launch failure

Scott Manley looks at SpinLaunch, which aims to throw launch vehicles out of a spinning launcher at hypersonic speed. He covers its recent Mach 1 test of a one-third scale launcher and the engineering problems that remain.

Smarter Every Day shares a binaural audio recording of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch made by Trevor Mahlmann, with explanations of the sounds including the sonic booms of the landing boosters. It is meant to be heard with headphones.

Practical Engineering summarizes the 2017 Oroville Dam spillway failure, explaining the engineering details behind the incident. It also discusses how operators and regulators failed to keep downstream residents safe.

A Tom Scott guest video by Grady Hillhouse of Practical Engineering on the 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. A seemingly minor change to the support design led to catastrophic failure, which is why the case is taught as a lesson to check and double-check everything.

Everyday Astronaut's Tim Dodd runs an hour-long, data-driven analysis of what rockets actually emit and how that compares with airliners and other industries. It breaks down exhaust by propellant type, per-passenger and total emissions, and ways launches could be cleaner.

Practical Engineering's explanation of the February 2021 Texas winter storm and the resulting power grid outage. It lays out the facts about ERCOT, the grid's isolation, and how generation across fuel types failed in the cold.

Isaac Arthur explains the orbital ring, a megastructure launch-assist system that could move bulk cargo cheaply to orbit and beyond. He compares it with space elevators and discusses power transmission.

Eager Space examines the practicality of putting data centers in orbit, walking through three scenarios with cost calculations and the launch cost reductions that would be required.

Perun analyzes how corruption and theft in defence procurement hollowed out the Russian military before its invasion of Ukraine. It explains the mechanics of graft and how it degrades capability.

Scott Manley analyzes the idea of putting data centers in orbit, prompted by Lumen Orbit's funding. He examines the claimed advantage of constant solar power against launch cost, cooling and mass.

Asianometry explains why India, a chip design powerhouse, cannot fabricate chips, tracing the 1980s government attempt to build a national semiconductor champion and how it collapsed. It includes the sabotage at the SCL fab.

Joe Scott takes a serious look at space sunshades as a climate fix, asking how big they would need to be, what they would cost and whether they would work. He draws on Roger Angel's paper and launch options.

Vox explainer arguing the two Boeing 737 Max crashes were not just a software bug but the result of a company's drive to beat its rival, with a flawed MCAS design.

A design essay on why products designed in Western contexts often fail when deployed in developing countries. It covers expert blindness and cultural assumptions, with examples such as malaria nets and the One Laptop Per Child project.

Tom Scott visits Penistone to explain the Scunthorpe problem, showing why naive web and profanity filters block innocent words.

Explains the proposed NASA JPL plan to use the Sun as a gravitational lens, sending solar sail craft to its focal region to image an exoplanet's surface. It covers the distances involved, how imaging with the Sun would work and the mission design.

A short How to ADHD explainer, featuring Brendan Mahan, on why simple tasks can feel impossible for people with ADHD. It introduces the 'wall of awful', a pile of past failures, shame and anxiety that builds up in front of a task and blocks starting it.

Real Engineering explains how Zipline built a drone delivery network for medical supplies in Rwanda. It covers the fixed-wing drones, catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind the service.

Kurzgesagt explains how accumulating space junk could trigger a collision cascade (Kessler syndrome) that makes launches too dangerous and traps humanity on Earth.

A short video on the US Sprint anti-ballistic missile, which accelerated to around Mach 10 in seconds under extreme g-forces and heat. It includes striking launch footage and a brief development history.

Alex O'Connor shows that ChatGPT cannot draw a wine glass filled to the brim, and ties the failure to David Hume's missing shade of blue. It asks what the failure says about how image models learn.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explores molten glass and Prince Rupert's drops with a glass artist, including a process that freezes the moment glass shatters and an artisan who makes the drops.

Kurzgesagt explains the skyhook, a rotating cable with a counterweight that could catapult spacecraft from Earth orbit toward deep space. It covers why it would make space travel cheaper and more efficient.

FortNine looks at why Tesla Autopilot has rear-ended motorcyclists, speculating that the vision system misreads motorcycle taillights as a distant car. It argues that radar and other sensors would help.