OK, one more post (really, I can quit any time I want).

I just talked to John Carmack. They’ll have to cannibalize, but they can swap parts quickly, so they are planning to make another attempt to win Level 1 tomorrow with Pixel, using Texel parts. If they succeed, and have sufficient time left, they may move the parts back to Texel and go for Level 2. But as I said, even a recovery to win Level 1 is a great story.

He was pretty happy with the vehicle performance (other than the hard landing, which they’ll fix by changing some of the parameters in the software), other than a small roll oscillation (~1 degree) that causes some ullage issues (I assume by “roll” he means the vertical axis). He’ll try tweaking the software, but the only way to really fix it, which will occur in the next vehicle, is getting rid of the solenoids controlling valves, which are causing unacceptable lag, and going back to differential throttling. At least, that’s what I think he told me.

Anyway, I’m really done now. Packing up computer, and heading into town. See you tomorrow.