The first vehicles to fly under NASA’s new lunar delivery initiative will aim to be the first commercial spacecraft to land softly on another celestial body.
Category: space travel – Page 70
To construct a Dyson Shell (or Cap), an exceptionally light and very absorptive material would be necessary, because a 20-mile-radius (32 km), 0.4-inch-thick (1 cm) titanium Dyson Shell would have a mass of more than 1,200 Empire State buildings! Alternatively, a Dyson Cap that absorbs radiation that would be fed into a heat engine would have a lower mass, but would also deliver an inferior acceleration.
Furthermore, a gamma-ray laser is currently the only conceivable technology that could be used to make a Schwarzschild Kugelblitz. However, such a laser’s output frequency would need to exceed current technology by more than a billion times. Its pulse duration would have to be a hundred billion times shorter than that of lasers today. The total energy of a single laser pulse would need to be equivalent to the energy the sun puts out in 1/10 of a second.
While it’s true that the technical challenges render it unlikely that a SK will be fueling an interstellar starship anytime soon, it’s imperative that we embrace a wide range of theoretical research. SKs can produce many petawatts of useable radiation; therefore, they hold the potential to be an ideal source of power for interstellar starships. Thus, in time, Schwarzschild Kugelblitzes may merit a position of distinction on the vast technology arc that could one day take us to the stars.
SpaceX does a Static Fire test with Starship 28! How did it go? Booster 10 is ready as well. What did SpaceX achieve in 2023? #SpaceX #starship #elonmusk #starbase
Elon Musk discusses various topics including the declining legacy media market, the success of X platform, the importance of free speech and accurate information propagation, the challenges of public companies, the future of AI, the impact of cryptocurrency, and the potential of autonomous vehicles.
Questions to inspire discussion.
What does Elon Musk discuss about the declining legacy media market?
—Elon Musk discusses the lack of understanding from mainstream media about the big stories and accomplishments of SpaceX and Tesla, as well as the success of X platform.
Starship’s previous two flights were partially successful in April and November but ended in explosions before reaching their intended destinations.
USC Dornsife’s CReATiNG technique revolutionizes synthetic biology by facilitating the cost-effective construction of synthetic chromosomes, promising significant advancements in various scientific and medical fields.
A groundbreaking new technique invented by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science may revolutionize the field of synthetic biology. Known as CReATiNG (Cloning Reprogramming and Assembling Tiled Natural Genomic DNA), the method offers a simpler and more cost-effective approach to constructing synthetic chromosomes. It could significantly advance genetic engineering and enable a wide range of advances in medicine, biotechnology, biofuel production, and even space exploration.
Simplifying Chromosome Construction
SpaceX’s next Starship prototype is undergoing tests and preparations for launch, while other companies like Rocket Lab and ULA are also making progress in their space endeavors.
Questions to inspire discussion.
What tests is SpaceX conducting for the next Starship?
—SpaceX is conducting crucial tests for the next Starship, including a spin Prime test and a static fire of all six engines.
What an exciting week it has been! We saw the rollout of both Ship 28 and Booster 10 down to the Gateway to Mars launch pad, and Ship 28 has alreadys starting undergoing tests, conducting a spin prime test over the weekend. Elsewhere, we had 3 mysterious launches from China, and strange lack of any Falcon missions, as well as a return to flight for Rocket Lab and Blue Origin. All of this and much, much more. Enjoy!
SpaceX has shared a trio of awesome night shots showing its Super Heavy booster — the most powerful rocket ever built — being rolled to the launchpad ahead of its third test flight.
Look closely at the image above and you’ll see that the transporter carrying the 233-foot-tall (71 meters) booster is bedecked with Christmas decorations, including colorful lights, a tree, and a Santa Claus model. And for scale, take a look at the human captured in the extreme right of the frame.
NASA has awarded Blue Origin a $35 million contract to further develop a technology that creates solar cells out of lunar regolith — the dust and crushed rock blanketing the moon’s surface.
“[W]e’re inspired and humbled to receive this investment from NASA to advance our innovation,” said Pat Remias, VP of Blue Origin’s Capabilities Directorate. “First we return humans to the moon, then we start to ‘live off the land.’”
Moon or bust: NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon again as soon as 2025, with the goal of establishing a long-term presence on the lunar surface soon after. For that to work, it’s going to need a way to provide astronauts with a steady supply of everything they need to survive and thrive, from food and water to oxygen and electricity.