Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla plans to use a different alloy for the upcoming Cybertruck electric pickup.
When Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck last year, one of the most interesting features was the fact the vehicle isn’t going to be built using a traditional automotive body system but with an exoskeleton.
The automaker wrote about the exoskeleton:
Circa 2018
Back in July 2018, researchers at Purdue University created the world’s fastest-spinning object, which whipped around at 60 billion rpm – and now that seems like the teacup ride at Disneyland. The same team has now broken its own record using the same technique, creating a new nano-scale rotor that spins five times faster.
Like the earlier version, the whirling object in question is a dumbbell-shaped silica nanoparticle suspended in a vacuum. When it’s set spinning, this new model hit the blistering speed of over 300 billion rpm. For comparison, dentist drills are known to get up to about 500,000 rpm, while the fastest pulsar – which is the speediest-spinning known natural object – turns at a leisurely 43,000 rpm.
Setting this record involves shining two lasers at the nanoparticle. One holds it in place, while the other starts it spinning. When the photons that make up light strike an object, they exert a tiny amount of force on it, known as radiation pressure. Normally this force is too weak to have any noticeable effect, but in a vacuum where there’s very little friction record speeds can be reached. That’s the case here, and it also applies to the concept of light sails, which could one day propel spacecraft at high speeds.
The United Arab Emirates is counting down to the launch of its first interplanetary space mission today — one that will send a spacecraft called “Hope” to orbit Mars. The Emirates Mars Mission will aim to provide a global snapshot of the weather on the Red Planet. It will also be a source of pride for the UAE as the country celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding in December of 2021.
To ensure that Hope is actually at Mars by the anniversary, the UAE must launch this summer. Planetary scientists have a very small window every two years to send spacecraft to Mars, when the Red Planet and Earth closely align on their orbits. If Hope launches in July, the spacecraft will spend the next seven months traveling to Mars, arriving sometime in February — leaving it plenty of time in orbit before the anniversary.
It’s first uncrewed flight will take place early 2021 and it is set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida.
Space Perspective is building a balloon that will be able to transport passengers and research equipment to the “edge of space.”
There are several companies looking to enter the emerging “space tourism” marketplace, but Space Perspective sets itself apart with its balloon design, named Spaceship Neptune. This balloon will accompany a pressurized and spacious cabin, creating a comfortable traveling experience for its passengers, according to its maker.
The final goal is to carry passengers and research equipment to and from above 99% of the atmosphere, but its first flight in 2021 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida will be unmanned. In order to accommodate these plans, Space Neptune’s balloon will be the size of a football field and will release almost no emissions, according to its maker.
Featured Image Source: u/TomHockenberry via Reddit.
SpaceX is developing its next-generation launch vehicle — Starship — at the company’s South Texas facility located in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville, TX. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, runs 24/7 operations to develop the stainless-steel spacecraft before the year 2022. SpaceX’s first private customer, Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, booked a journey around the moon aboard Starship scheduled for 2023. NASA also selected SpaceX to develop a Starship Lunar Lander as part of the agency’s Artemis program which aims to take the first woman and the next mand to the moon’s surface by 2024. Musk recently shared he still hopes to launch a cargo mission to Mars in 2022 and deploy the first humans to the Red Planet aboard Starship in mid-2024. The company is certainly working on a tight schedule to meet these ambitious timelines.
In June, Musk reportedly told SpaceX’s 7,000 employees that the company’s top priority is Starship development. According to CNBC news, in an email Musk sent to employees he wrote – “Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship.” He told his teams – “We need to accelerate Starship progress,” and asked them to “consider spending significant time” in Boca Chica to help the company accelerate Starship development, “For those considering moving, we will always offer a dedicated SpaceX aircraft to shuttle people,” he wrote.
Starship SN5 is finally set to begin Raptor engine testing this weekend after a successful cryogenic proof test on July 1. If the static fire test is successful, it will clear the way for a 150-meter hop test as early as next week. The 150-meter hop will be the first test flight of a full-scale Starship tank section.
The birthchild of Isaac Arthur, the genius of futurism and
second only to Carl Sagan introduces the idea of
’Quasar drives’.
Small artificially created black holes can be used to harness
incredible amounts of energy.
Just by feeding a bit of mass nearby the black hole creates an
accretion disk that heats up and emits a massive amount of
energy and jets of highly charged matter.
Using controlled magnetic and electric fields, the energy discharge
can be focused to produce enough thrust to move the spacecraft
to reach nearby star systems quickly.
These days, you’d have to actually be living on Mars not to have heard that Elon Musk wants to colonize it — and his team at SpaceX is putting in overtime to make it happen. They worked straight through December on refinements to their latest Starship spacecraft prototype, which Musk says will begin performing high-altitude tests within 2 to 3 months.
SpaceX has set the goal of first sending a cargo mission to Mars in 2022, and following it up with a manned mission in 2024 — which makes SpaceX the contender to put the first human footprint on the Red Planet.
Musk isn’t stopping there, however — back in November, he reiterated his long-term goal of building a city on Mars, which he believes will require SpaceX building & flying around 1,000 Starships moving cargo, passengers & infrastructure to Mars over about 20 years.
Elon is unique.
At age 17, Elon Musk left his home in South Africa and moved to Canada, where he enrolled at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. During his freshman-year in the fall of 1990, Musk befriended Navaid Farooq while living in the same dorm, according to the book “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” by Ashlee Vance.
Farooq, a Canadian who grew up in Geneva, bonded with Musk over their backgrounds abroad and their interest in strategy games, according to the book. Living in such close quarters, Farooq learned a lot about Musk, including what Farooq sees as his defining trait.
“When Elon gets into something, he develops just this different level of interest in it than other people,” Farooq said in Vance’s book. “This is what differentiates Elon from the rest of humanity.”
Robotic landers and rovers have been touching down on Mars since the 1970s, but when will humanity finally set foot on the Red Planet?
Experts believe the technical challenges are nearly resolved, but political considerations make the future of any crewed mission uncertain.
NASA’s human lunar exploration program, Artemis, envisions sending people back to the Moon by 2024 and using the experience gained there to prepare for Mars.
