SpaceX Lands Falcon 9

Six months after a dramatic first failure in 21 launches, SpaceX recently achieved something which will revolutionise the Rocket and Space Industry. They managed to land the first stage of a rocket. It's a remarkable achievement and it will make potential Inter-plantery travel in the future much easier as you can reuse rockets and don't need to dispose one off after a launch and will also greatly reduce the cost of Space Travel. It's a huge step in ensuring the survival and longevity of the human species and in making it an interplanetary species in the future. Just think of how bad it would be if you could use a car only once and you'd have to buy another one for every ride.

To achieve this, you would have to be able to land a rocket vertically and that is something which is very difficult and the technology to do such a thing has been researched for for a long time without much success which is why this is such an amazing achievement as SpaceX not only did it, but did it with an actual payload of 11 satellites with not much space for extra fuel. The technology required for vertical liftoff and vertical landing should be such that the thrust should be greater than the body's weight and the thrust has to be vectored with some throttling. The base must be capable of calculating the rockets position and altitude with precision as even slight deviations will result in a mission failure. The entire rocket first flies off from the Earth after which the rocket booster seperates from the rocket, takes a U-turn and then comes back to a landing zone a few miles away from its launchpad. 

A rocket booster costs roughly about $50 million and you need to build one everytime before you launch a rocket. Now that SpaceX has successfully managed to land it, all it needs is the money for repairs, and refurbishing and fuel which is what will greatly reduce the cost of sending a rocket to space. 

This is like a much more amplified version of what Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin did. They took a rocket to the beginning of space and came back. Here they had to take a huge payload, take 11 satellites to their orbits and land a vehicle which is going at a much greater speed than the one which Blue Origin landed. This makes it a historic feat and a day that should be marked in the history of human civilization. 

The very fact that Elon Musk actually postponed the launch by a day after reviewing the mission parameters as better weather was predicted and a better chance of a successful landing, 10% higher as he tweeted shows the scale of what SpaceX tried and achieved. According to him, this'll reduce the cost of space travel by a factor of 1/100 which is great

But it's also a big challenge to see if the rocket can actually withstand a second reentry. Escaping from Earth's velocity and successfully reentering would've taken a toll on the rocket's body and it remains to be seen if it has it in itself to do it again. 

It's a one small flip for a rocket, but one giant leap for mankind.

Are Chelsea right to sack José Mourinho?

Straight from the bottom of my heart and brain, as a Chelsea fan, I feel we were wrong to sack Jose Mourinho. He is the greatest manager Chelsea have ever had. One bad season and everybody forgets who the man is. 

He has won everything but the Champions League with Chelsea and boasts of a 66% win rate in the Premier League, the highest by a manager who has managed 100+ matches. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that without him, Chelsea wouldn't be the champion club that it is. After taking over from Ranieri a decade ago, he brought immediate success by winning the league in his first season in charge, repeating it in his 2nd, winning League Cup and FA cup double in his 3rd and the Community Shield too in between. He had a disagreement with Roman Abramovich and left Chelsea in 2007 after building the team and making it reach its full potential.

He came back in 2013 to build a dynasty at Chelsea. He insisted the squad wasn't ready to win the title yet and we finished without a trophy in his first season in charge. In the summer before his 2nd, he made widespread changes, bring in young legs to the squad. He recalled the on loan Thibaut Courtois in an excellent move for he is among the top 3 goalkeepers in the world. He brought in Cesc Fabregas from Barcelona, Diego Costa and Filipe Luis from Atletico Madrid. He slowly built the team around Eden Hazard and Oscar. He actually made John Terry's legs move and run and built a rock solid defence and provided excellent midfield cover in the form of Nemanja Matic. We romped to the title in style, destroying opponents losing just 2 matches on the way to the title. 

He also made a few mistakes in his 2nd spell. He sold our 2 time Player of the Season Juan Mata to Manchester United and preferred Oscar saying he didn't fit in his plans and lacked the stamina. He sold Kevin De Bruyne to Wolfsburg saying he 'cried' a lot when he was subbed. De Bruyne went on to become the Bundesliga Player of the Season and is now with Manchester City eyeing revenge against Chelsea when they meet next. He sold Andre Schurrle and brought in probably the flop of the season Juan Cuadrado. 

Unfortunately this season, the squad came back from holiday to be an unfit, not match fit set of players. The fall began when Jose Mourinho screamed at our doctor who went on to treat an injured Eden Hazard when we were drawing the match during the dying moments of the game. Since then, nothing seems to be going right. We lost to Man City 3-0 and lost at home to crystal palace 2-1 in that month. 

At one point in the season during September, it looked like we were finally kick starting our campaign. We beat Tel Aviv in the champions league 4-0 and then beat Arsenal 2-0 at home in what was probably our best performance of the season. Everybody played well and we played as a unit and a team. We then beat Walsall 4-1 in the League Cup and it looked like we were finally turning things around. But it was not to be as we then scraped to a 2-2 draw at NewCastle in a horrible performance and things became bad once again.

We again looked like turning things around when we beat Dynamo Kiev and Norwich in successive weeks but it again fell apart. We kept losing matches and are now in 16th place, precariously placed with just a point above the relegation zone. We lost at Leicester City 2-1 in a match which we could've drawn and one which saw Eden Hazard come off injured. We could've drawn but it was not to be with Diego Costa unable to finish in a 1v1 situation after a wonderful Cesc Fabregas pass. 

It may look like Roman Abramovich had no choice, but to sack the manager, but I don't see the point in doing so. Like Frank Lampard, our legend said, realistically speaking we aren't going to make the top 4 or get relegated no matter who manages the club. So why not see where Jose Mourinho leads us in the end of the season? We're doing well in the champion's league so why not see if Jose can win if for us? There's still the FA cup which we can win, so why not see if Jose can win it? He is after all, the best of his generation, and if anybody deserves another chance it's him! At some point, he will turn things around. The same thing happened to Jurgen Klopp last season at Dortmund. They were precariously place at Christmas break much like us and managed to finish 7th and came close to winning the DFB Pokal Cup in the final losing to Kevin De Bruynes brilliance. No matter what, fans are with you Jose, in whatever be your next endeavour and we will always be ready to welcome you back to chelsea in the future.

The Chelsea Calamity

The club from West London which strolled to the title with remarkable ease and ruthless efficiency last season is now struggling to compete even against weaker sides like Bournemouth and West Ham United. No one would have foreseen such a weak capitulation by a side that won the league with 4 games to spare last season.

But Chelsea are struggling, and although I'm no football analyst, this is my point of view on why they are. Various small reasons have built up to make the Blues look like any other ordinary side and not one which has the likes of Eden Hazard, Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa and Oscar, not to mention Pedro, Willian, Matic and John Terry. 

➡️ Different preseason strategy used by Jose Mourinho: Last season we had a lengthy preseason in which Jose made sure every player was fit, in form and match ready. We played dazzling football in the first half of last season ripping opposition defenses apart. But, due to a lengthy preseason, many players witnessed a dip in form( Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa, Oscar, Matic) in the middle of the season. But the defense in the first half of last season was a bit leaky, the games against Everton(6-3) and Swansea(4-2) a few examples. In the New Years Day match against Tottenham when we were beaten 5-3, Jose Mourinho realized that all out attack wouldn't take us all the way and so we became more defensive, winning matches by slender margins and riding on Eden Hazard's consistently sparkly performances. 

To avoid this mid-season dip in form, Jose went for a different strategy going for a shorter preseason and knowing that we will have a slow start but hoping that there'd be no midseason slump and that we'd peak at the right time. Unfortunately, thanks to the players taking lengthy holidays with complacency creeping in, Jose had no idea how unfit really his squad was. Diego Costa literally had a belly and Hazard, already a notoriously slow starter was even worse off. The defense was defending like it didn't know how to defend and Fabregas, Oscar looked like they had run out of creative ideas. 

In the game against Swansea, they scored the same 2 goals that they did last season but we scored only 2 unlike the 4 that we did last season thus drawing the match. Manchester City had a fit, in form squad and they used our weakness, thrashing us 3-0. 

➡️Lack of pace in the defense: 3 of our defenders, John Terry, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic are extremely slow. All the opposition needed to do was outpace them which wasn't a tough task. Add that to their not being in form and it became a party for the opposition. Worse yet, Ivanovic was still going forward, and he's in the worst form amongst the defenders and couldn't track back or tackle the opponents. He literally gave crosses away and didn't at all look to tackle or block them. No one could have expected this from the best right back in the premier league of last season. John Terry is aging and Gary Cahill already doesn't have much pace. Zouma and Azpilicueta provide some hope. Perhaps Jose was not expecting Everton to hold back John Stones and didn't give them the rigorous training that they needed?

➡️Inexistant defensive line by the midfield: In the early season, there was literally no protection offered by the midfielders for the defenders. Once we lose possession in their half, they could easily counterattack, with no one to stop them but Matic whom we heavily depended on last season and who is one of the main reasons for our defensive frailties. Nobody else even tried to challenge the opposition and whenever Fabregas tried, he was dribbled past way too easily. Eden Hazard and Willian looked too much into attack, Cesc Fabregas may be a brilliant attacking option, but he isn't the same defensively, Nemanja Matic was totally out of form too.

➡️Diego Costa's bad form: The whole teams bad form could be attributed to in terms of poor defensive performances but in attack, even though Cesc Fabregas and Oscar aren't in form, Eden Hazard is always a notoriously slow starter and that didn't affect the team much last season, plus Willian is in the form of his life creating chance after chance which Diego Costa isn't making much use of. Unlike last season, when Diego converted half chances into chances and took them, he isn't able to do that or even take good chances. Your whole team suffers especially when your striker isn't in form as if you can't get the goal, you can't win the match even if you play well. 

Currently, the whole team is getting back to form and making some good progress. Hazard once again looks hazardous to the opponent and Fabregas looks like he has finally got some ideas but again, Diego Costa's bad form isn't helping the Blues. Even if you create a million chances, you won't win the game unless you score as evidenced by the team's excellent performance in a losing cause against Bournemouth last weekend. Unless we score goals, we won't win the very important knockout Champion's League tie against Porto at home in a couple of days from now and that could very well mean the end of Jose Mourinho if we fail to qualify, as already we've crashed out of the League Cup, the Premier League is out of our hands. The Champion's League and the FA cup are the only trophies which we can realistically achieve this season. So, come on you Blues, don't disappoint fans again. 

The Chennai Catastrophe-Why did it happen?

Chennai has been struck by a disaster of such a massive scale for the first time since tsunami 2004. Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes and so many have lost their lives. Even the relatives of people in Chennai have been suffering from anxiety and nervousness as they aren't able to contact anybody in Chennai with the mobile network and the landline down for days. No electricity has further amplified problems for people marooned in their houses as they wouldn't be able to pump up water without it. The roads have been waterlogged even three days after the heavy spell of rains causing severe concerns over the outcome of an epidemic.

But a 100 year old record breaking North-East monsoon is only partially the cause. Consider this: In Chennai from October 1 till date, there has been 47 cm of rainfall while in New York City there's average rainfall of 57 cm during the rainy months, in London 43 cm, yet there's not much waterlogging and the roads are dry a few hours after the rains.

Chennai has 2 major rivers, the Adyar and the Couum rivers, a couple of major reservoirs - one in Chembarambakkam and one in Poondi , various lakes and the Buckingham canal. Due to unplanned and unchecked development, houses and colonies have been built on the flood plains and river embankments. The Buckingham canal's width has been reduced from 25 to 10 meters thanks to the Mass Rapid Transit System which also runs through the Pallikaranai Marshlands too, the IT sector built on low lying flood plains, so many colleges constructed in the path of rivers and lakes and hell, even the Airport is built on the Adyar rivers flood plains. The Pallikaranai marshland has literally become a place to dump garbage on. The drainage system is garbage and silt filled with no place for rain water to flow through.

All this is like a tumor slowly spreading waiting for the cancer to take over the individual, in this case   , a drowning city being dealt the sucker punch when the Chembarambakkam reservoir filled up and started to release 35000 cusecs of water which is HUGE. So basically, this was a man made disaster waiting to happen.

So much for Chennai being a 'smart city'! 

Hyperloop

            What is the Hyperloop?

Hyperloop is a revolutionary concept put forth by the real world Ironman, Elon Musk. It will revolutionize transportation and is possibly the next big mode of transportation before warping(soon to be invented).

It will operate by sending 'capsules' or 'pods' into a steel tube which is maintained at a partial vacuum.  
Each pod floats on a small pocket of air under pressure. Magnetic Levitation(usage of magnets to create lift, thus attaining great speeds as the vehicle isn't in contact with the ground) is mostly avoided here, yet it goes at speeds which a wheel can't sustain.

Linear induction motors are used for acceleration and deceleration of the pod. Linear induction motors are basically ones which have the rotor and stator 'unrotatory' so that instead of producing a torque as in traditional motors, a linear force is produced along its length. Similar to regenerative braking, linear motors too store its power when shifting speeds for future use. This is useful during parts of the journey when the speed is greatly increased or decreased.

Due to no tyres, there'll be highly reduced rolling resistance, and the air resistance too will be reduced. This is what enables to pod to float or glide throughout the journey at great speeds.

But in a tube which isn't a total vacuum, there's a problem in which the pod slows down due to pressure building up in front of it.  This is solved by placing an electric inlet fan and an air compressor to move highly pressurised air to the back of the pod. The pods will be solar powered and the maximum acceleration will be 0.5g with an average speed of 750 mph. This is basically the proposed model of the Hyperloop in short.

How is it going to affect us?

It takes us 30 hours on Indian roads to travel from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and we spend so much on petrol and fuel. Imagine a travel time of 2 hours approximately at a cost of ₹1000. Even if air travel was possible, it would take us 3-4 hours to travel that distance plus even the cheapest flight fare would at least cost ₹20000, which is 20 times the cost of  travelling by the Hyperloop.

This is also weather proof. No matter the conditions, storm, sun or blizzard, this will function. People may say that this is just another similar version of maglev trains, but it doesn't have the big disadvantages that accompany maglev trains ie the huge costs, poor fuel efficiency as levitating requires quite some energy plus the safety is always in question. These are negated in the Hyperloop.

Plus even though, magnetic levitation is put to use here although not to the maglev train level extent, it's energy efficient and utilises solar power. 

The Hyperloop basically offers quick transportation and an ecofriendly, weather proof means of transport.

Why life will be tough without a bean bag for me

People may call me stupid as I prefer to live on a bean bag in this terribly hot, tropical climate of India and they may say that it's bad for my health as it 'traps' heat and makes the already hot climate hotter, but for me it is the most comfortable place to sit in, better than any other place I've sat on as it's extremely flexible, I can change its position to suit me, it lets me sit in all kinds of awkward positions that are comfortable for me , and I think in the scientific point of view, it's extremely comfy as it puts pressure on every single part of your back.

I don't even use the dining table to eat, I use the bean bag for all purposes, whether it's eating, watching TV or doing homework, there is not a place in the world I would rather be sitting on than the bean bag( except in places where the bean bag is there). 

For all those who don't know what a bean bag is, quoting Wikipedia "A bean bag (also beanbag) is a sealed bag containing dried beans, PVC pellets, expanded polystyrene, or expanded polypropylene with various applications." I'd add the fact that it is the most comfortable thing to sit on!

For any person shopping for chairs, sofas, couches, trust me, I would rather buy a dozen bean bags and put it all over the house. You'll understand my words only when you get yourself a bean bag and sit on it for a while.

There's only one little problem with getting used to sitting on a bean bag- it makes you lazy as hell and makes every other place you sit in uncomfortable. Even when you're not sitting on it and doing something else, the laziness gets to you and you'll feel like just going, sitting on your bean bag and relaxing!

About me

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