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Category: space travel

Why Supersonic Jet Engines Will Power AI Data Centers

⚙️ Q: What makes supersonic engines better than subsonic for ground power generation? A: Supersonic engines designed for 160°F operation at 60,000 ft and Mach 1.7 handle high ground temperatures without requiring water cooling, throttling, or water spray that subsonic engines need to avoid melting in hot conditions.

Deployment Timeline.

📅 Q: When will Boom’s engines start powering AI data centers? A: Boom’s supersonic engines are scheduled to begin providing power to AI customers in 2027, becoming the most tested new jet engine ever before carrying passengers.

Business Model.

💰 Q: How does powering data centers benefit Boom’s supersonic aircraft development? A: The symbiotic relationship creates a financial bridge where engines generate revenue from data center operations before deployment in commercial passenger aircraft, funding the experimental-to-commercial transition.

Environmental Considerations.

Continue reading “Why Supersonic Jet Engines Will Power AI Data Centers” | >

Space travel will radically change human psychology and spirituality

It may cause us to geneticly engineer ourselves to live in dangerous environments too.

Throughout human history, we have associated our spirituality, myths, and religions with the sky. Constellations are peppered with sky stories, from Orion to Warepil (the eagle constellation of aboriginal Australians). The Lakota Native Americans associated the Milky Way as a path for departed souls. Jesus ascended to the heavens. The primary god of ancient Egyptians was Ra, the god of the Sun. And the entire Universe was seen inside Krishna’s mouth.

Jason Batt, a science fiction author, mythologist, and futurist, has spent a lot of time thinking about stories like this, and how our relationship with the heavens will change when we become a space-faring race. “So what happens to humanity?” Batt, who is also a co-founder of Deep Space Predictive Research Group and a Creative Manager of 100 Year Starship, pondered while speaking to Big Think. “What is going to change in us? What is going to transform?”

Even though we often associate our space travel with feats of engineering and science, there is an undeniable connection with our myth as well. We see this in how we name our rockets destined for space: Gemini, Apollo, Artemis. Going to space is big, not just for our technology, but for our spirits.

It is rocket science: New method to more rapidly evaluate heat shields

From the tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 to the now-routine return of commercial spacecraft, heat shields—formally called thermal protection systems—are critical for protecting vehicles from the intense heat and friction of atmospheric reentry or traveling at many times the speed of sound.

Now, a team of engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed ways to rapidly evaluate new thermal protection materials for hypersonic vehicles. Their three-year research project combined computer modeling, laboratory experiments and flight testing to better understand how heat shields behave under extreme temperatures and pressures, and to predict their performance much faster than before.

Hypersonic flight means traveling at speeds of at least five times faster than the speed of sound, or more than 3,800 miles per hour. Other vehicles, such as ballistic missiles, can travel this fast, but hypersonic vehicles are far more maneuverable and unpredictable, making them harder to intercept. Unlike reusable spacecraft, the thermal protection systems used on U.S. hypersonic missiles—which solely deliver conventional weapons—are designed for a single use.

Elon Says SpaceX Going To $100T!! (Moon Base)

🚀 Q: How will SpaceX reduce launch costs for space data centers?

A: SpaceX plans to build a lunar mass driver that will launch massive data centers into deep space at lower cost than using Starship rockets, with the mass driver eventually becoming the cheaper and more efficient method after initial Starship-based launches establish the infrastructure.

🏭 Q: What facilities will SpaceX build on the lunar base?

Analyzing Bill Ackman’s SpaceX IPO Offer w/ Tesla Larry

🔹 Q: What specific cost advantages does SPARC offer beyond eliminating underwriting fees? A: SPARC reduces friction, cost, and time by bypassing the traditional investment banking process entirely, eliminating promotional fees and creating a cleaner, more transparent process than traditional SPACs.

🔹 Q: How would Tesla shareholders get early access to SpaceX shares through SPARC? A: Tesla shareholders would receive special rights to acquire SpaceX shares at the IPO price before the public, potentially through warrants at a discounted price, allowing them to benefit from SpaceX’s future growth.

🔹 Q: What advantage does SPARC provide Tesla investors over traditional IPO allocation? A: SPARC enables more equitable allocation of SpaceX shares to Tesla investors, avoiding the traditional gated process that benefits Wall Street bankers’ friends and their preferred clients.

🔹 Q: How could SpaceX share access impact Tesla’s stock price? A: The SPARC structure allowing Tesla shareholders to receive warrants for SpaceX shares at discounted prices could potentially boost Tesla’s stock price by providing unique value to existing shareholders.

Pricing Control.

🔹 Q: Who controls pricing in SPARC versus traditional IPO? A: SPARC allows the public to set the price rather than banker control, giving SpaceX more control over pricing decisions compared to traditional IPO where investment banks determine valuation.

Continue reading “Analyzing Bill Ackman’s SpaceX IPO Offer w/ Tesla Larry” | >

Anode-free battery can double electric vehicle driving range

Could an electric vehicle travel from Seoul to Busan and back on a single charge? Could drivers stop worrying about battery performance even in winter? A Korean research team has taken a major step toward answering these questions by developing an anode-free lithium metal battery that can deliver nearly double driving range using the same battery volume.

A joint research team led by Professor Soojin Park and Dr. Dong-Yeob Han of the Department of Chemistry at POSTECH, together with Professor Nam-Soon Choi and Dr. Saehun Kim of KAIST, and Professor Tae Kyung Lee and researcher Junsu Son of Gyeongsang National University, has successfully achieved a volumetric energy density of 1,270 Wh/L in an anode-free lithium metal battery. This value is nearly twice that of current lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, which typically deliver around 650 Wh/L. The article is published in Advanced Materials.

An anode-free lithium metal battery eliminates the conventional anode altogether. Instead, lithium ions stored in the cathode move during charging and deposit directly onto a copper current collector. By removing unnecessary components, more internal space can be devoted to energy storage, much like fitting more fuel into the same-sized tank.

Engineering the first reusable launchpads on the moon

Engineers need good data to build lasting things. Even the designers of the Great Pyramids knew the limestone they used to build these massive structures would be steady when stacked on top of one another, even if they didn’t have tables of the compressive strength of those stones.

But when attempting to build structures on other worlds, such as the moon, engineers don’t yet know much about the local materials. Still, due to the costs of getting large amounts of materials off of Earth, they will need to learn to use those materials even for critical applications like a landing pad to support the landing / ascent of massive rockets used in re-supply operations.

A new paper published in Acta Astronautica from Shirley Dyke and her team at Purdue University describes how to build a lunar landing pad with just a minimal amount of prior knowledge of the material properties of the regolith used to build it.

Inside SpaceX’s Pre-IPO Share Buyback and Who Gets Access

SpaceX is preparing for a potential IPO by buying back shares from institutional holders and allowing existing shareholders to sell shares, while its affiliate company Tesla is making progress in autonomous driving technology with plans to launch robo-taxis in multiple cities ## Questions to inspire discussion.

SpaceX Investment Access.

🔐 Q: How can individual investors access SpaceX shares before the IPO?

A: Investors must be accredited with liquid net worth over $1M (excluding home) and can access shares through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) that charge upfront fees and 10% carry on returns.

💰 Q: What is the minimum investment required to buy SpaceX shares directly?

A: Direct SpaceX share purchases require $50M-$1B investments due to SEC’s 2,000 shareholder cap for private companies, making SPVs the only option for smaller investors.

Continue reading “Inside SpaceX’s Pre-IPO Share Buyback and Who Gets Access” | >

For the 1st time ever, a person who uses a wheelchair will fly to space

Blue Origin will make history when it sends the first person who uses a wheelchair past the Kármán line, an internationally recognized boundary of space that’s 62 miles above Earth.

On its next mission, a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket will take Michaela “Michi” Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer who suffered a spinal cord injury after a mountain biking accident, along with five others, on a journey past the Kármán line. New Shepard rockets are fully reusable spacecraft that Blue Origin says require less maintenance between flights, saving money and reducing waste.

The NS-37 mission will be the 16th human flight for Blue Origin, which has taken 86 people — 80 individuals — above the Kármán line.

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