law, trillion-dollar annual budget deficits will become the new normal, even after the current public health emergency subsides. Meanwhile, the national debt is projected to exceed the post-World War II record high over the next four-year term and reach twice the size of the economy within 30 years. Four major trust funds are also headed for insolvency, including the Highway and Medicare Hospital Insurance trust funds, within the next presidential term.

A debt to GDP ratio of over 200% is an exotic territory, and very few countries have survived long enough to get there; notably Japan.  They predict we'll be there by 2050.  Typically, countries economically collapse before they get that far in debt.  Like before they get to 150%.

As the report points out, 

The national debt was growing rapidly before the necessary borrowing to combat the COVID-19 crisis, and this trajectory will continue after the crisis ends. Fiscal irresponsibility prior to the pandemic worsened structural deficits that were already growing due to rising health and retirement costs and insufficient revenue.

As someone who gravitates to the Information Theory of Money, I prefer a limited, commodity-based money that can't be created in infinite supply.  Nevertheless, I have to say that even John Maynard Keynes himself didn't say to deficit spend all the time.  He thought printing money was for bad times when relief was needed, and in good times nations would pay the deficits down.  

As always, the election is a choice of the less bad candidate.  Either way we're facing long term debt problems that get worse.  Fed Chairman Powell this week said something to the effect that yes, we have long term debt problems, but this is not the time to attack them.  He's arguing essentially Keynes' point that he'll do more damage to more people by not trying to stimulate the economy than by trying to address the debt.  What he doesn't talk about is that the long term debt problem limits what he can do, because of the marginal utility of the dollar.  After dumping trillions of created dollars into the economy, how can doing less matter? 

A year ago, the economy was strong; that would have been a time to start addressing deficits and trying to reduce the deficit's growth. Today we have the economy in shambles, cities in flames, and crisis after crisis. As a coach of mine once said, "you can only play the hand you've been dealt."  No matter what we do, the debt is going up along with the dangers that come with that; inflation is here, hyperinflation and collapse are possible.  Despite the CRFB report, the choice between the two teams isn't that close. 

The Misguided Movement For The $15 Minimum Wage Hits Florida

As the election season switches into high gear, the number of commercials has been going up.  One that caught my ears is that here in Florida there is a proposed constitutional amendment that will raise the state's minimum wage, which is already higher than the Federal min wage, to $15/hr over the next several years.  This will be Amendment 2 on your Florida ballots, and my sample ballot reads like this:

Raises minimum wage to $10.00 per hour effective September 30th, 2021. Each September 30th thereafter, minimum wage shall increase by $1.00 per hour until the minimum wage reaches $15.00 per hour on September 30th, 2026. From that point forward, future minimum wage increases shall revert to being adjusted annually for inflation starting September 30th, 2027.

This was submitted by a lobbying organization called Florida For A Fair Wage, run by Florida's favorite best known ambulance chaser, John Morgan, the guy who raised the money to push through medical marijuana and whose commercials and billboards blanket the Southeast US (I've seen them as far as Tennessee during our eclipse trip in 2017).  Morgan has been rumored to be planning a run for Governor for years.  For those who don't know, Florida's minimum wage is $8.56, already $1.31/hr more than the Federal min wage of $7.25.

John Morgan has been outdone.  According to FEE, the Swiss city of Geneva has just voted to enact a minimum wage of $25/hr.  Morgan should cancel his amendment and start the process over again.  

I know I've said before that I'm really sick and tired of this subject.  I always say the law is going to hurt the very people it's supposed to help, but the stupid laws pass and the predicted bad things happen.  A few years later, they say the fix is to repeat it with a different number for min wage.  It's like watching an imbecile sticking a metal fork in the wall outlet over and over.  You tell them, "don't do that - you'll get hurt."  You watch them do it, get knocked over by the power, then they wobble back to stick the fork in the outlet again. 

 

Examples are everywhere because cities have been passing much higher minimum wages for much of the last decade and in every case, workers suffered.  Many had their hours cut, other lost their jobs.  Restaurants went out of business.  I've written about it so many times, it's hard to pick out stories.  Here's one, how 'bout one from 2016?  More?

So, it’s no surprise that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that enacting a $15 minimum wage nationwide would destroy up to 3.7 million jobs and decrease total income for Americans below the poverty line by roughly $16 billion. The Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe wrote that the research “disproves the idea that a $15 federal minimum wage creates any net benefit” and shows how the policy “simply reshuffles the problems plaguing our economy, on the whole creating more new problems than it solves.”

and

“The main finding of economic theory and empirical research over the past 70 years is that minimum wage increases tend to reduce employment,” the Cato Institute concluded in a research review. “While minimum wages ostensibly aim to improve the economic well-being of the working poor, the disemployment effects of minimum wages have been found to fall disproportionately on the least skilled and on the most disadvantaged individuals, including the disabled, youth, lower-skilled workers, immigrants, and ethnic minorities.”

There's a saying that if you took all the economists on Earth and laid them end to end they wouldn't reach a conclusion.  It may be true all the economists wouldn't agree but a substantial majority of them agreed that raising the minimum wage is a bad thing to do. 

A 2019 survey by the Employment Policies Institute found that 75 percent of professional economists oppose increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. This wasn’t political: In an interesting twist, almost all the responding economists identified as Democrats or Independents, with just 12 percent identifying as registered Republicans.

An even larger percentage, 84 percent, believed a $15 minimum wage would have negative effects on youth employment.  The younger workers, looking for that first job, or a summer job during school just aren't worth that $15. 

 

Given all this, you can be sure how I'm voting on this proposal. On a more anal-retentive, practical note, while the bill says future wage increases beyond $15/hr will be based on inflation, they fail to mention which of the dozens of ways to measure inflation is to be used. 

 

Source at FEE.
 

 

 

Imitation ... blah... blah... Flattery... blah

According to Ars Technica, the Russian state space corporation, Roscosmos, unveiled plans (link is in Russian) to develop a new rocket, called "Amur."  Readers may notice a certain resemblance to another well known rocket.  

It looks like a smaller version of the Falcon 9, capable of lifting about half the payload of the established booster.  Those of you reading for a couple of years might possibly remember that I posted a story about how the rest of the world is unable to keep up with the US Space Companies, but the American company that was getting all the traffic in that article was SpaceX, and still is.  Simply they were eating the competition's lunches.  Within a year of that piece, Ariane had changed from saying "why make a rocket reusable and cut down on jobs?" to announcing development of something based on the F9, and China started to follow.

This might be an apropos time to mention that "Scrubtober" ended this morning with an on time launch of the Starlink 12 mission, and a perfectly nominal mission. That includes sticking the booster landing in the center of the 10-ring on the drone, and recovering both halves of the fairings; catching one and fishing the other half out of the Atlantic.  Most importantly, the mission successfully deployed their 60 satellites. 

Getting back to the Amur, you'll note the grid fins at the top of the booster stage and the deployable landing legs that both resemble SpaceX's working solutions.  

Whereas the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage is designed to either return to its launch site or land downrange on a drone ship, the Amur booster will launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia and land downrange, possibly at a site to be constructed along the Sea of Okhotsk. For now, Russia is not planning to land the booster at sea, due to often rough conditions in the Sea of Okhotsk.

 

I see two warning flags in the Ars article.  First, the booster will use an engine that has not begun development yet.  I assume they know how to develop engines, but I don't think that's trivial art, especially if they have a target of 10 booster reuses without a major rebuild, something no one has successfully done yet.  We can be sure they don't have any particular advantage there.  (SpaceX will probably reach the 10th flight of one of their more experienced boosters in early '21).   

 

The second hangup is as Ars notes: 

It is important to note that Russia's space leader, Dmitry Rogozin, has announced a number of ambitious space projects in recent years and then taken no actions to see that they're carried through.

Roscosmos says the rocket will be developed by 2026 and development costs will not exceed $900 million.

Since they released this information publicly, it was ripe for comment by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. 

Commenting on the Amur rocket on Twitter, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said, "It’s a step in the right direction, but they should really aim for full reusability by 2026. Larger rocket would also make sense for literal economies of scale. Goal should be to minimize cost per useful ton to orbit or it will at best serve a niche market."

 

They're Calling It Scrubtober

Well, some of the nerds on the Lab Padre Nerdle Cam are using that word.  Because there has not been a successful launch from Cape Canaveral so far in October.  Not that we're a long way into the month, but the string goes back into September.

This morning, SpaceX was scheduled to make the fourth attempt to launch the mission called Starlink 12, the next batch of 60 satellites.  Liftoff was scheduled for 0751 EST or 1151 UTC.  About 20 minutes before that, launch directors gave up waiting for signs of good weather and scrubbed.  Launch is set for 0729 tomorrow and weather has a 70% chance of being acceptable.  This is the mission that was originally set for September 17th and was aborted because the recovery ships could not stay stationary in the currents off South Carolina. 

The range has given priority to the United Launch Alliance NROL mission on their Delta IV Heavy because of its national security implications and bumped SpaceX later whenever resource requirements conflicted.  After the ULA mission was scrubbed for the seventh time, 1154 PM EST on Wednesday, September 30th, they gave SpaceX a go to retry this mission on Thursday morning, October 1st.  That mission was aborted by the Falcon 9's software which detected an "out of family" sensor error in the ground support equipment 7 seconds before liftoff (you can sing the "one of these things is not like the others" ditty now).  This F9 was on Pad 39A and is the mission that was scrubbed due to weather this morning.

 

While analyzing the sensors, there was a second Falcon 9 over on Pad 40 with a GPS III satellite for the Space Force on top.  This one was scheduled for October 2nd, and was aborted with 2 seconds left in the count.  I was out on the side yard hoping to see this one, but the weather was pretty bad here that day. 

 

The GPS III launch has not been rescheduled, and I find no word on the ULA launch.  Spaceflight Now says there is no set time for the Delta IV launch and adds:

Delayed from June and Aug. 26. Scrubbed on Aug. 27 by pneumatics issue. Aborted at T-minus 3 seconds on Aug. 29. Delayed from Sept. 26 by swing arm issue. Scrubbed on Sept. 28 due to weather. Scrubbed on Sept. 29 due to hydraulic leak on Mobile Service Tower retract system. Aborted on Sept. 30 at T-minus 7 seconds.

I don't mean to pick on ULA for the Delta IV; I'm guessing that except for the one weather issue, they were all ground support equipment (GSE) and that just might be because with their low launch cadence, the GSE gets affected by the environment.  "Rust never sleeps" isn't just a catchy name for an album. 

Nevertheless, the Falcon 9 launches with their higher cadence had gotten to be very smooth and the few aborts with seconds left in the count have caught the CEO's attention, meaning Elon Musk is coming to the Cape this week.  

Musk also says that SpaceX is “doing a broad review of launch site, propulsion, structures, avionics, range, & regulatory constraints” to determine if an apparent goal of “48 launches” in 2021 is feasible.

“We will need to make a lot of improvements to have a chance of completing 48 launches next year!”  Elon Musk, October 3.

48 launches a year is obviously four short of one per week, and I don't know of any company, any government, or any entity launching orbital class vehicles that can do that.  It's ambitious, but the company is nothing if not ambitious, as seen both here and over in Texas, where Starship SN8 has completed it's first pressurization test and is scheduled for its first cryogenic tests tonight.  Still moving toward its static firings and its 50,000 foot test hop.  Behind it are more Starships built to the same level. 

The Starlink 12 Falcon 9 on pad 39A as sunrise paints the sky in vivid reds.  SpaceX photo. 

A Ham Radio Series 15 – Control Loops and Radio Design - 1

Control loops, sometimes called Feedback and Control Loops, are very commonly used in radio design.  Receivers have Automatic Gain Control (AGC) loops; transmitters call the equivalent circuit Automatic Level Control (ALC), and both receivers and transmitters might have Phase Locked Loop (PLL) Frequency Synthesizers.  For many years, I was the PLL specialist where I worked, but I’ve designed all those and other control circuits.   I know that some of you are already really familiar with these things, in great and gory details.  Take the night off (unless you care to look for mistakes to correct).

I started writing this post this afternoon, went looking for one of the terms I use and found a post from 2017.  I'd written four paragraphs and they were substantially the same as the previous post.  Most of this is reused from that post. 

As a topic in the EE curriculum, control loops are a vast subject with a great deal of analytical models for their behavior.  This helps us design them so they work as intended from the start.  I won’t get into that sort of detail here.  I'm going to skip the math and try to explain things in words.  I'll also be the first to say that when you design your 10th or 15th PLL or AGC, there's not much theory involved.  It's pretty much you just solve a few equations (which you've probably stuck in a spreadsheet or other software) and you're done. 

For starters, let's define a feedback system.  It's a system that corrects itself by feeding back information on its state ("what we got") and comparing this to its desired state ("what we want it to be").  This diagram is a simple type of feedback system. 

For some folks, this is probably more confusing than helpful, so let's do a simple example of something that everyone knows: a thermostat in an air conditioner.  The thing we're controlling is the temperature at the thermostat, which we use as a proxy for the temperature everywhere under that air conditioning.  The feedback sampler is a thermocouple or something that measures the temperature – essentially a thermometer.  The heart of the loop is that circle with an X in it, which acts to compare the "what we want it to be" (the input; the temperature we set) to "what we actually got" (from the thermocouple).  It compares the two electrical signals and generates an error signal ("what we got" minus "what we wanted") which goes to something called the feedback controller here which makes the feedback correction.  In a thermostat, this is usually an on/off switch.    

It's important to notice that if the temperature is higher than we wanted, the control system turns it down, and if it's lower the system turns it up.  Since the correction is in the opposite direction of the measurement, this is called negative feedback.  If you think of the audio screams and howls that happen when a microphone is in front of a loudspeaker, there is no correction and the output gets louder until it can't go up any more.  This is a type of positive feedback, not a control system.  Perhaps you've heard of the term vicious cycle, where something happens and its result is to contribute to causing it again: that's a positive feedback situation.

As an example, I'm going to describe how my central air conditioner works.  I don't know how universal this is, but I've watched my thermostat and know that if I set some temperature, say to cool the house to 75 degrees, it won't turn the air conditioner on to reduce temperature until it measures 2 degrees above the desired temperature, 77.  The error has to be that big before it will turn on.  The air conditioner then comes on at full power until the temperature at the thermostat reaches the desired temperature.  There has to be some sort of difference (called hysteresis) in the temperature between when it turns on as the room is getting warmer and when turns off as it's cooling the room.  There's no way the system could know to both turn on and turn off when it's 75.

This is what's called a Bang-Bang controller.  It either turns on the cooling 100% or it turns it off (0%).  That's a pretty crude system, and lots of control systems you're familiar with don't work that way.  Consider cruise control in a car: if you had a Bang-Bang controller your accelerator would go full throttle or to idle.  A Bang-Bang controller works for a simple thermostat, but in a cruise control the demands for accuracy are higher, and we want something that doesn't continually speed you up and slow you down by a couple of MPH.  Your cruise control measures your speed, compares it to the setting and either increases or decreases the throttle.

There are much more elegant control systems available, and the smoothest response is generally the Proportional-Integral-Derivative or PIDcontroller.   A PID controller calculates three quantities and then combines them to create the error correction needed.  The three signals can be prioritized in this combining subcircuit.  Hopefully, this graphic will help explain it while I add some words.

Proportional to error means that the bigger the error, the harder it tries to correct.  Integration of errors over time is an averaging process - it means that the result is incorporating both how big the error is and how long it lasted; its output gets bigger if some error has lasted longer, not just if the error is larger.  Finally, Proportional to the rate of change term is determining if the error has gotten larger quickly or slowly.

The drawback of PID systems is that they're complex and can be hard to get running well; in many cases, an error signal that's proportional to the error is all that's needed.  I don't recall ever seeing an AGC, PLL, ALC or any other electronic control system that used a PID controller.  The vast majority are simply the middle box, proportional to an integration (summation) of the errors over time.  On the other hand, this is something that the continuing advancement of electronics has vastly improved, and for some control tasks, like the temperature of furnace, kiln or for some operation, you can buy a preprogrammed, ready-to-use PID controller for well under $100, and sometimes under $20.  

Proportional systems are starting to make their way into air conditioners.  We have a Mini Split system in the workshop and it behaves that way.  It cools the air it blows more when the temperature in the room is a couple of degrees higher than the set point - or proportional to the difference in temperature.  Instead of the unit turning off when it reaches temperature, it sets the cool air output warmer than it was when it was dropping the room temperature, saving energy.  The air coming out can be just a couple of degrees cooler than the air going in, so essentially no cooling goes on.  

A Fun Fact is that PID controllers were first developed for automatic steering systems of ships at sea in the 1920s.   

Shop Update

I haven't done one of these for a while, but I've been working a little bit at a time at figuring out how to put this engine together. 

Let me lead with my chin and show the only mistake I've found so far.  I'm sure there will be more.

The top aluminum piece on right, holding the cylinder with its fins, is the cylinder head.  Its bottom edge is supposed to be flush with the front edge of bottom piece facing us with the two big countersunk holes.  The valve assembly that mounts over those three holes on the head won't fit. 

The head is held in place with one #10-32 screw coming up through the bottom of the plate both parts are mounted to, so I checked the distance of the mounting hole to the edge of the plate.  That was fine, so I checked the distance of the bottom piece's mounting holes to the edge and those are fine.  The only thing left to be wrong is the hole in the bottom of the head and sure enough, I put it in the wrong place.  This is a view of the bottom of the cylinder head.

When I put the real part next to the drawing, it was obvious that I measured that 0.688" from the right edge and not the left.  It didn't take too long to fix, and I'm getting off easy.  The wrong hole is just to the left of the one that I added as shown, they almost touch.  It's a blind hole on the bottom of a piece that will never see the light of day again once it's permanently assembled. 

So I built it up more with the parts that go in that area.  The valve block mounts with no problems now.

The plastic bag behind the metal to the right has the carburetor.  The Webster plans include a page of parts to make a DIY carburetor, but Webster himself says, "do yourself a favor and get an RC model carburetor."  You don't have to tell me twice.  I'll probably build one of these simple carburetors one of these days, but not now.  I need to come up with a gas tank, and I figure that since I have an RC model carb, why not an RC model gas tank?  I've done some preliminary searches, but I'd like a small gas tank, like an ounce or two, and the ones I've seen are bigger.

 

Finally, here's a shot of my bench with all the parts I've got.  The small parts are in a little plastic cup, lower left front.  There are others like the piston rings and the CDI ignition I bought, that are not pictured, plus some I haven't bought yet, like the gas tank and ignition points.  I expect to have to make a few custom little spacers (washers). 

The Webster is said to be just about an ideal beginner's engine and easy to get running.  There's a lot of really neat model engines, and I find it understandable that people who go to the effort to draw up everything in CAD would charge for their plans.  Joe Webster released these plans to the public domain to help other beginners.  I hope to have mine running within a few weeks.  That's only going to happen if there are no major parts that need to be re-made. 

About the Remington Dissolution

I can't claim to be a Remington collector per se, but I have a couple of Remington rifles.  My Nylon 66, the “plastic fantastic” .22LR that was my family's gun when I was 14 and became mine a decade later.  And I have a Remington 700 in .30-06, that I bought during the life of this blog.  Remington bought DPMS after I bought my DPMS LR-308, and ended up buying Marlin after Mrs. Graybeard bought her Marlin 336.  I've written about all of these many times.

 

But that's not really why I'm here. 

 

Because I have few Rugers around here, our "his and hers" 10/22s and my Ruger Precision Rifle, I'm on the Ruger mailing list.  I got the email in which they described their portion of the Remington sale, buying the Marlin brand, physical inventory and intellectual property.  DPMS has been sold to JJE Capital, reported to be the parent of Palmetto State Armory.   

 

 But that's not really why I'm here, either.  

There has been a lot column space devoted to attacking Cerberus and that sort of private equity firm as well.  First I saw was J.Kb down at Gun Free Zone about the immorality and destructiveness of that sort of business.  Today, Peter Grant at Bayou Renaissance Man ran the same basic subject.  

I'm not here to defend them, because I also think the private equity firms that do the things they do are scumbags.  More politely, they're sharks let loose in a pod of bait fish.  However (you knew that was coming!) I'm not here to say private equity firms need to be shut down and never allowed to operate.  Remington management themselves are not without blame.  Remington management, and I mean their management back before 2007 when they were attacked, chummed up the shark by bleeding money in the water.  

I don't know the complete history that led to Cerberus buying Remington, but like sharks and most predators, private equity companies don't chase down the healthiest and most nimble prey.  They prey on the weak.  It's the first duty of a CEO to protect the company.  The balance is that the healthy and excellent companies will get merger and acquisition offers all the time.  It's up to the board of directors and the stockholders (if any) to accept or decline those offers.  Predators like Cerberus prey on companies that need money and don't have anywhere else to get it.  Companies need money urgently, like most of us, when something completely unexpected happens or when a bunch of things we thought we could get by with don't get by.   

If the alternative is to have big government decide which companies can merge, and thereby which companies can exist, that's a much worse scenario than private equity companies taking down the weak.  Managers should know the private equity companies are a threat to their existence and manage their companies to not be targets for them. 

But, hey, what do I know?  I'm just some dood with a blog.  And I observe the world around me.  I've seen companies start, companies fail, and companies last long times.  Just as not everyone can graduate on top of their class, not every manager is above average.  Companies run by better managers do better.  

After Some Delays, It Looks to be Getting Active for SpaceX Texas

Just over a week ago, I relayed that Starship Prototype Serial Number 8 was set to be rolled to the test area and prepared for static testing.  There was an unusual, weather-induced delay in lifting SN8 from the mobile roller that took it from the assembly area to the test area and placing it on the test stand.  That delay was caused by winds that were steady over 20mph and gusting into the mid-30mph range.  

 

The wind returned to normal levels for the area and SN8 was lifted onto the test stand yesterday. 

Starship SN8’s first steps toward testing began on September 26th when SpaceX loaded the rocket onto a self-propelled mobile transporter (SPMT) and rolled it to the company’s dedicated Boca Chica launch and test facilities. Shortly after arrival, a crane and load spreader was attached to the rocket to lift it onto one of the pad’s test stands (Stand A). That lift never came and the crane eventually detached and retracted, kicking off what would become an unusual four-day delay. 

It’s believed that the relatively high winds on the Boca Chica coast were to blame, creating conditions that were too hazardous to risk the precise, hands-on work required to lift and manipulate a ~70 metric ton (~150,000 lb) rocket. While undeniably heavy, an empty Starship’s huge surface area effectively turns it into a giant sail, catching and amplifying wind gusts. Attaching a Starship to a launch mount’s hold-down clamps likely demands millimeter precision, making installation and high winds obviously incompatible (or at least inadvisable).

Finally, around midnight on September 30th, winds died down in Boca Chica and SpaceX fired up a waiting crane and lifted Starship SN8 onto the launch mount. Soon after, technicians began the process of installing the mount’s temporary hydraulic ram – used to mechanically simulate engine thrust – to the rocket’s ‘thrust puck’.

The road closures that are required before any testing can be done start on Sunday, the 4th with back up days through the 6th.  All will be from 9PM to 6AM, Central.  It's expected the first tests will be static loads, and cryogenic tests, to ensure the vehicle can proceed to static firing and beyond.  

 

SN8 on the test stand, with its flaps in the folded up configuration.  One of the things that has been mentioned for testing is how well those flaps work when the section of tank they're attached to is at cryogenic temperatures.  Thermal expansion and contraction are well-known and well-understood things, but having hardware that's known to work beats working by simulations anyday. 

 

Before SN8 can fly, the nose cone with its additional aerodynamic surfaces will be mounted to the top of this section.   Before that SN8 will have three raptor engines mounted.  Every prototype tested so far has had one engine.  The three engines will be static tested as the single engine prototypes have done.  

According to Elon Musk, SpaceX will static fire SN8 twice before attempting its 15 km (~50,000 ft) launch debut. More likely than not, SpaceX will attempt a triple-engine static fire with the Starship as-is, install SN8’s nosecone and forward flaps, and attempt a second static fire while only drawing propellant from the rocket’s smaller header tanks (one of which is located in the tip of its nose).

Maybe I've heard too many stories in "Elon Standard Time," but I believe it's possible we'll see this fly before Halloween.  Which is a good date because the first operational flight carrying four astronauts to the ISS, Crew 1, is currently scheduled for the early morning hours on Halloween. 

Rorschach Test Debate

As I expected, last night's presidential debate was "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" to quote the bard.  Everyone sees what they want to see.  Like the famous ink blot test, each person interprets the same picture differently.  Biden's fans are convinced he won.  Trump's fans are convinced he won.  We don't know yet what the undecided people truly thought.  In reality, as I said before, I don't think it will mean much.  I note Borepatch has a similar take, wondering why we even have these things any more.  

You may see an ordinary moth or the skins of two animals.  I see Mothra.  

PJ Media's Matt Margolis points out some aspects of the chatter after the debate in which he argues Biden's team really thinks Trump won.  His main argument goes like this:

Matt Lewis of The Daily Beast, a Never Trumper, concluded that Biden “won the debate” but added the caveat: “If Joe Biden were looking for a pretext to skip the next two debates, he found it.”

If the candidate you support won the debate, why wouldn’t you want them to participate in the remaining debates?

He then goes on to name several other Biden supporters who say essentially the same thing.  Margolis finally says, “You don’t call for your candidate to skip the remaining debates if you think they help your candidate. You just don’t.”  My take on it is this is reasonable if they think their candidate slam-dunk wiped the floor up with Trump.  But what if they're putting on a big show about saying they won while inside they either really think they lost or they think Biden somehow got through by the skin of his teeth and they don't want to take the chance again?  The last thing Team Biden wants is for the idea to get around that Biden can't go toe-to-toe with Trump and therefore isn't strong enough to face foreign leaders.

On California Banning Gasoline or Diesel Cars by 2035

It was in May of 2017 that I noted California decided to become uninhabitable in 10 years (2027).  The reason?  The state legislature had mandated they reduce carbon emissions to 40% of the state's 1990 levels by the year 2030.  The new levels were to be 60% of the required 2020 levels passed previously.  Using advanced technology called a pocket calculator and an available number estimating CO2 sensitivity, I calculated how much difference this would make on world temperatures.  

In a piece I wrote in 2010, my first year here, I found a number for the amount of CO2 required to raise global temperature 1 degree C - according to the warmist's models. 1.8 million million metric tons.  California is going to reduce emissions by 172 million metric tons.  Since 172 is close to 180, lets be generous and round their reduction up to that.  That means they will reduce global temperature rise by 180/1,800,000 or .0001 degree C, which simply isn't detectable in a system as big as the planet.   

Not to be outdone by previous virtue signalers, Governor Gabbin' Nuisance (D - Uranus), issued an executive order on the 23rd banning the sale of internal combustion engine cars by the year 2035.  

“This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change,” Newsom said. “For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. You deserve to have a car that doesn’t give your kids asthma. Our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse – and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn’t melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines.” 

That's just full of nonsense.  I tell you what, I'll say it might possibly be true that Internal Combustion Engine exhaust is contributing to kids getting asthma.  Cars are having no effects on wildfires.  Historical records show the number and intensity of wildfires going down for the last hundred years.  What you're seeing, Gabbin', is the effect of your terrible forest management.  Cars aren't melting glaciers or raising sea levels, which have been rising since the end of the last ice age (and you'd best be damned glad they're not going down now because that would indicate the glaciers are coming back).  That's too much to get into the space here tonight.  

As full of nonsense as that is, my favorite quote is this from Newsom's Twitter account:

By 2035 every new car sold in CA will be an emission free vehicle.

There is simply no such thing as emission free vehicles if you look at the total environmental cost.

But ignore for the moment that the cars need to be produced from raw materials that are extracted and refined in ways that produce emissions, and are higher emission than ICE-powered cars.  Electric cars run on fuel, too, it's just not in a tank inside the vehicle.  In particular, they run on natural gas, coal, or whatever is producing electricity in the state (which in California these days is practically nothing).  In 2019, U.S. domestic production of electricity was 12.9 quadrillion BTUs (quads) from natural gas followed by 9.4 from crude oil, 5.3 from coal, 8.5 from nuclear, 2.7 from wind and 1 quad from solar power. The last two (wind and solar = 3.7 quads) can’t even begin to replace the first three (oil, gas and coal = 74.6 quads).  [Note: my numbers derived from numbers on that EIA.gov website]

Eric Worrall, writing at Watts Up With That notes:

Governor Newsom in his interview said “we no longer need to drill things or extract things to advance our economic goals” (see the Twitter video above).

Every study I have seen about renewables suggests that any serious attempt to go 100% renewable would require far more drilling and extracting than a fossil fuel powered economy, like a 2700% increase in lithium extraction. Even carbon intensive cement production would have to increase substantially – all those wind turbines and solar panels need cement bases.

Manufacturing cement largely consists of heating limestone or other Calcium Carbonates to 825C (1517F) degrees, to separate the limestone into Calcium Oxide and CO2. There is a lot of CO2 in limestone. Current cement manufacture accounts for 8% of global annual CO2 emissions. Cement does not last forever. A substantial permanent increase in global cement production would pretty much cancel any CO2 savings from going renewable.

If California continues their silly commitment to not having nuclear power and creating more "renewable energy", they'll be clear cutting forests to make way for wind turbines and solar panels, and then turning the Sierra Nevada mountains into strip mines to mine the rare earth metals there.  

Which raises the possibility that California is deliberately trying to get most of its population to leave the state.  That would reduce their energy demands to meet their Green Dreams. 

An early electric car from here.  Electric cars predate IC engine cars by nearly 80 years - the US Department of Energy says primitive electric cars were around in 1828, and it wasn't until the Model T in 1908 that IC engine cars left them behind.  Interesting that the range hasn't gone up in proportion to the other advances in cars today. 

Two Cents on the Debate

I seriously doubt I'll watch the debate tomorrow night.  These aren't debates, they're press events.  A moderator asks some questions and the candidates recite their platform.  Sometimes they throw a barb at each other.  Whoop-ti-do.  These things have been very over-rated (IMO) ever since the Nixon-Kennedy debate in 1960.  Very few are as big as that one was.  Early in the life of this blog, I summed up my feelings about day-to-day politics this way:

Preparing for an election is like cleaning out the litter box.  It's a disgusting, revolting task that exposes you to all sorts of dirty, filthy things you'd rather never see, but if you don't do it, the job gets even more disgusting and revolting.

My two cents is that the right has so thoroughly and dramatically lowered the bar for Biden that all he has to do is not obviously soil himself and it'll be his win to the media.   He just needs to stay mostly coherent for the duration.  

I've seen and smiled at the memes as much as anyone, like this meme from 90 Miles From Tyranny:

His campaign office has put a lid on stopped taking calls or letting him talk after mid-morning.  People make references to him displaying Sundowner's syndrome, a recognized symptom in certain types of dementia that cause patients to lose coherence in the evening.  This is just lowering expectations; lowering the bar.  He's a doddering old senile fool, we expect him to start talking about Corn Pop or the hair on his legs. 

Has anybody been considering that maybe they're shifting his body clock so that he's at his best at night?  Have him sleep all day, get up at 7PM and prepare for the debate, knowing that to his body clock this is the best time of day.  At the worst, that change takes one day per time zone, but I'm sure age and general health affect that.  I've flown 8 time zones away and was doing fine the next day.  How long have they been shutting down in the morning?  A week?  12 days, so that he gets up at 6 or 7 PM instead of 6 or 7 AM?  Practically, if someone is shut off from all external cues, like seeing the sun, they can live by any arbitrary clock, so all his handlers need to do is keep him indoors with no windows and get compliance to the clock.  They do this for everyone working on a submarine, after all.  It's not "cruel and unusual."  With no external cues, you go to bed when you're told and wake up when you're told.  It doesn't matter what the time of day really is somewhere outside. 

Last week, Bayou Renaissance Man ran a post positing that Biden's campaign was Elder Abuse and that “we” shouldn't stand for it.  Peter, should you happen to be reading this, recognize that the one pushing Joe Biden isn't just the Democrat establishment, it's his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.  She's pushing him because she's wanted to be first lady, and the power behind the throne, for ages.  People are betting who replaces Joe when he obviously can't do the job.  Kamala?  Mooch Obama?  Don't overlook Dr. Jill re-enacting how Woodrow Wilson's wife Edith took over the country. 

Sunday Leftovers

Small items from the previous week. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had a couple of winners this week; at least in terms of what he can do.  For legislation, he proposed a bill that will put teeth behind clamping down on riots - violent or disorderly displays, not "peaceful protests" - when they destroy property, and threaten lives. It stiffens penalties for many of the things we see rioters get away with in other states, and invokes RICO laws for anyone who organizes or funds a violent or disorderly assembly.

Outsiders might not know Florida has cities that are as blue as anywhere, and vast stretches of counties that are sane.  I think the proposed legislation might keep a riot in Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Beach from turning into the kind we're seeing in Seattle, Portland or Minneapolis.  

The second thing he did was to authorize the state to move to phase 3 of Covid-19 recovery, lifting restrictions that kept restaurants and theme parks from going to full capacity and lots more.  He issued executive orders aimed at preventing localities from setting up the virus mask equivalent of speed traps, essentially fund-raising on mask mandates.  At $100/violation there are stories of city of Miami police waiting in grocery store parking lots, ticketing people who get out of the store and take their mask off before getting in their car to leave.  They've been said to have raised over $14,000, which ought to be easy at $100/pop.  

Naturally, the response to the gov. is along strict party lines with most of the newspapers in the state opposing him and wanting to hide behind their placebo masks.  I heard him interviewed by someone (Laura Ingraham?)  the day he released this.  He said he had a panel of epidemiologists from around the country and they said the time for lock downs is over.  All they do is "flatten the curve", or "slow the spread" while creating their own damages that are harder to measure.

---

A word on Amy Coney Barrett.  From everything I can read about her she seems to be a stellar pick.  Even Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law Professor with nearly fatal levels of Trump Derangement Syndrome, endorses her.  One thing that strikes me as odd is the attacks she's getting for being Catholic when we hear Nancy Pelosi defending herself by declaring she's Catholic whenever it's convenient.  I believe both Biden and Knee Pads claim Catholicism.  It's like a wink and a nod saying, "we're Catholic, but only only Sunday and only during mass, every other hour of the week we're as secular as Karl Marx."  It's as if people are allowed to have beliefs, but only if they're like a coat: put them on to go to church, take them off as soon as you're out.

But Judge Barrett herself had a wonderful answer to this, reported by PJ Media.  

“I think when you step back and you think about the debate about whether someone’s religion has any bearing on their fitness for office, it seems to me that the premise of the question is that people of faith would have a uniquely difficult time separating out their moral commitments from their obligation to apply the law. And I think people of faith should reject that premise,” she added.

“All people, of course– well, we hope, most people– have deeply held moral convictions, whether or not they come from faith. People who have no faith, people who are not religious, have deeply held moral convictions,” Barrett noted. “And it’s just as important for those people to be sure– I just spent time talking about the job of a judge being to set aside moral convictions, personal moral convictions, and personal preferences, and follow the law. That’s a challenge for those of faith and for those who have no faith.”

Makes me like her even more.  

---

Long time readers will remember me pounding on then chair of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke (the Bernank, among other names); his successor Janet Yellen, and more pretty regularly.  (Yo, Fed Heads - if I missed you it wasn't because you were good, it's because something else caught my attention).  I found this cartoon on Pinterest showing how the most secret part of the Fed works.

As always, found on Pinterest, the Great Sargasso Sea of the internet.  If it's yours and don't want it here, let me know. 

All Three Competing Moon Landers Pass NASA Design Review

The story broke last May that NASA had selected three companies to begin initial development of lunar landing systems that will take astronauts back to the surface of the Moon by 2024.  The three companies got different payment amounts; Blue Origin and the "National Team" was awarded $579 million, Dynetics was awarded $259 million and SpaceX was the lowest of the three at $135 million.  Those awards are for a period of 10 months.

Today's story, courtesy of Teslarati, is that all three companies have passed their first review, a Certification Baseline Review (CBR).  

NASA’s acceptance criteria for CBR documentation is about as general as the space agency gets, requiring providers to demonstrate at least a basic level of maturity and expertise. Like the name suggests, it sets a baseline from which NASA and SpaceX, Dynetics, and Blue Origin’s National Team will hone in on challenges and concerns specific to each system. SpaceX’s proposal is almost certainly unique, however, given that the company is the only one anywhere close to performing actual flight tests of a (relatively) similar system.

The post and CBR leads one to believe there's nothing here but paper.  A month ago, Blue Origin delivered a full-scale, engineering mock-up of their lander to NASA for feedback on control positions and how the astronauts like the inside layout of the lander.   Dynetics followed up by delivering their own full-sized, mock-up lander on September 15th.  It's intended for the same purpose: gather feedback on how the end users like the control layouts.  I haven't heard about SpaceX delivering a similar mock-up; my guess is the instrumentation is going to look like the Crew Dragon that NASA knows.  SpaceX proposed a derivative of the Starship design, which can be seen at any time. 

Dynetics' lander concept is quite different from Blue Origin's.  Dynetic's concept is, to borrow the term, landscape mode, while Blue Origin's is portrait mode.  I put together this graphic last May to show the three landers being developed. 

Left to right, Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX.  If you can envision the Dynetics lander without the massive solar panels, it's squat and wide.  

The Dynetics lunar lander mock-up as delivered to NASA.  Their photo, of course.