On today's episode, we are getting into the latest space news, including Starship
is getting quote unquote one thousand new changes before its second test flight, NASA
lock's a research team in a Martian simulator for a whole year, and Blue
Origin is developing a crew capsule with NASA's help. This is the space race.
Starship is facing well over a thousand design changes, and we'll need another
six weeks to implement them all before another test flight is possible. That is
the latest confirmation from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. On June twenty fourth, Elon
attended a Twitter spaces event with author Ashley Vance, and during a conversation,
the CEO spoke for a bit on some of the changes to his company's super
heavy launch vehicle and some of the changes being made to ensure a better chance
at getting into orbit with the next test. Thousands of changes is almost certainly
an exaggeration, but Musk did give us at least one specific example hot staging.
Hot staging is a method of separating stages of a launch vehicle midflight,
which has been used mostly by Russian rockets for some time now. Normally,
when a vehicle stages, the engines stop for a few moments to allow inertia
and the separation devices to slowly and safely pull the used booster or vehicle section
away from the upper ones before igniting the upper stage engines and continuing the flight.
Hot staging instead keeps those lower stage engines on, but begins to taper
the thrust down and then lighting the upper stage engines while the two stages are
still attached. This allows the vehicle to maintain a controlled acceleration, but it
also runs risks like incinerating your lower stage booster with the force of the upper
stage engines. To combat this, rockets like the Soviet and One had large
vents at the separation joint between stages, as well as extra shielding just under
the upper stage engines to protect the booster, and Eli says that's exactly how
Starship is being upgraded. A small extension to the first stage super heavy booster
will be added that's basically just a reinforced vent. This will let the upper
stage's jet plume be safely redirected outwards and allow for hot staging. Musk believes
that this will be the most risky part of the next launch's test, which
is fair if the shielding isn't enough, the first stage booster will be blown
apart, likely taking the payload with it, and if any of the upper
stage engines fail to light, the whole vehicle could be blown off course.
It is, however, a good upgrade to the overall design. If SpaceX
can perfect the system, it will give Starship a smooth acceleration curve while escaping
the Earth's atmosphere, which is usually the hardest part of a launch, and
losing engines makes that attempt even harder. During Starship's first test flight on April
twentieth, several engines weren't engaged. They either failed to light or were taken
offline by the SpaceX ground team in response to dangerous readings. Many observers believe
that the plume of crushed concrete from the destroyed launchpad played a part in that
issue, but Elon pointed out a bigger problem during his chat on Twitter spaces
Apparently, the manifold that directs superheated methane into the combustion chambers of the ship's
engines had sprung several leaks during the test. The super heavy booster had never
been tested at anything more than fifty percent power before, and as it turned
out, superheated gas at high pressure was more than certain parts of the manifolds
could handle. The problem happened around the areas where the manifolds had to be
bolted to the ship itself, a common spot for fluid systems to leak.
The solution, Elon says was to redesign the manifolds themselves and use a higher
torque rating to secure the bolts. Musk also brought up the new Deluch system,
a high pressure showerheadlike device that will shoot water upwards from a large steel
plate mounted under the orbital launch mount. SpaceX watchers have been discussing this system
for a couple of weeks now, so we are mostly familiar with how it's
supposed to work. Time will tell, though, if it actually stops the
next Starship launch from blowing a sizeable hole in the Boca Chika sand. But
while those are big changes involving many smaller adjustments, it's hardly thousands. However,
Elon is likely talking about the changes we already know are being implemented to
the Starship and super heavy designs, things like swapping out the older hydraulic control
units, the ones that ended up exploding on the first Starship launch for new
electric units. That's a fairly complex change that will end up solving some of
the issues we saw on April twentieth. We've also seen a lot of testing
at SpaceX's test range at Massey, Texas with regards to the flight termination system,
at least that's what it looks like. The FDS not operating like it
should have back in April was probably the most concerning hardware failure of the day,
and if SpaceX hopes to secure another launch license from the FAA, they
will need to address at and Finally, we have also been seeing interesting hardware
variations from newer models of Starship coming out of the star Factory. Sightings of
a strange new internal structure has had observers wandering about crew compartments and Starship Lander
variants. While this look at the nose cone of Ship thirty appears to have
the first glimpse of a reaction control system, the delicate thrusters required to help
a ship make precise maneuvers in space like for docking. Those are indeed a
lot of changes being made to Starship's design, possibly even thousands, like Ulon
says, and they will take some time to implement properly, even if several
of these changes are already complete on different prototypes. But Musk's timeline hasn't changed
from the one he provided on Twitter last week in response to some questions.
But whether or not Starship gets a second crack at reaching orbit in six weeks
isn't up to him. It's up to the FAA, who is currently dealing
with a lawsuit and finishing up their investigation of the first Starship launch, an
investigation which is guaranteed to present a list of changes the FAA will want to
see before allowing SpaceX to proceed with a second test. Like we said though
last week, could NASA and the US government have too much riding on success
of Starship and we've all seen how long they'll keep a project going once they've
invested in it. Just look at Boeing Starliner or the SOS. In the
meantime, let's all keep an eye on the build site. Will always learn
more from watching work being done than listening to a media event. The first
real training for MARS has begun on June twenty fifth, at seven thirty Eastern
Time. A four person crew of NASA volunteers stepped into the simulated Mars base
at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and they'll spend a whole
year in their conducting tests for the crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog or CHAPPIE
tests. Mission one will be the first to use this mock environment, and
crew will be monitored remotely by researchers and medical staff. Named Mars Don Alpha,
the seventeen hundred square foot three D printed hab structure and an adjacent Mars
Sandbox simulated environment were built to study the effects of living on Mars for these
small crew of four. Researchers Anka Solariu, Kelly Haston, Nathan Jones,
and Ross Brockwell are the first of three crews who will spend extended periods of
time inside the mock hab, testing the psychological effects of living in the isolation
and danger that surviving on Mars will bring on any crew we send there.
These analog astronauts will be eating only food that is already stored on site and
only leaving the hab to make mock trips outside into the Mars Sandbox area in
their EVA suits. They'll even have simulated communication leg their talks with Mission control
being delayed by twenty two minutes both ways to approximate the realities of talking back
and forth with a crew on Mars. The crew were selected to be as
close to real astronauts as possible. They all have at least one stem field
degree, they all have some professional experience in their chosen field or military training,
of course, and they all had to pass the same physical and psychological
testing as other astronaut candidates. The Champion experiments are all about testing for the
one thing we really can test from Earth. Resource restrictions, isolation, communication,
leg ration, food, and the rigorous schedule of upkeep required to maintain
their hab are all forms of restriction that will affect the mental state of the
people we send to Mars. The only thing that won't be tested is the
length of daytime and gravity. NASA texts can easily control the day night cycle
in the simulation, but according to studies, the extra thirty nine minutes and
thirty five seconds of a Martian day really only impact mission controlled back on Earth,
so there's no real need to test the astronauts, who will pretty easily
adapt to the change. NASA can't test the thirty eight percent gravity for obvious
reasons. The first test of Martian conditions might be simulated, but we shouldn't
forget that these crews are still taking a risk here. Psychological damage from living
in isolation is a very real threat, and it's important that we understand what
could happen to the people we sent to Mars when the time comes. Best
of luck Mission one. On June fifteenth, NASA announced that they had signed
agreements with seven companies through their Commercial Space Capabilities Too initiative, with the goal
to help these companies with their space infrastructure and vehicle projects. And while we
did discuss these agreements just last week, there was one contract that we wanted
to spend some more time on. The contract with Blue Origin, the launch
company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Like with the other contracts, NASA's
partnership with Blue Origin is unfunded and revolves around NASA giving the company their expertise
and their res to help in any capacity they can. That is an incredible
boost to any space launch company, funding or not. But like we mentioned,
six other companies are getting the same treatment. So what makes Blue Origins
contracts stand out? As it turns out, NASA is helping Blue Origin develop
a crude vehicle for high frequency US access to orbit, which is extremely interesting.
NASA currently has three crude vehicles that are rated for use in orbit for
their missions, the Orion capsule made by NASA themselves, Crew Dragon made by
SpaceX, and Soius made by the Russian Space Agency ross Cosmos, but they
have invested in other vehicles such as the dream Chaser space plane made by Sierra
Space and the Starliner crew capsule made by Boeing. The problem is that the
Orion isn't really meant for rapid use, being as it is an exploration craft
made for the Artemis missions, and with the Sous being a design from the
late nineteen sixties and Russia's increasing unreliability, NASA really only has Dragon to work
with for things like crew transfers to the ISS. Dream Chaser could change that,
but there's still months away from a potential flight test, and Boeing has
been struggling to get their Starliner capsule working for so long that NASA is likely
starting to look elsewhere, and that's where Blue Origin comes in. Technically,
the company has two crew rated vehicles, the New Shepherd and the Blue Moon,
which is their prototype lunar lander that's just been contracted to carry the Artemis
five astronauts to the Moon's surface. New Shepherd is probably closer to what NASA
is looking for with this partnership, though as part of a suborbital launch system.
The New Shepherd none the less flew twenty two successful missions before failing back
in September twenty twenty two, and the launch escape system managed to get the
capsule to safety in that instance. Regardless, that is a pretty good track
record. Even if NASA needs something hardier than a suborbital tourist capsule, and
it's likely Blue Origin has been working on something that is fit for orbital work.
Their heavy lift rocket, the New Glen, is just about ready for
its own test launch and was designed to ferry payloads and vehicles like the Blue
moon Lander into space. It's a pretty good bet that Blue Origin could get
an orbit capable crude capsule ready, especially if NASA lends a hand. Now,
there's no guarantee that this partnership comes to anything, but Blue Origin definitely
has the resources to compete with SpaceX in this arena. Most importantly, their
plans already include partnerships with Sierra Space and Bowing. They are a good company
to use this sort of unfunded contract with, and if Boeing ever gets around
to getting Starline or working properly, NASA would have access to three crew ready
fast deployment capsules and a space plane to boot, which is not a bad
stable to keep