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Advanced Spaceship Drive Compendium

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In order to reach the stars we will need vastly more powerful engines for our spacecraft than modern rockets offer. Fortunately, when it comes to possible ship drives, the sky is not the limit.

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Credits:
Advanced Spaceship Drive Compendium.
Episode 388, March 30, 2023
Produced & Written by: Isaac Arthur.

Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur.
Sarah Fowler Arthur.

Editors:

Incredible Robots — Rise of the Machines

Every other Wednesday we present a new video, so join us to see the truth laid bare…

Machines are evolving 10 million times faster than we are. Are you ready for robots that run our homes, watch our neighborhoods and even fight our wars? One day in the not too distant future, robots will travel to the far reaches of the universe, they will be the first to colonise new worlds. Robots will lead the way in the exploration of deep space.

Robots, machines of our nightmares, or servants of man? In the 1930s film Metropolis the robot was an evil character, it represented our darkest fears. By the 1950s they had become even more sinister and powerful, but over that last few decades our opinions of robots have dramatically changed, they’ve been reinvented as the police force of the future. But can real robots match the exploits of their celluloid cousins?

While the movies were creating ruthless men of steel, real robots were starting their own painful march into the world. Robots are still basic but over the past few decades they have advanced enormously. Before robots can become the masters of the universe, or even the servants of mankind, they need to accomplish one important thing, they need to move around.

This 1999 documentary includes interviews with prominent roboticists and artificial intelligence specialists. Beginning with robot locomotion and historical clips of ingenious experiments from MIT’s Leg Laboratory, BigDog’s ancestors dynamically walk, hop, trot, and perform impressive gymnastics. To find out the best way for a robot to move around the scientists look to nature. There have been many attempts to copy nature, some successful, others less than perfect.

SpaceX scrubs the first orbital launch attempt of Starship

We’ll have to wait just a little longer to see the world’s most powerful rocket soar to the skies.

SpaceX scrubbed its first Starship orbital launch attempt just at the last moment. Instead, the private space firm conducted a wet dress rehearsal.

As it had already filled Starship with fuel, it would go ahead with a wet dress rehearsal that would allow it to glean valuable data ahead of the next launch attempt.


SpaceX / Twitter.

SpaceX announced roughly 10 minutes before the scheduled launch time of 08:20 am CT that it had experienced an issue, meaning it would have to stand down for the day.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX set for debut flight of Starship rocket system to space

BOCA CHICA, Texas, April 17 (Reuters) — Elon Musk’s SpaceX made final preparations early on Monday to launch its powerful new Starship rocket system to space for the first time, on a brief but highly anticipated uncrewed test flight from the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m) high, was due for blastoff from the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica, Texas, during a two-hour launch window that opens at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).

The test mission, whether or not its objectives are entirely met, represents a key milestone in SpaceX’s ambition of sending humans back to the moon and ultimately to Mars — also the central goal of a renewed NASA spaceflight program intended to integrate the Starship.

Watch SpaceX TEST Starship, the biggest rocket ever, LIVE from the edge of the exclusion zone!!!

Recommended:


This is the first fully integrated full stack test flight of Starship and the mighty Super Heavy booster. At lift off, it will become the largest and most most powerful rocket to ever fly producing over twice as much thrust as the Saturn V that took humans to the moon.

The goal of the test is to get as far along in the mission as possible with a handful of important goals such as; clearing the launch pad, reaching max Q, getting to stage separation, ignition of Starship, burn Starship’s engines for 7 minutes and 20 seconds which would get Starship up to nearly orbital velocities and would place Starship on a suborbital trajectory that will cause it to reenter just north of Hawaii. This would allow the teams to test the reentry profile and heat shields for the first time from orbital velocities.

Want more information? Check out our Prelaunch Preview written by Austin Desisto — https://everydayastronaut.com/starship-superheavy-orbital-flight-test/

Want to know where to watch this live? I made a video on how to visit Starbase and where to watch a launch from — https://youtu.be/aWvHrih-Juk.

Check Out Untold Earth on PBS Terra

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https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime.

We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s not much of Earth left to explore. But if we look up, there’s a whole universe out there waiting for us. Future generations may one day explore the cosmos and even settle entire other galaxies. But there is a hard limit to how much of the universe we can expand into. So, how big can humanity get?

Episodes Referenced:
Is Interstellar Travel Possible?: https://youtu.be/wdP_UDSsuro.
What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilizations?: https://youtu.be/uTrFAY3LUNw.

The Edges of Our Universe by Toby Ord: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.01191.pdf.
A causal limit to communication within an expanding cosmological civilization by S. Jay Olson: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.07871.pdf.

SpaceX Readies Starship 24 for Flight | SpaceX Boca Chica

SpaceX crews worked to configure Ship 24 and Booster 7’s flight termination systems for launch, hardware labeled “flame diverter” was spotted at the shipping and receiving area, and foundation work at the production site continued.

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🎥 Video from Jack (@theJackBeyer), Nic (@NicAnsuini), and Starbase Live.
✂️ Edited by Thomas (@_thomashayden).

🔍 All content copyright to NSF. Not to be used elsewhere without explicit permission from NSF.

L2 Boca Chica (more clips and photos) from BC’s very early days to today.

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