Lifeboat Foundation

The company will soon start employing a second net-equipped boat during orbital launches, in an attempt to snag both halves of its rockets’ payload fairings before they splash down in the ocean, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk confirmed via Twitter on Friday (Aug. 9).

In the last week alone, SpaceX’s twin orbital Starship prototypes have made some truly jaw-dropping progress. Onlookers have witnessed Florida’s Starship push through a rapid growth spurt, while the company’s Texas team has begun to install propellant tank bulkheads and work on a triple-Raptor thrust structure.

Meanwhile, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has suggested that one or both of the orbital-class Starship prototypes could be “almost ready to fly” by August 24th, the date of the CEO’s next official update on Starship (formerly BFR and ITS). Although the actual challenge of building a massive, orbital-class launch vehicle is far subtler than the visible steelwork needed to build its primary structure and pressure vessels, the veritable leaps forward made in both Texas and Florida in the last 7–10 days are extremely encouraging signs.

Starting off in Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX’s team of engineers and technicians have been simultaneously handling Starhopper’s first untethered flight test (completed on July 25th) and building the facility’s orbital-class Starship prototype. Most significantly, after a few days of preparation, what is likely the Texas Starship’s first bulkhead was lowered inside its ~25m-tall (80 ft) barrel section, composed of the spacecraft’s propulsion section and propellant tanks.

The reusability is a key aspect, as Musk has said each engine needs to be capable of flying up to 1,000 times to support the ambitious operations of Starship. That’s a major challenge; the most re-used engines in space exploration history were the main engines on each Space Shuttle, which flew up to only a few dozen times each. “It’s quite ambitious,” says Dodd. “I don’t know if 1,000 flights is necessarily going to be achievable in the near future. If it lives up to its potential, maybe 1,000 is within the realm of possibility one day.”

SpaceX’s existing engine is called Merlin, which is used on its operational Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, but Raptor heralds a significant improvement. One is that it has double the thrust of its predecessor thanks to a much higher pressure, 380,000 pounds of thrust at sea level versus 190,000 pounds, despite being a similar size.

This new tech is the product of Neuralink, a company that Elon founded in 2016 with a goal of creating an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) and yes, it is as crazy as it sounds.

He stated that the initial goal with this is to enable people with quadriplegia (paralysis) to control a smartphone or computer with just their thoughts. But anyone that knows the entrepreneur knows that he intends to go bigger than that.

His vision also consists of giving humans the ability to “merge” with AI and therefore give them superhuman intelligence. This is what may then seem like an objective that is too hype to be an actual plan for new technology development.

SpaceX has come a long way. After being shocked by the absence of NASA’s concrete plans for a manned mission to Mars in the early 2000s, Elon Musk, the well-known entrepreneur and engineer, founded SpaceX in order to establish affordable access to space.

After spending a couple of years on designing, building and testing the first privately developed orbital rockets, the fourth launch of the Falcon 1 rocket into orbit was successful, marking the dawn of private space transportation. With its proven capabilities, SpaceX was awarded a substantial contract from NASA for supply missions to the International Space Station, providing the funding for a rapid development of new launch vehicles.

Microsoft and Google companies want to be central to the development of the thinking machine.

The decision by Microsoft to invest $1 billion in OpenAI, a company jointly founded by Elon Musk, brings closer the time when machines threaten to replace humans in any tasks that humans do today.

OpenAI, which was founded just four years ago, has pioneered a range of technologies which have pushed the frontiers of massive data processing in defiance of the physical and computer capabilities that governed such developments for generations.

Continue reading “Microsoft, Google and the Artificial Intelligence Race” »

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm originally founded by Elon Musk and Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, just landed a $1 billion investment from Microsoft.

Though originally founded to be a non-profit, ethical alternative to the massive companies developing AI tech, OpenAI became a sort of hybrid non-profit and for-profit back in March. The two companies have been collaborating on projects for years, but now with this new investment, Business Insider reports that OpenAI will be developing AI tech specifically for Microsoft’s cloud services.

As the founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX, a private company that makes rockets and spacecraft, Elon Musk envisions a time when his reusable rockets will bring people to the moon and Mars. He’s focused on humans becoming a “multi-planet species,” and on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, he speaks with Jeffrey Kluger (editor-at-large at Time magazine, and the co-author of “Apollo 13”) about his vision for the future.

A partnership with Sam Altman and Elon Musk’s OpenAI looks to be a win-win for both companies. But a “holy grail” breakthrough is likely decades away.