All posts tagged: interplanetary

SpaceX IPO filing brings Musk’s interplanetary ambitions to Wall Street

SpaceX IPO filing brings Musk’s interplanetary ambitions to Wall Street

Published by Sam Flores

May 20 : As Elon Musk’s SpaceX races toward what could be the largest IPO in history, its filing delivers a rare mix of hard financial data and bold ambitions of exploring the frontiers of space. The filing’s references to lunar missions and Mars settlement echo the popular space-age futuristic themes of “The Martian” and “Interstellar,” while grounding those ambitions in the more familiar language of commercial space development. The company identified asteroid mining, in-orbit manufacturing and energy production on the moon and Mars as potential future opportunities, even though these ventures appear nowhere near feasibility. The language in the filing at times veered from conventional corporate disclosure to warnings of existential peril. “We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs,” the company said, as it made a case for interplanetary travel. The part-balance-sheet, part-science-fiction nature of the paperwork is just one of several signs that show how unprecedented SpaceX’s IPO truly is, in terms of size, ambition and business model. It is also consistent with Musk’s public persona. The billionaire …

NASA is building the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft. How will it work?

NASA is building the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft. How will it work?

Published by skeptic

What might the SR-1 look like? MIT Technology Review saw a presentation by Steve Sinacore, program executive of NASA’s Space Reactor Office, that offers some clues. So far, the concept art makes it look like a colossal fletched arrow. At the back will be the power-and-propulsion system, while its tip will hold a 20-kilowatt-or-greater uranium-filled nuclear reactor. (For context, a typical nuclear plant on Earth is 50,000 times more powerful, producing a gigawatt of power.)  NASA The “fletches” on SR-1 are large fins that allow the reactor to cool down. “You have to have really large radiators,” says Holmes, since the nuclear fission process produces so much heat that much of it has to be vented into space—otherwise, the reactor and spacecraft will melt. According to that presentation, the spacecraft’s hardware development is due to start this June. By January 2028, SR-1’s systems should be ready for assembly and testing. And by that October, the spacecraft will arrive at the launch site, ready for liftoff before the year’s end. Will the nuclear reactor manage to …

What time is it on Mars? This analog ‘Interplanetary Clock’ can tell you.

What time is it on Mars? This analog ‘Interplanetary Clock’ can tell you.

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. If humans ever expect to live on Mars, we’re going to need to get very good at keeping Martian time. The task is simple enough on Earth, thanks to standardized time zones based on a single planet’s daily rotation. But scheduling a long-distance chat between different planets won’t be as easy. While NASA will undoubtedly rely on advancing computing tools and laser communications arrays, you don’t need particularly high-tech equipment to learn the approximate time on a neighboring planet. As a U.K.-based team of DIY specialists at Chronova Engineering recently showcased, all that’s needed is a few well-designed (and well-placed) gears. Building an Interplanetary Clock Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an understatement. Chronova’s Interplanetary Clock is as beautiful as it is mechanically imposing. According to their construction documentary, the device requires 131 individual parts, including bespoke-cut gears placed in seven gear trains to interpolate between not only Earth and Mars, but also Jupiter and Saturn. Each planet’s dial …

xAI lays out interplanetary ambitions in public all-hands

xAI lays out interplanetary ambitions in public all-hands

Published by skeptic

On Wednesday, xAI took the rare step of publishing a full 45-minute all-hands meeting video on X, making it publicly accessible. Details of the Tuesday night meeting were previously reported by The New York Times, which may have influenced xAI’s decision to post the video online. The full video reveals significant new details about Musk’s plans for the AI lab, including its product roadmap and its ongoing ties to the X platform. The most immediate revelation concerned a string of departing employees, which Musk described as layoffs resulting from a changing organizational structure at the company. While reorganizations are common, the breadth of the departures has caused significant confusion, particularly as it has meant the loss of a significant portion of the founding team. “As a company grows, especially as quickly as xAI, the structure must evolve,” Musk said on X. “This unfortunately required parting ways with some people. We wish them well in future endeavors.” The new organizational system splits xAI into four primary teams: one focused on the Grok chatbot (including voice), another …

The new Dyson sphere: An interplanetary warning system

The new Dyson sphere: An interplanetary warning system

Published by skeptic

This article describes the scientific motivation and high-level concept for a warning system for advanced space weather prediction with increasing accuracy. As humanity’s reliance on microelectronics and orbital infrastructure reaches critical levels, our civilisation faces an unprecedented vulnerability to solar volatility. While the original Dyson sphere was a thought experiment in energy harvesting, the “new Dyson sphere” is a pragmatic necessity for planetary defence: a distributed, interplanetary framework of information-capture constellations. By integrating multipoint spacecraft clusters, standardised mass-produced units, and real-time AI forecasting, this proposed system moves beyond the 30-minute warning window of current Lagrange-1 point monitors. It offers a paradigm shift in heliophysics – providing the 12-hour lead times essential for stabilising global power grids, protecting satellite networks, and ensuring the safety of Artemis and Mars explorers. This article outlines the scientific breakthroughs in Kelvin-Helmholtz wave detection and the industrial standardisation required to turn space weather from a trillion-dollar threat into a manageable operational event. Introduction Sixty-four years ago, physicist Freeman Dyson proposed a thought experiment that became a staple of science fiction: an …