1. Universe Today – LightSail 2 is Sending Home New Pictures of Earth LightSail 2, the brainchild of The Planetary Society, has gifted us two new gorgeous images of Earth. The small spacecraft is currently in orbit at about 720 km, and the LightSail 2 mission team is putting it through its paces in preparation …
Paul Krugman wrote an opinion piece where he rants against future radical life extension. Krugman fears that it will only be available to billionaires. Krugman scenario is that Peter Thiel would still be alive, wealthy and healthy in 2067 when Peter is 100 years old. Sergey Brin would be 94 in 2067. Krugman’s bizarre fantasy …
The US is increasing hypersonic weapon investment in 2020 to $2.6 billion. The UK has a $12 million contract with Rolls-Royce to develop high-Mach aircraft propulsion systems. Russia has the Avangard and the 3M22 Tsirkon (aka Zircon)—and has reportedly fielded the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (“Dagger”), a maneuvering air-launched ballistic missile. The US believes the Avangard will …
Elon says the Spacex Starhopper which has its first untethered flight will fly suborbital when it has three Raptor engines installed. Single engine will have his truck s was p to one mile high. Elon should present the Starhopper and Starship and Super Heavy plans in about two weeks. First (really short) hops with one …
Nextbigfuture interviewed Robert Hargraves of Thorcon to clarify some information about the status of the revolutionary Thorcon molten salt nuclear reactor and the implications of the new agreement with PAL Indonesia. There is good technical progress on this very promising project. Indonesia’s businesses and government are very interested but further approvals are needed. Thorcon now …
On the recent quarterly conference call, Elon Musk indicated that Tesla will have clear roadmap to a Terawatt hour per year of battery production. If all of the Terawatt hour per year of batteries were used for electric cars (average of 70 KWh of batteries per car) then this would be 14.2 million electric cars …
Tesla is speeding up their European Gigafactory efforts and are hoping to finalize a location choice in the coming quarters. Elon said in Q and A at the 2019Q2 conference call that he was hoping to have the Gigafactory 4 location selected by the end of this year and to have production in 2021. Germany …
SpaceX had a successful 20 meter first untethered flight for the Starhopper. They will go higher and higher with test hops similar to the Falcon 9 grasshopper flight tests. Starhopper flight successful. Water towers *can* fly haha!! — e^👁🥧 (@elonmusk) July 26, 2019 Here are videos of the old grasshopper flights. Brian WangBrian Wang is …
SpaceX has a 44th successful first stage recovery and a good launch. This mission will add a second docking port to the space station to handle more traffic from future crew Dragon and future Boeing Starliner missions. Falcon 9 booster has landed on Landing Zone 1! pic.twitter.com/GWkUKgceSU — SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 25, 2019 Liftoff! https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z …
LPP Fusion Will Scale to Higher Fusion Yield With New Beryllium Electrode
Elon Musk indicated that SpaceX will test thin ceramic tiles to protect the Super Heavy Starship from re-entry heat instead of using active transpirational cooling. This will only need to be on 10-20% because the steel alloy could handle most of the re-entry temperatures. Transpiration cooling will be added wherever we see erosion of the …