[flagged]
In order to avoid separate ports for AC and DC charging, or a simple adapter that only needed to handle low power AC charging, they designed a giant franken-plug with a fragile latching mechanism. Given the lack of regulatory standardization on this plug in the years since, the majority of EVs and DC chargers in the US continued to use Tesla's plug, which remained proprietary to Tesla.
When we finally started apply regulatory pressure via federal funding for EV chargers to try to force CCS1, everyone (including Tesla) finally caved and switched to Tesla's connector.
At the time most automakers in the US market supported CCS, so the NEVI rules were written by the NHWA to require CCS Combo 1 connectors, but also allow secondary connectors if they were non-proprietary.
That seemed to push Tesla to actually publish their connector as a standard and try to get other automakers to adopt it, probably so that their own chargers could be eligible for the NEVI funding.
Once that started rolling, and given the choice between sticking with CCS1 or adopting NACS and gaining access to Tesla's charger network, all of the significant North American EV manufacturers have now committed to switch over. The NHWA has said it will publish a Request for Information to determine how to incorporate NACS into the NEVI rules going forward.
The CEO made statements about anyone being able to use it, but that's not the same as actually offering it up as a standard in a way that others can use it.
It was officially published as an SAE standard this week (SAE J3400).
Of course, this is just to point out a different kind of error in GP's comment.
Also, in Fahrenheit 0-100 degrees roughly demarcates the survival zone for humans without special precautions.
You can see the mission report all measurements referred to are customary units.
Notwithstanding the units used for reporting, though, I had always heard that the actual work was done in metric (to avoid potential conversion errors).[1] Is that not correct?
[1] But see https://everydayastronaut.com/mars-climate-orbiter/
Objectively false in so many domains. Americans aren’t smarter than other people. But we are very good at organising resources for novel pursuits.
Yes, there are. A simple example is Latin America. Americans are willing to risk a recession, which predominantly falls on the poor, to stave off inflation. We’re slow to regulate and quick to let immigrate (even if we sing a song and dance about it, constantly) in a way most polities won’t tolerate. These come at costs that aren’t bearable for many, including in America. But the counterpoint is a tremendous capacity to reorganise and marshal resources.
Americans are great at many things, just like everybody else.
This is a tendency that has existed for generations, pre-dating the invention of central banking. It comes with tremendous costs—we see that in our inequality and homelessness. But the counterpoint to that is individual agency, regulatory reticence and capacity for innovation (and the blending of ideas, given America is a multigenerational multiethnic nation) that is relatively capital-intensive for others to match.
It’s a shame to see honestly.
Orion and SLS will medium to long term likely both be replaced by Starship / Superheavy.
The only non-American super impressive space program that I’ve seen is actually India’s ISRO. Their cost for traditional rockets price per kg to orbit is quite impressive, though Spacex dominates everyone on price due to reusability.