AI 171 Crash Probe

AI 171 Crash Probe: Friction, unease and mistrust have marked the ongoing probe into the Air India Flight 171 crash, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Tension between the US' NTSB and Indian investigators at one point reached so high that the US side even threatened to withdraw support for the probe.

Temporary link: When two American black-box specialists landed in New Delhi in late June, urgent messages arrived on their phones.

Don’t go with the Indians, their colleagues told them.

Earlier that day, Indian authorities had told their American counterparts of a new plan to unlock the mysteries behind the first deadly crash involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

They wanted the U.S. technical experts to take a late-night flight on a military plane and then drive to a remote area. At an aerospace company’s lab there, the experts were supposed to analyze flight-data and cockpit voice recorders pulled from the wreckage of the Air India jet that crashed nearly two weeks prior.

But that plan for the recorders—commonly called the black boxes—worried Jennifer Homendy, a top U.S. transportation official. She and other American officials were concerned about the safety of U.S. personnel and equipment being taken to a remote location amid State Department security warnings about terrorism and military conflicts in the region.

The National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman made a flurry of calls, including to Sean Duffy, President Trump’s transportation secretary, as well as the chief executives of Boeing and engine-maker GE Aerospace.

At her request, the State Department sent embassy officials to intercept the NTSB recorder specialists at the airport, and the Americans stayed in Delhi.

The previously unreported episode marked a high point of tension between Indian government officials, who are leading the probe into the June 12 crash, and the American experts assisting them. The investigation has been marked by points of tension, suspicion and poor communication between senior officials of the two nations.

In June, in the crucial early days of the investigation, Homendy complained about delays in downloading data from the Air India flight and insisted Indian officials extract information from the Air India black boxes at their facility in Delhi or at the NTSB’s lab in Washington, according to the draft of an unsent letter from Homendy to India’s minister of civil aviation.

The friction has been fed by each country’s high stakes in the investigation, which is continuing and could take a year or more.

• The race to build GPS alternatives: GPS spoofing.. GPS outages from Delhi to the Black Sea… 430,000 spoofing attacks in just one year… Flights going off-route, drones crashing, networks glitching.
  
  The world has realised something alarming: We’ve built everything on one fragile system - GPS.





• Temu & Shein Just Got Destroyed By France: Ambanis have tied-up with Shein, so they cannot be touched in India

Quick notes: Space station | High-speed rail...

• China’s ISS rival: While the future of International Space Station remains uncertain after 2024, China's Tiangong station will be up and running by next year.



• High-speed miracle: How China built the best high-speed rail ever




• ASML: The most important company you've never heard of.

ASML is the most important company you've never heard of.

The $300B+ Dutch firm makes the machines that make semiconductors. Each one costs $150m and access to them are a huge geopolitical flashpoint.

Here's a breakdown 🧵 pic.twitter.com/pARj3x7Kwo

— Trung Phan 🇨🇦 (@TrungTPhan) August 22, 2021




• ‘We defeated ourselves’: Trump’s national security adviser H. R. McMaster says Pompeo signed ‘surrender agreement’ with Taliban that led to the current catastrophe.




• Ungrateful ELM:

More proof that Indian Journalists are better than American ones.
The Americans need their Government and Air Force to evacuate from #Afghanistan. Indian journos outrun Talibs, swing their khadi jholas over their head making it into a makeshift helicopter and take off for India. pic.twitter.com/CNzpMkgiBU

— Manoj Rawat 🇮🇳 (@SeaSkipper) August 21, 2021




• No place in the Ummah? Afghan girls boarding school temporarily relocates to Rwanda



• Afghan MP: Uncertain if Sikhs, Hindus will have any rights under Taliban: Afghan MP





• From Kannada medium school to NASA's doorsteps: Karnataka village thrilled by the feat of local lad whose entire schooling was in rural areas in Kannada medium.



• Why People Who Brush Still Get Cavities: It is a microbiome problem



• Women persecuted for suspected witchcraft: Raipur-based doctor and rationalist, who has been relentlessly raising his voice against the practice of women being beaten ruthlessly and socially boycotted for suspected witchcraft, was thanked by the victims a day after Raksha Bandhan.

Quick notes: Rocket launching drone | Woke culture...

• Fully autonomous orbital rocket launching drone: Launching things to space doesn’t have to mean firing a large rocket vertically using massive amounts of rocket-fuel-powered thrust — space startup Aevum breaks the mould in multiple ways, with an innovative launch vehicle design that combines uncrewed aircraft with horizontal take-off and landing capabilities, with a secondary stage that deploys at high altitude and can take small payloads the rest of the way to space.
  
  
  
  


• Janan Ganesh in FT: What is woke culture if not the howl of a generation of underemployed humanities graduates? ..But the problem may be the raw numbers of students, not the precise flavour of their indoctrination. There are only so many jobs for them in publishing and the news media. There are only so many seats in Congress. If postmodern theories vanished from campus, would this surplus of frustrated graduates really just go about their lives as room-temperature liberals?. . . . . . Lesson for India: reduce funding to Humanities to cure JNU tukde-tukde ailment



• Quantum Supremacy? Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that is able to perform certain computations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, representing the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology.. China is building a $10 billion National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences as part of a big push in the field.



• The World's Most Important Technology Race: Not only will quantum computing offer significant scientific advances, but it will also alter warfighting. If China gains a substantial military quantum advantage over the United States, it could neutralize many of America's defensive and offensive technologies.



• China is greatest threat to freedom: "China believes that a global order without it at the top is a historical aberration. It aims to change that and reverse the spread of liberty around the world."



• Vinisha Umashankar: 14-year-old Tamil Nadu girl wins Children's Climate Prize for designing solar-powered ironing cart
  




• Words of Wisdom:

To successfully compete with China, Europe & America, Indian education administrators must realize that language of learning need not be the same as the language of communication.

The current English-based system puts 95% of the population at a disadvantage.@sankrant

— Subhash Kak ☀️ (@subhash_kak) December 5, 2020

Embraer

India and China are circling Brazil’s Embraer after Boeing abandoned plans for a tie-up. This is seen as a one-off chance to rebalance India’s aerospace ambitions against strategic rival China.

R.K. Tyagi, ex-chairman of HAL said he had written to the govt urging it to move fast. “Any country with ambitions will look at this. I feel this is a good opportunity. Valuation is down and if we get control of a modern, proven aircraft programme, it is a big jump.”

Resistance to China, or India is unlikely from Brazil’s politicians. “But Bolsonaro does not want to be seen as the one who sold Embraer to the Chinese”.

Reuters: Embraer draws foreign interest after Boeing rift

Will India move fast? Or will we continue to spend on Statue-of-Unity, Bullet-train and Central-vista projects?

Quick notes: 491 years | Startup scene...

• K Parasaran: Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah!

The man who ensured victory to Hindus after 491 years says:

dharmo rakshati rakshitah!

Listen to the words of 92 year old K Parasaran pic.twitter.com/0NYjpiaC5s

— Mahesh Vikram Hegde (@mvmeet) November 10, 2019




• US state department report: Nepal biggest operation hub for Indian Mujahideen.



• Isolate the innovation teams, move to small towns: Rajeev's insights into the Startup environment and Tech in India and how it can bloom.




• Really? Zomato made Rs 1001 Cr loss in FY19 on revenues of Rs 1,397 Crore



• Help the Kurds, not the Arabs: India is providing scholarships to 1,000 Syrian students to study in Indian universities, in undergraduate, post-graduate courses and even PhD



• Turkey Is Islamic State: For Syrian Kurds, and aid workers – the ‘safe zone’ is not so safe



• Su-30MKI: Russian designed, Indian built. . . . Pakistan may well achieve near-parity over time if it receives J-10 fighters from China (as well as the J-31, the quasi-5th generation fighter now being developed by the Chinese). Such near-parity between the IAF and the PAF would be completely unprecedented.  The power balance with the Chinese Air Force is an even greater worry for India.



• Walkability upgrade: Bengaluru's suburban rail network, finally on track?



• Clean-air hope: Electric bus manufacturing unit coming up near Pune

Quick notes: Drone attack | Orbital deviation...

• Costly defenses no match for drones, cruise missiles: Billions of dollars spent by Saudi Arabia on cutting edge military hardware has proved no match for low-cost drones and cruise missiles used in a strike that crippled its giant oil industry. . . . Lesson for India



• Chandrayaan 2, a failure of autonomy? There were significant deviations between proposed and actual orbits. Obviously, the system malfunctioned during the autonomous mode without taking any corrective measures. 



• Bangladesh Shining: Their GDP per-capita would "exceed India's by 2027".... India's numbers are actually worse than shown here.





• Ban phosphate in detergents to save lakes: The rate of active ingredients in detergents in India is higher than prescribed. A complete ban on phosphate in detergents will simplify the process of sewage treatment.



• Election interference by Hans? Australia concluded China was behind hack on parliament, political parties 



• Han tricks: Chinese woman pleads guilty in 'birth tourism' case



• Car free:

I want to share with you two pictures of my hometown (Grenoble, France). The first one dates from the 1960s-1970s. The second is from last year.

The difference? The City Council was slowly voted out and replaced with those in favor of pedestrians, cyclists and the streetcar. pic.twitter.com/FF7aQ6FGPI

— Blaise (@DC1f525) August 29, 2019




• This Greek tradition resembles India's:

In Greek weddings we shower the couple with rice. Rice represents life and growth. In old times, people threw seeds to grow life on earth, so they throw them to bride for increased fertility. pic.twitter.com/wySJV6sDzd

— Eirini Malliaraki (@irinimalliaraki) September 7, 2019




• Sharada Bhujanga Prayatastutih:

Chandrayaan 2 - a landing that was not to be and Prime minister Modi’s epochal address

A compilation of my posts from Friday, September 6, 2019 and Saturday, September 7, 2019.

It was lunchtime in California and I was streaming the anticipated Chandrayaan-2 landing live on YouTube at my workplace and listening to audio from “Tiranga Yatra” in a loop in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil - fired up with nationalistic pride at the historic occasion.

I was rooting for India’s lander to plant our national flag and engrave the Ashoka Chakra on the Moon’s surface. 

I admit that I was shamelessly crying in my office - when it became known later 

that communication had been lost with the lander. Luckily, it was late Friday afternoon in California and presence of people around me was thin.

Following is what I wrote later:

“It's been a heady and emotional day for all Indians - even those of us who are sitting thousands of miles away from home.

Shri. Narendra Modi's address today to ISRO scientists is surely one of the finest motivational speeches ever by a Prime Minister of India. His personal gesture of
hugging and consoling an inconsolable Director of ISRO was 
unprecedented.

It is not just the ISRO scientists, but all of India that was feeling a bit demoralized.

This is truly exemplary leadership at its finest. He made many brilliant points about India's intrinsic civilizational strength and indomitable spirit in the face of grave challenges. 

Prime Minister Modi did not have to spell it out - but hinted at it - We have been a “wounded 

civilization” in the eloquent description of 

V.S Naipaul and have endured many great calamities, including:

- The Mohammedan conquest of India, which was described by Will Durant, the American historian as “The bloodiest chapter in the history of mankind”, including many mortal blows such as the conquest of Sindh by Mohammed Bin Qasim, the multiple demolitions of Somnath Mandir by Mahmoud Ghaznavi, Malik Kafur’s conquest of the Deccan and reaching all the way up to Rameswaram, the fall of the great Vijayanagara empire, genocidal foreign rule for 1300 years, the demolition of thousands of our most sacred Temples and forcible conversion into Masjids and forced conversion of the masses, millions of Hindus enslaved and marched to the slave markets of

Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Central Asia etc; 

Hundreds of thousands perishing on the way - so much so that an entire mountain range in Afghanistan was named the “Hindu Kush” (meaning “slaughter of the Hindus”)

- 300 years of European Christist colonialism

that saw the Portuguese Christist inquisition in Goa, the starvation genocide of millions by the British and many, many unspeakable atrocities and genocides that culminated in

the vivisection of Mother India in 1947 to create a permanent dagger embedded in her flesh called “Paakistan”.

- Humiliation by Communist China’s perfidy   in the 1962 war.

- To add insult to injury, 70 years of suffocating Nehruvian Stalinist rule.

Didn’t we endure it all and yet, survive to rise again? Didn’t we rise up again after absorbing each and every grievous wound inflicted on Mother India which would have otherwise comprised a mortal, terminal blow?

The Prime Minister's brilliant, inspired and inspiring oratory and touching gesture is analogous to Lord Shri Krishna's motivational speech (aka the Gita) to a demoralized Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra! 

Narendra Modi, spoke not just as the Prime Minister of India, but as the torchbearer of the proud Hindu civilization that is rising again from the ashes.

I proudly declare that I'm a born Hindu nationalist and a "BHAKT" ONLY of Hindutva and Bharat - NOT of any individual, party or organization! 

Why? Because, ONLY Hindutva and Bharat are permanent and immortal!

But, this is indeed worthy of "BHAKTI"!

Even arch ideological foes such as some otherwise obnoxious NDTV anchors are praising P.M Modi's inspirational leadership today!

The Director of ISRO, Dr. Sivan also apparently hails from a very humble background. His journey is very similar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own story. 

My sympathy is always with the underdog - Narendra Modi is the underdog, Dr. Sivan is the underdog, ISRO is the underdog and, there is no greater underdog than India itself!”

Quick notes: Technocracy | Flying-V...

• The return of technocracy: S Jaishankar is regarded not only as a foreign policy maven, but also a sharp strategic mind with a clear view of a complex world full of divergent interests



• Misinvoicing:  India is estimated to have lost $13 billion potential tax revenue in 2016 due to trade misinvoicing.



• Flying-V plane: The plane will use 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350-900 while carrying a similar number of passengers 
  



• Smart Commute Foundation: The aim is to make Mumbai bicycle capital by 2030



• Beyond Carbon: Bloomberg Commits $500M to Close All US Coal Plants by 2030



• Tabla - Denis Kucherov:




• Azim Premji: India’s second-richest man owns a second-hand car and a generous heart. The veteran businessman has reportedly donated two-thirds of his wealth—$21 billion—to charitable causes.



• Microplastics: New research says humans are eating 'thousands' of plastic pieces each year. Microplastics - tiny plastic shards broken down from man-made products such as synthetic clothing, car tyres and contact lenses - are among the most ubiquitous materials on the planet 

Quick notes: Amazon model, Russian moves...

• Call to split up Amazon: "Amazon has operated its retail segment at a loss for decades, subsidizing the retail portion of its business with profits from other areas, such as web services. It's anti-competitive, it's predatory, and it's not right. They're not making money in retail, and they're putting retailers out of business"..... Lesson for India!



• Russia is arming the Afghan Taliban.... Putin tightens Turkey alliance with nuclear project... Yazidis remain in fear on Iraq's Mount Sinjar after attempted genocide



• Wide-body jets from China? Can a trade war now defer the day when China makes competitive wide-body jets?




• Abhinav Seetharaman: The beauty that is Sanskrit




• Doubtful intent: A questionable new study "explains" the origins of ancient Indians



• Breakfast cereal: Why cereal is NOT your best breakfast bet



• Dumping pesticides: Ducks are the future for pesticide-free rice farms

Quick notes: BJP's big chance, Punjab's real problem...

• Time for BJP to act:

  Jallikattu and Sabarimala - BJP's big chance to show that it will defend South Indian culture against Lutyen's Delhi. #WeNeedJallikattu

  — Saint Lucifer (@AgentSaffron) January 12, 2016




• Punjab's real problem: The nexus of drug cartels-the police-the BSF must be broken. Punjab is not going to be vulnerable to terrorism per se. It is going to be vulnerable to unemployment, drugs and lawlessness. But the ISI is bound to exploit narcoterrorism.



• Merkel under pressure: "More than 1,000 Arab and North African men gathered on New Year's Eve near Cologne cathedral and the main train station. Among them were many refugees that came to Germany in the past months". 516 criminal complaints had been registered, 237 of which were of a sexual nature.



• EV popularity a threat to established automakers: Because they can be readily purchased from suppliers, electric powertrains facilitate the entry of companies like Apple into the car industry.  So if electric powertrains really are contributing to disintermediation, they may also be making it possible for a host of new competitors to challenge established carmakers.



• China’s Letv Launches IoT-Enabled Bicycle In India: App integration, intelligent anti-theft, voice communication etc.




• uberPOOL: More people in fewer cars.... Uber pushes into public transit with new app partnership



• Distributed propulsion: Rethinking the Airplane, for Climate’s Sake. Dr. Laskaridis and Dr Devaiah Nalianda, are studying the feasibility of hybrid turbine-electric systems that might use batteries and a single jet engine to generate electricity for the motors.



• No compulsion to react:

  #PresentMomentReminder from #EckhartTolle. For automatic reminders, click here: https://t.co/FbP4rHE0Ee #quotes #PMR pic.twitter.com/SLsg5PJQFv

  — Eckhart Tolle (@EckhartTolle) January 10, 2016

Quick notes: Language exchange, Tulsi genome...

• Make it an equal exchange: India, Germany to teach each others’ language



• Indian scientists decode Tulsi: The genome map will help in making new medicines using the plant.



• Save the bats, save the corn: Scientists and farmers have known for a long time that bats were a valuable contributor to the agricultural landscape, eating pests that would otherwise be eating crops.



• Boeing plans to finish some 737 jetliners in China: Boeing's China facility would paint 737 aircraft, conduct flight testing, and perform some interior installation.



• The daredevil fighter pilot who survived a Pakistani bullet. An Indian Prisoner of War escape story



• Hindu Wedding: Popular videos

Quick notes: Soda rise, Sin tax...

• Guess Which Country Has The Biggest Increase In Soda Drinking -- India sees 73.4% rise in 5 years, highest among major nations. 



• Sin Tax: Mexico's Sugary Drink Tax Makes A Dent In Consumption.



• Fobbing off Facebook:  Facebook is, by and large, for the idle, attention-seeking (somewhat insecure), a bit anti-social and lazy people. It's also for those who think their every action matters - including what they put into their mouth through the day.



• Russia's Superjet: China+Russia could, some day, threaten Airbus and Boeing.



• Ions: The Body's Electrical Energy Source

Quick notes: Mother tongue in playschools, 787 glitch...

• Centre wants all teaching in playschools to be in the mother tongue or the local vernacular language. "Once you start in the language that the child is comfortable in, it is very easy to move to the next level. Starting in the mother tongue gives a tremendous boost to the child's development."
  
  Some commonsense, finally. Foreign language medium in early education will ensure that we remain a nation of imitators, longing for all things phoren.



• Pakistan's Frankenstein: Taliban claim killing of Pakistani General



• Boeing's 787 Dreamliner suffers another glitch: A Norwegian Air Shuttle flight couldn't handle the full weight of the 250 passengers on board.



• Speculators exploit ethanol credits: Ethanol credits, which cost 7 cents each in January, peaked at $1.43 in July, and now are trading for 60 cents. “These things weren’t designed to become a speculative item. For the life of me I can’t see the justification for it.”

Quick notes: Steve J kinda crazy

“He is a crazy guy, but in a good way. As Steve was a crazy guy, which I respect a lot. Crazy enough to want to completely change the way people live,” Mr. Son said of Bloom’s co-founder and chief executive, KR Sridhar. He was comparing Mr. Sridhar to Apple’s founder, Steve Jobs, known to have been a confidant of Mr. Son.  

NYT: SoftBank Forms a Fuel Cell Venture With a Silicon Valley Start-Up

-

Outsmarting bugs with a fan may be a poorly known strategy. But the method, it turns out, is endorsed by the American Mosquito Control Association.
“Mosquitoes are relatively weak fliers,” it says on its Web site, “so placing a large fan on your deck can provide a low-tech solution.” 

NYT:  A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent

-

Boeing has about 800 Dreamliners set to be built; if people start pulling out, the company is going to be in serious trouble. (..here is an earlier post on Gamechanging.. )

PopSci: Why Is Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Such A Piece Of Crap?

BEL To Make Parts For Super Hornets

BEL will produce the Super Hornet's ground power panel, helmet vehicle interface stowage, as well as switch assembly and cockpit console panels.

BEL already produces a stowage panel for the aircraft's Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System connector cable, as well as an avionics cooling system fan test switch panel for a floodlight assembly.

The company also produces identification friend or foe interrogators and data links for the eight Boeing 737-based P-8I maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft ordered by the Indian navy in 2009.

FlightGlobal: India's BEL wins more work on Boeing Super Hornet

'Game-changing' that turned into a headache

Valuable lesson for budding engineers and designers out there. Intel uses a more pragmatic approach in its tick-tock, where they advance the technology in two steps (a tick and a tock) spread over 2 products, instead of one 'game-changing' move.

"I think Alan Mulally (current Ford Motors chief who was running Boeing Commercial Airplanes at the time of the 787 launch) wanted it to be gamechanging. So 'job one' was everything on this airplane is going to be game-changing," says Leahy.
But incorporating gamechanging technology is not always for the better, he says: "We do not believe the 787's electric pressurisation brings anything except maintenance and reliability problems.
"We don't think having an airplane flying at 41,000ft, in minus 60 degree outside temperature, should be heated electronically. We've got sources of power called the engines that aren't using all their power, and you can use some of that to pressurise and heat the cabin, to deice the airplane."
When Airbus redesigned the A350, their engineers went "back and forth" three times about whether to equip the XWB with electric brakes before deciding to stick with conventional hydraulic architecture.

Flight Global: Leahy questions 787’s heavy reliance on electrical power 

Aerospace Actuators From Wipro

Wipro Ltd's hydraulics business unveiled India's first-of-its-kind plant to produce actuators for various aerospace applications. Aerospace actuators have various applications in an aircraft, including landing gear, flight control systems, engines and utilities. 

EETimes: Wipro opens aerospace actuator facility

ISRO to Privatize PSLV & Satellite Production

ISRO is looking to spin off the production of PSLV rockets and satellites to private sector partners:

http://zeenews.india.com/news/space/isro-mulling-hiving-off-satellite-production-to-industry_783612.html

New Delhi: As it prepares for Moon and Mars missions, ISRO is planning to hive off production of communication satellites and polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLV) to the industry.

The space agency is keen to focus on unique science projects, develop remote sensing satellites and do more R&D instead of engaging in the repetitive exercise of building communication satellites and launch vehicles.

"We want to explore the possibility of 'producing' PSLV and communication satellites through the industry," K Radhakrishnan, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told PTI in an interview here.

The ISRO and its commercial arm Antrix Corporation have called for a meeting with the industry in September in Bangalore for a dialogue on the proposal and identify different work models.

"We want to find out what models could work out and evolve a plan. There is lot of repetition in building communication satellites," he said.
...

If satellite and PSLV production can be spun off to private sector partners, then conceivably likewise so could launch operations. We could have our own Indian private sector launch companies, like United Launch Alliance, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences in the United States. I think that following the great success of SpaceX's COTS2 mission to the International Space Station, ISRO has now seen the handwriting on the wall, and realized that privatization could bring in new cost efficiencies and better leverage Indian skills in space technology to market them to the rest of the world. This will result in a faster evolution of Indian space capabilities, and faster gains in Indian access to space.

As a Japanese expert has pointed out in recent comments, one of the limitations for other countries in imitating the US move to privatize space launch services, is in having a domestic demand for space launch services strong enough to support a commercial space launch industry. Hopefully, India's fast-growing space sector will be enough to provide a sustainable market.

India Falling Behind in Space Race?

Now that China has launched its Tiangong-1 ("Heavenly Palace") space station, India is saying there is no space race, rather than admitting it's falling behind.



Meanwhile, private space enterprise SpaceX has announced its intention to test and build a reusable launch system.





Given India's stated cost sensitivities, I think India should consider imitating the SpaceX reusable design concept, which Musk claims will reduce the cost per launch. You can see Musk's full hour-long press conference here.

S200 Booster Tested at SDSC

Here's video of ISRO's recent test of the S200 solid rocket booster, at Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Meant for use in the upcoming GSLV-MkIII, the S200 is the world's 3rd largest booster of its kind, after the ones used by Ariane-5 and the Space Shuttle (well, since the Space Shuttle is now retired, I guess that would make this the 2nd-largest such booster). China and Russia use purely liquid-fuel technology. Solid rocket boosters offer superior thrust performance in comparison to liquid boosters, but cannot be throttled during flight.