SpaceX Will Make History This Month!

on today's episode new details on a historic SpaceX Mission NASA's crew returned safely from Mars we learn more about a Russian satellite explosion and Issa is building Lego in space a new date has been revealed for SpaceX to make history yet again they do this often but the big event to look forward to this month will be Polaris Dawn now targeting a launch date as early as July 31st although rocket launch times are never set in stone but either way this flight promises to be an epic journey into the great beyond the first thing to really know about Polaris Dawn is that it's a mission using SpaceX Hardware but it's not a SpaceX Mission this is a private space flight funded by billionaire Adventurer Jared isaacman you might remember this guy from the inspiration 4 Mission that was filmed for a Netflix show and ended up raising 200 50 million for the St Jude Children's Research Hospital Jared is back with another self-funded Excursion to outer space but this time the depth of the mission objectives are much greater and the stakes are even higher the headline feature of Polaris Dawn is that it will involve the first ever private commercial spacewalk meaning that every other time people have ever been out there floating in a space suit it's been a mission directed by NASA or another government body this spacewalk will be totally independent and if that weren't enough ISAC men's crew will be doing this at a higher altitude than ever before 700 km above the Earth aside from the Apollo missions that went to the moon the highest spacewalk had previously been a space shuttle mission to service the Hubble telescope that's at an altitude of 550 km Polaris Dawn will also look to break another standing record for the high Earth orbit again aside from Apollo that Milestone was set by Gemini 11 at an altitude of 1,368 km in the year 1966 isaacman is looking to go beyond 1,400 kilometers With His Highest orbit it's worth noting that Jared isn't just some rich dude he was flying jet fighter planes in the Black Diamond aerobatics team by his early 20s and he holds a record for the fastest circum navigation of the globe in a jet aircraft he's also bringing along with him a retired United States Air Force officer named Scott kid potit as his Pilot and Mission specialist plus two operations Engineers from SpaceX Sarah Gillis and Anam Manan This Crew has gone through some extremely rigorous training that has involved everything from military skydiving to climbing mountains and being spun around in a giant centrifuge machine broken records and first first ever achievements are obviously very cool but this is not actually the most important thing that Polaris Dawn will be doing while they're in Space the primary value of this Mission will be testing new hardware and collecting important data about the human body and how we're affected by space flight not only will this be the highest altitude a Dragon capsule has ever flown it will also be the first time the vehicle has ever been fully depressurized and exposed to the vacuum of space since dragon has no air loock the only way to conduct a spacewalk is to Simply open the hatch and step outside this means that every system of the dragon from the plumbing to the touchscreen console has to be able to withstand a total loss of pressure and the extreme temperature environment of outer space in addition SpaceX will be using this opportunity to test their new extra vehicular space suit design an upgrade to the current flight suit which is only intended to be fully pressurized in the event of a catastrophic failure so this new suit will allow full mobility in a vacuum environment though it will also maintain an umbilical connection to the Dragon for life support systems and Beyond just the hardware Polaris daon has a gigantic list of medical testing that will be ongoing through the duration of their flight and after their return to Earth there's too much to really mention everything here but a few standouts would be measuring expanding intracranial pressure the crew member potit will undergo a lumbar puncture also known as a spinal tap while in space to measure changes in pressure of his spinal fluid this is super important for understanding something called spaceflight Associated neuro ocular syndrome or sand which is thought to be caused by increased brain pressure during space missions in additional sand surveillance they'll also be collecting detailed eye images and vision data throughout the mission using NASA's protocols this will create a rich data set to better understand Sands building on what we've learned from government astronauts the biobank the crew bios specimens will be stored and analyzed at Baylor College of Medicine this will give us a deep insight into the molecular changes happening in the human body during space travel helping us to understand how it affects our own health by diving into these crucial Health aspects the Polaris Dawn Mission aims to help enhance our knowledge of the health risks tied to long duration space travel this research is vital for making future missions to the Moon Mars and Beyond safer and more successful NASA's first crew has returned safely from the planet Mars or at least the closest simulation we have right now of the red planet which is called Mars Dune Alpha and it's located in Houston Texas the initial crew of four volunteers exited their 3D printed Mar simulator on July 6th after 378 days of total isolation from the world around them a totally immersive interplanetary experience that appears to have concluded as an overwhelmingly positive time for all involved which is a pleasant surprise given our often sketchy history with human isolation experiments this particular mission was dubbed Chapa which stands for crew health and performance exploration analog and the year long Excursion took place inside a 3D printed bunker with just 1,700 Square ft of internal space and judging by this quick walkthrough video it looks pretty tight though it looks like they do have some pretty nice fixtures and Furniture in there while inside the team grew and harvested several vegetables to supplement their shelf stable food maintained their environment and habitat and operated under additional stresses amar's crew will experience including Communications delays with Earth resource limitations and isolation the only reprieve from the Mars Dune Alpha base was a 1200 square foot sandbox where they could conduct simulated Mars walks to explore the Martian surface chapia 1 has been a unique experience with great challenges Joys and sorrows and a lot of hard work with a fair bit of fun thrown in as well said Mission Commander Kelly haston after emerging from the Mars Dune base on a NASA live stream experiments like this are the pioneering steps that NASA is taking toward sending crude missions to the red planet an objective that remains presumptively set for the late 2030s to 2040s we have some new details on a Russian satellite mishap that sent a new cloud of debris into low earth orbit and threatened the safety of astronauts on the ISS late last month the US space command reported that a defunct Russian remote sensing satellite called research P1 suffered a breakup event on June 26th at an altitude of around 355 km this created more than 100 New pieces of orbital debris that could be identified by groundbased sensors government sources have refused to provide more specific details but the private sector company leol Labs who specialize in low earth orbit visualizations and tracking Services they've reached an initial conclusion that a low intensity EXP explosion which either came from a collision or from within the spacecraft itself is what created the debris leolabs has identified at least 250 debris fragments at altitudes extending as high as 500 km if there was an impact it would have come from a small fragment that is not currently in the known catalog there's also the possibility of an internal structure failure that might have triggered an explosion inside the satellites propulsion system the good news of the situation is that the initial findings rule out another Russian anti-satellite missile test in low earth orbit something that we've seen as recently as 2021 the explosion does not appear to have caused the satellite itself to break apart observations of resource P show that the main satellite is still up there and it's kind of spinning around with a rotation of once every two or three seconds the satellite itself was decommissioned back in 2021 and it's expected to re-enter the atmosphere later this year the bad news is that the debris field from the explosion is currently moving through an altitude used by many other operational satellites as well as the International Space Station and China's tiang gong space station leol laabs estimates that it will take between weeks and months before these objects are pulled down by atmospheric drag can you imagine building a Lego house on the moon issa's spaceship EAC has made it possible with bricks that are 3D printed from space dust Issa has achieved the remarkable feat of 3D printing Lego bricks from lunar regolith and meteor dust showcasing the potential for future construction on the moon the challenge of 3D printing Lego bricks lies in their precise size and shape which is notoriously difficult to achieve but the team at Issa has nailed it these interlocking bricks are more than just a fun experiment they're there a proof of concept for building future lunar modular infrastructure think habitat walls and protective barriers all made right on the moon moreover these bricks are crafted from not just lunar regulus but also from a 4.5 billion-year old meteorite Lego Space bricks 3D printed on Earth using the same materials we would find on the moon and in ancient meteor dust it's like holding a piece of the cosmos in your hands so why is this such a big deal the key lies in a concept called insitu resource utilization or isru instead of sending tons of supplies from Earth which is incredibly expensive and timec consuming isru focuses on using what's already available on the moon moondust or regulus can be used for construction we can even extract oxygen and metals from it this approach is crucial for sustainable living and working on the moon imagine a future where robots or astronauts build their lunar bases using materials they find right beneath their feet to bring this incredible technology to a wider public spaceship EAC has teamed up with Lego to produce a special batch of these space bricks this summer you'll be able to see them in Lego stores all around the world it's a fantastic way to spark curiosity and Inspire the next generation of Engineers and Space Explorers

Channel: The Space Race

Views: 102,833

Keywords: spacex, elon musk, polaris dawn, falcon 9, dragon, crew dragon, capsule, spacewalk, spacesuit, space suit, eva, sans, spinal tap, biology, human spaceflight, space tourism, update, news, jared isaacman, inspiration 4, vacuum, van allen belt, radiation, mars dune alpha, 3d printing, mars, nasa, astronaut, russia, explosion, debris, satelite, lego, moon brick

Id: DianoCUQodg

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 10 2024