MIT ChE Class 1966

MIT ChE Class 1966

The year 2016 makes the 50th anniversary of our class. From this inauspicious beginnings we rose as one group of individuals in our chosen profession in the mother country and our beloved USA. We became a part of a huge extended family, no matter the miles that separate us, yet find unity in a common experience and purpose.. Forever classmates...AMOR PATRIAE

Tuesday, August 02, 2022

 





Elon Musk JUST DESTROYED Russia's Best Rocket! Elon Musk has just destroyed Russia’s best rocket by replacing it with his own technology. Thanks to SpaceX, the US can now have a breather in terms of the space race, but it wasn't this way long ago. The US did depend on Russia for its rocket engines since they were one of the best engines ever built so far. On the other hand, Russia, on the other hand, offers its engines to American companies to lift their spaceships into space, but it all changed when the Russian-Ukrainian War began. After posing economic sanctions on Putin’s nation, the US space manufacturing companies did have to find an alternative. Luckily, America has Elon Musk, and we know what all he is capable of. With his team, SpaceX created an engine that is far better and even more cost-effective than compared to Russia’s rocket engine. 





Elon Musk’s New Nuclear Rocket SHOCKS The Entire Space Industry! On the 19th of July 2019, Elon Musk said that “Nuclear thermal rockets for fast transit around the solar system would be a great area of research for NASA” but now he seems to have implemented this idea on his own. As nuclear power-related innovations plan to make interstellar travel faster, more effective, and less expensive, mankind is poised to shape the future of space travel to Mars, our solar system, and beyond. We may be on the verge of entering the age of nuclear-powered space flight. Elon Musk calls it the holy grail of space technology. The nuclear rocket created by Musk might just have revolutionised the way we think about space travel. Getting Off The Earth: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is extremely keen on getting humanity off this planet. And that's more important than ever given the fact that humanity is staring down the barrel of climate change, comet strikes, and dropping birth rates — not to mention, in his words, "good ol' nuclear Armageddon." On November 27th 2021, during an appearance at the National Academies’ joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and Board on Physics and Astronomy, Musk elaborated on his ambitious plans to get a permanent base on Mars established. Musk's argument is simple. Perhaps by the time the next massive asteroid approaches, we'll have developed the technology to shelter the earth or reroute the space rock. However, if anything more terrible occurs, such as a nearby star exploding, we may all be annihilated. Musk claims that we can't afford to wait and find out. It would be simpler to fly if we used fusion power. Researchers are devising methods to capture the massive amount of energy generated during fusion events and utilise it to power a propulsion system. A fusion-powered spaceship might speed up the timeframe for a manned Mars trip by reducing the time it takes to reach Mars. This type of spacecraft might mitigate the negative effects of radiation and weightlessness. The creation of a fusion-powered spaceship would be analogous to the development of an earth-based vehicle with double the peak speed of any car and a fuel economy of 7000 miles per gallon. Although the idea is fascinating and exciting, it is easier said than done. The Limitations Of Current Technology: Humans have been attracted by the stars above them in a variety of ways since the dawn of civilization, but there appears to be a particularly strong modern interest in the astrophysics of the cosmos beyond our solar system. This is due in part to the fact that space agencies throughout the world are conducting a number of new scientific studies. There is a need to develop new propulsion systems that enable substantially greater velocities than are currently possible. Nuclear fusion is one of the most promising options for sending autonomous probes to the closest stars during a human's lifetime,




although economically feasible results have yet to be proved. The most significant barrier to interstellar travel is a lack of sufficient technology; the fact that the stars are so far away is the main problem with getting there. The nearest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light-years distant, which is equal to 269 000 astronomical units au, where 1au equals the average distance between the earth and our sun, which is around 150 000 kilometres. The sun is approximately 7 000 times further away than our solar system's most distant dwarf planet, Pluto, which circles the sun on average at a distance of roughly 40 a.u. In that instance, how long do you think it would take for a probe to reach Proxima? The Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977 to examine Jupiter and Saturn, was the fastest human-built spacecraft. It left the solar system in 2012 and is presently travelling at a speed of 17 kilometres per second (3.6 au per year). If it were headed in that direction, it would take nearly 74 000 years for Voyager 1 to reach Proxima. From a human standpoint, that is not an ideal time frame for a researcher to wait for their results. The utility of the space probe is very certainly dependent on its capacity to return data within a time period suited for humans, such as decades or perhaps a century. The Magnificent Starship: The financial implications are mind-boggling even before Musk announced the new Starship. Despite its size and power, the rocket system is less expensive than the Falcon 9, owing to its reusable architecture. Musk has disclosed that Starship flights might cost as little as $2 million each launch, compared to 62 million for each Falcon 9! So, picture the new, larger, and more powerful nuclear Starship! There's no getting around it: Starship 2.0 is massive! Musk said that it is up to eight times bigger than the present model!







In the era of New Space, billionaire Elon Musk is blazing the trail. He’s building a gigantic starship to fly humans further than ever before. In the tiny Texan hamlet of Boca Chica, a huge rocket is being built and tested. It’s Elon Musk’s Starship, a 120-metre-high spacecraft whose mission is to transport humans to the moon and beyond, to Mars. Musk and his company SpaceX are at the forefront of what’s being called ‘New Space’, the rush to commercialise the space sector. His ambition is extraordinary; he wants to colonise the Red Planet. “It’s helpful to have the objective of a self-sustaining city on Mars. This has to be the objective”, says Musk. In his quest to perfect the Starship, Musk has been blowing up prototypes. “He doesn't really care if it's messy, he doesn’t really care if it appears to be chaotic, he's trying to go forward into the future as fast as possible”, says space writer Eric Berger. But the mighty rocket has its critics, including a former head of NASA, Charlie Bolden. “The difficulty for me as a huge fan of SpaceX, but a huge sceptic about Starship is the fact that it's so big, it's so massive”, says Bolden. “If Neil Armstrong were alive today to talk to them, he would probably say, "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.” US correspondent Sarah Ferguson heads to Texas to see Musk’s space base up close. She joins a band of devotees in Boca Chica, from Gene the local surfer to MaryLiz and Ryan who are dedicating their lives to documenting the billionaire’s space odyssey. She speaks to members of the ‘space establishment’ – former and current NASA executives who’ve decided to accept and work with the great disruptor. NASA recently awarded Musk a multi-billion-dollar contract to build its next moon lander. “I think actually this will be a perfect example of ‘New Space’ and ‘Old Space’ meeting together in a great new mission”, says Kathy Lueders, head of the NASA mission to send humans back to the moon. Sarah travels to Florida’s space coast to witness the launch of SpaceX’s Inspiration4, the first time civilians have flown into orbit. Musk is a polarising figure, but he’s changed forever how humans view space.

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