New Starship V3

"Three years since the first flight of Starship, the next generation is here. New ship. New booster. New engines. New pad and new test site." It's Version 3.

They're trying to accomplish a "space dream" in the real world--a transportation system to take humans throughout our galaxy. Nobody knows how to do that yet. The engineers at SpaceX spend every day trying to figure it out. 

They're passionate and driven. I have no technical aptitude, but they inspire me. Meet some of them in SpaceX's video below telling how they got this far. There's Bill (VP/Starship Engineering), Charlie (Director/Starship Engineering), Jenna (Sr. Manager/Starship Operations), Joe (another VP/Starship Engineering).

from SpaceX

AeroSphere

A stunning product was revealed this week by Tesla: the AeroSphere.

Eventually there will be more information - but so far, this is all I've seen:

US ag innovation 2

(cont'd from yesterday's 2021 re-post)

Vertical farm 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) can yield crops at 100x the per-square-foot productivity of a flatland farm by scaling vertically. They use much less water, no pesticides, and weather has no effect.

But light is available to traditional farmland for free in the form of sunlight. Not so for vertical trays or towers of lettuce indoors. Light, in fact, is expensive. Recent advances in LED lighting (a doubling of its efficiency coupled with a big drop in its cost) have cut the operational expenses of these farms to the point where they can now provide about 5% of all our produce.

In a mostly-free market like ours, individual customers choose which businesses will survive. They pick the product which serves their needs best and which is offered at a price they are willing to pay. That's the sweet spot these farmer-entrepreneurs want to find.

Test flight #10

Win or lose, "the goal is always to collect as much data as possible," to learn what works and what doesn't, to test for weaknesses. Test flights take place so SpaceX can intentionally stress Starship.

If you want to fly to Mars, you have to get out of the office and up into real space so you can learn what you don't know: like how to build the world's first "reusable orbital heat shield." It's never been done. But it will be.

After two scrubbed launch windows, Starship test flight #10 got off the ground Tuesday evening. SpaceX posted a two-hour live video full of information about work they did after the last flight and what they hope for in this flight. Actual launch starts at 46:45.

Interlace

Singapore, uniquely an island and a city and a nation, is also the home of unique public projects like their giant man-made trees. 

Densely populated, they still manage to find ways to incorporate nature into work places and living spaces.

Interlace (photo) is "an intricate network of living and social spaces integrated with the natural environment." Instead of a tall tower of apartments, there are 31 apartment blocks six stories high arranged in a hexagon around eight large courtyards.

Another unique, innovative idea for Singapore.

Starship V3

How can we make it better? That's a central question which SpaceX addresses to its Raptor engines, but it doesn't stop there. Innovation keeps coming with regard to the "ship" spacecraft which is the top half of the integrated "Starship." 

Version 2 is currently being used for test flights, but V3 is coming (see this video from one of the many avid SpaceX watchers to learn the details) and it's full of upgrades. 

It's bigger, to accommodate both more fuel capacity and bigger payload. Elon's X post shows Starship 3 in comparison to Falcon 1, the first rocket they produced (still in use). 

Vast improvement was made in the relative cost to put payload into orbit: 400x better. (Click on the image to see the small print.)

Raptor explained

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

While currently using version #2 of the Raptor engine on Starship tests, the third is in testing phase, and SpaceX is already working on version #4. Innovation does not stop.

If you're interested in the engineering, go here for the strategies they use in the design of Raptor 3. Here's Elon Musk himself explaining Raptor design elements:

Innovation doesn't stop, and neither does testing. As Elon puts it, "Oh we blew a lot of engines up." To keep up that pace, he says "A high production rate cures many ills. If you have a high production rate, you can have a lot of iterations. You can try lots of different things." You can risk failing because you have a lot more engines in the pipeline.

Five years ago, Jim Bridenstine of NASA put his finger on this distinctive of SpaceX: "SpaceX has something NASA has been lacking, a willingness to fail." They fly, test, fail, fix -- over and over again.

It's still that way at SpaceX.

Raptor engine

Dozens and even hundreds of improvements are made as a result of every Starship test flight.

The Raptor engine has evolved from its first design to a simpler one.

Much of the "fiddly bits" on Raptor 1 have been "deleted, combined, simplified on Raptor 2: a gigantic difference in complexity." 

It's simplified, and yet it's more powerful. The first version produced 185 tons of thrust, the simplified version 2 produces 230 tons of thrust. 

When the next test flight (#9) of Starship launches, it will reuse the same booster and 29 of the same Raptor 2 engines used in test flight #7. It will be the first time for booster and engine reuse in a Starship flight.

Raptor 3, a new design, is still in the testing process.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Robot dog

Boston Dynamics says that they: "Discover practical robotics solutions designed to tackle today's and tomorrow's toughest automation challenges"

They've created a robot dog, about 70 pounds and 3' high, named "Spot."

The catch

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

To remind yourself why they would try to do something as monumentally difficult as catching a rocket in mid-air, go here. 

What a moment that turned out to be. After boosting "Starship" through the thickest part of the atmosphere, seven minutes after launch "Super Heavy" disengaged from it and came hurtling back to earth. 

Precision firing of its raptor engines slowed the 250-ton rocket down til it hovered right over its target. It slowly descended into the "chopstick" arms of the "mechazilla" launch tower, back into the position where in the future it will be readied for the next flight in as little as one hour. 

This process will help attain the goal of the rapid reuse of Starship, essential to Elon's vision. He posted on X: "Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today."

Test flight 5

After telling SpaceX that approval of their next Starship test flight would probably not be granted until late November, the government (FAA) suddenly approved it last Saturday afternoon, three days ago.

SpaceX was ready, and the flight took place just 19 hours later on Sunday morning. To my complete surprise, I saw the tweet on X as we drove home from church (which explains why this post didn't appear yesterday 😐).

As planned, the spectacular accomplishment of the day was the amazing catch of the returning first stage booster in mid-air for the first time ever. In the words of one of the engineer/narrators, history was made. 

Here is the flight video. To see SpaceX's full video at sunrise with more information and more excitement, go here.

Why mid-air catch

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It looks harder to catch a rocket in mid-air, like SpaceX wants to do on its next test flight of Starship, than to just land it in the normal way (which they did in test flight #4).

So I had some questions:  what kind of super-precision is this operation going to take? can Super Heavy hover in the air? can the grid fins really support that huge rocket? 

If you wonder about these questions as well, and have more, you'll enjoy this video which answers this question: Why has SpaceX chosen to catch Super Heavy in mid-air, by the launch tower, before it can land on the ground?

Note: the video has commercial advertisement

h

Air taxi 2

(cont'd from Monday's post)

Air taxis will now be tested in China, a recent development. Ehang has been granted permission to run trial operations of its eVTOL in a city yet to be determined.

It occurs to me to wonder if all the ideas, the technology, in the design of this eVTOL came from Ehang . . .

from Bloomberg

Air taxi

No longer a product of fiction (like The Jetsons' personal aircraft), air taxis may be coming as early as next year.

NASA and Joby Aviation are working on a ride-to-the-airport concept. You are their niche market if you would like to get a ride which takes half the time of driving your car, with no need to park the car at the airport, and with no chance of getting held up in traffic. You will be able to order the ride at the same time you buy your airplane ticket.

image

Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) stir eager interest in "commuter-hell supercities" but won't be common til they're fully tested and certified by governments (perhaps a decade from now).

from Robb Report

More speed 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

At this point, the hyperloop concept is going nowhere here in the US. But the potential is still alive, maybe, in China.

photo

A maglev train was tested successfully in a "low-vacuum" tube 1.2 miles long. Its velocity wasn't reported but may have been as high as 387 miles per hour, much faster than existing high speed rail. 

More testing is the next step. "If it's successful, it could be the next potential solution for high-speed travel across relatively short distances."

from MSN

More speed 1

Hyperloop - fast and autonomous - isn't being developed in the U.S., but faster and/or autonomous transportation appeals to just about everybody. Variations are already used in multiple locations all over the world.

Dubai (UAE) on the Arabian Peninsula has an eye-catching system. Autonomous cars move people along a monorail system between major landmarks like Palm Jumeirah.  Here are 44 other monorail locations.

photo

China had no high-speed rail at the turn of the century, but now has 45,000 network miles, the world's longest HSR. The fastest commercial train in the world runs between Shanghai and its international airport. With peak speed of 268 mph, it makes the 19-mile trip in a little over 7 minutes. It uses "maglev" technology, the magnetic levitation idea connected with the hyperloop concept.

Japan's bullet train was the world's first HSR to operate way back in 1964.

More food 2

Innovation requires the freedom to do research and try ideas. There's also a material cost of actual money. Successful fish farming progresses when there's money to buy the censors and pumps they need to try things (yesterday's post), of course, and farther-out ideas can be tried when there's a lot more money available.

Saudi Arabia's prince has billions upon billions to spend on projects like his experimental city, Neom. They've hired a Dutch greenhouse company to design and build a "synthetic climate" area just outside that city where crops can be grown. 

photo

We're talking about an area the size of fifteen football fields in extremely hot, arid conditions. Most of their food is imported because ordinary farms won't work here. Two test facilities will be built and operated by the Dutch firm.

"Food security is a priority for the planners of Neom, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s $500 billion showpiece project to turn an expanse of desert the size of Belgium into a high-tech region that may eventually host millions of people."

(Maybe this story belongs in the category of "dreams of billionaires" rather than "good news.")

from Bloomberg

More food 1

Feeding the eight billion people now on earth (a number that will keep increasing for a while) is a work that never stops. Some experts in the past predicted that earth couldn't produce enough. But research and innovation keep increasing global capacity.

Natural waters like rivers and oceans are already producing nearly as much as they have the capacity for. Global fish farming now provides almost as much food as what fishermen can catch. 

image

Inherent problems have to be overcome. Uneaten food and fish waste can pollute the surrounding environment and kill the fish, so cleaning the water is essential. Solids can be collected and processed for fertilizer. Even the ammonia can be removed and used.

All of this problem solving takes money for pipes, pumps and monitoring systems. Technology research looks for ways to make it more efficient so that their product, the fish, is available to consumers at prices they are content to pay.

from The Economist

Sickle cell

Follow-up to this post

Now let's return to "1000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023."

Sickle cell disease is worse than I realized. It can mean the life-long threat of debilitating bouts of pain. 

image

But there's new hope because of break-through innovation. 

You may have heard of CRISPR, the technology to edit the genes of living things. A clinical trial for a new CRISPR therapy was conducted four years ago with 30 eligible sickle cell patients, and, astoundingly, it worked for 29 of them. Better than "anyone dared hope." 

A year after the therapy, one of the patients said it changed her life: “Now I’ll be there to help my daughters pick out their wedding dresses. And we’ll be able to take family vacations. And they’ll have their mom every step of the way.”

from Atlantic

EV materials 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Nobody is ready to dispense with modern technology, in spite of problems with their components. Rare earth metals are essential in the motor (not the battery) of electric vehicles, as well as in lots of modern devices like smartphones and wind turbines. They can be both toxic to people and the  environment, and radioactive. 

Most global production of these elements is controlled by China which is moving to increase their hold on the global market. They can use their dominance to achieve political goals.

What's a company to do? They sure won't quit manufacturing modern tech.

General Motors says they are "deeply committed to an all-electric future," so last month they announced a plan to solve the dilemma of rare earths, replacing them with magnets from Niron Magnetics which are not toxic, cost less, and are US-made. Their "Clean Air Magnet" appears on TIME's list of 2023 best inventions.