~nextbigfuture-com | Bookmarks (363)

There are report that there will be a third Tesla megapack factory and it will be in Texas. The will be located in Waller County, within the Empire West Industrial Park, near Houston and part of the Houston metropolitan area (close to Katy, Texas). It is expected to span approximately 1.6 million square feet, though ... Read more

Brian Wang talks to Herbert Ong, Brian White and Nick Gibb about his pick for the first China carmaker to license Tesla FSD. The financial impact of the tax deductible interest on car loans for US made cars and how many more cars Tesla will sell. What will happen with the Tesla share prices ? ... Read more

Robert Zubrin talks about reducing the mass of SpaceX Starship by a factor of 5 for a Starboat mini-Starship. The linear dimensions would scale by the cube root of 1/5 ≈ 0.58. This gives a diameter of 9 × 0.58 ≈ 5.2 meters. The mass would then be 1320 / 5 = 264 tons (assuming ... Read more

Robert Zubrin, Presiden of the Mars Society, has developed an updated Mars plan that builds on his original Mars Direct proposal. This new plan integrates modern spaceflight technologies, such as SpaceX’s Starship, with his core principles of cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and the use of local Martian resources. Central to this vision is a conceptual spacecraft referred ... Read more

As flight testing and development of Starship continues at Starbase in Texas, SpaceX is building a new integration facility, called Gigabay, next to its HangarX location at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Additionally, SpaceX plans to complete the Starship launch pad at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center this year while the Environmental Impact ... Read more

Colossus Bioscience creation of the woolly mice Tuesday in a news release and posted a scientific paper online detailing the achievement. Scientists implanted genetically modified embryos in female lab mice that gave birth to the first of the woolly pups in October. Reviving extinct species like the mammoth, the dodo and others could help repair ... Read more

Many space people are worried about a space junk catastrophe called the Kessler Syndrome. Lower orbits reduce the risk of the Kessler syndrome. Here are considerations of fuel needs and aerodynamic factors, especially in the context of SpaceX’s low-cost launches with reusable Starships. De-Orbit Times and Fuel Requirements Above is a table summarizing the estimated ... Read more

Tesla China weekly registrations are at about the level in the same week last year. YTD only 8K behind last year despite the Model Y refresh ramp. The Tesla Model 3 has started a 0% interest rate incentive in the US. I think this is to clear model 3 inventory ahead of the new model ... Read more

AI spending is huge and it is sustainable and has indications that it is profitable spending. Returns are from AI are being seen. The smaller spending from 2 years ago sees a lag in returns but adjusting for lag shows profits. Pascal’s Wager Applied (CEOs Believe in Godlike AI) Invest and AI Succeeds: Huge payoff—competitive ... Read more

Venus Aerospace is building a hypersonic aircraft that can carry about a dozen passengers, traveling at Mach 9, nine times the speed of sound. The Stargazer, which measures 150 feet long by 100 feet wide, will travel between two cities in the world by flying 6,905 mph at an altitude of 170,000 feet. Hypersonic is ... Read more

The UK is talking about sending ground troops to the Ukraine. March 2, 2025, Starmer has discussed the possibility of the UK participating in a coalition of the willing alongside France and other nations to deploy troops to Ukraine. However, this is framed as a peacekeeping effort to enforce a potential peace deal, rather than ... Read more

The smallest widely available Starlink antenna is the Starlink Mini, which is significantly larger than a typical cellphone (about the size of a laptop or small tablet). There is a range of Starlink antenna offerings. What are there specifications? What are there use cases? How Larger Version 3 Satellites Boost Signal Strength The larger size ... Read more

SpaceX launches the 8th Starship flight tomorrow March 3, 2025. There will be four dummy version 3 Starlink satellites deployed. If this test is successful it will set the stage for version 3 Starlink satellites on all future Starship test and real flights. SpaceX Starship will go Orbital after the launch tomorrow. There will be ... Read more

DeepSeek has revealed they makes $200M/yr at 85%+ profit margins. This means their profits margins are larger than the 72-77% profit margins of Nvidia. Revenue (/day): $562k Cost (/day): $87k Revenue (/yr): ~$205M This is all while charging $2.19/M tokens on R1, ~25x less than OpenAI o1. If Deepseek was in the US, they would ... Read more

A drone operator flying over the Tesla Fremont factory is spotting thousands of front vehicle casting being stored at the factory. He also found one of the castings by itself so its shape can be seen. Castings for in production vehicles would normally not be stored in such high numbers. There was an accumulation of ... Read more

Venus Aerospace and Hermeus are two innovative companies advancing hypersonic technology, focusing on engine efficiency, rapid prototype development, and simplified propulsion systems to operate across speed regions from 0 to Mach 5 and beyond. Here is analysis of why their technologies and plans should succeed. How will they get more thrust and efficiency and get ... Read more

SpaceX @Starlink has over 5 million customers, up from 4.6 million in December 2024 and 3 million in May 2024. Starship Flight 8 goals: – Deploy four Starlink simulators – Super Heavy Booster launch, return, and catch – Conduct critical reentry tests, including stress-testing with fewer tiles and evaluating new thermal protection options pic.twitter.com/em0Jj9DPPj — ... Read more

Venus Aerospace, a leader in hypersonics deep-tech startups aimed at revolutionizing high-speed flight, has successfully achieved ignition of its ‘VDR2’ engine. VDR2 offers a single engine solution from Mach 0 to Mach 6. This marks the first successful Rocket-Based Combined Cycle test. The engine architecture was unveiled in October at UP.Summit and combines the high ... Read more

In 2024, Hermeus built their first aircraft and completed its ground test campaign. They opened a new test facility – set to become a national asset for high-Mach and hypersonic propulsion testing, and quickly brought it online with F100 engine tests. They expanded ther Los Angeles footprint, grew the team across both coasts, and increased ... Read more

Super Heavy on the launch pad at Starbase ahead of Starship’s eighth flight test on Monday March 3, 2025. Now targeting to launch Starship's eighth flight test as soon as Monday, March 3 → https://t.co/alyJTRtOIP https://t.co/nVu5uHMGwi — SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 27, 2025 The eighth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as ... Read more

The Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly. The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk. The Starlink terminals are being sent at NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity. The situation is ... Read more

Mo Gawdat, Peter Diamandis, and Salim Ismail discuss AGI, how to adapt to an AI-driven world, the future of jobs, and more. They discuss the different kinds of intelligence. The talk about AI being broadly superior in writing and math. The LLMs are rapidly knocking off other categories. Mo Gawdat is a renowned author, entrepreneur, ... Read more