rocket landing

Curious Droid surveys vertical take-off and landing rockets that predate SpaceX and Blue Origin, including the McDonnell Douglas DC-X of the 1990s. It shows that propulsive landing has about 60 years of history.

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.

NASA's animated explanation of the Curiosity rover's Mars landing, which relied on a complex automated sequence taking about seven minutes. It features NASA engineers discussing the risks before the 2012 landing.

Scott Manley explains the plumbing of rocket engines, including pressure-fed, gas generator, expander and staged combustion cycles. He shows why more complex designs exist and what they gain.

A two-minute explanation of what a rocket mass heater is, starting from how a conventional wood stove works and why creosote and chimney fires occur. It shows how burning hot and storing the heat in thermal mass makes for an efficient heater.

Scott Manley explains the nuclear salt water rocket, Robert Zubrin's concept of a rocket fueled by a rapid nuclear reaction in uranium salt dissolved in water. He covers its extraordinary performance and the dangers of managing it.

A Veritasium video touring Relativity Space and explaining why 3D printing whole rockets cuts tooling costs, allows rapid iteration, reduces part count and enables new designs. It includes an interview with Scott Manley on aerospace engineering.

Everyday Astronaut explains the basic physics of rocket engines, the main engine cycles and fuel types, then compares SpaceX's methane-fueled full-flow staged combustion Raptor to other engines. It runs nearly 50 minutes with chapter markers.

Tim Dodd's hour-long deep dive on how rocket engines start, from solid motors to liquid engines. It covers thermal conditioning, spin-up, ignition methods, starting in space, and a step-by-step RS-25 startup.

A short Boeing-supplied clip where the 737 MAX program's chief project engineer explains how the lengthened landing gear of the MAX 10 folds up. It shows the gear model in motion.

A filmmaker explains why the Apollo moon landing footage could not have been faked in a studio, based on the video and film technology of the late 1960s. He walks through the limits of cameras, frame rates and effects of the era.

Short Curious Droid video on why NASA could not simply rebuild the Saturn V's Rocketdyne F-1 engine for the SLS boosters. It explains that the engines were hand-tailored and that much of the know-how was never documented, so the blueprints were not enough.

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.

Scott Manley explains rotating detonation engines, how they differ from pulsed detonation engines, and why thermodynamics predicts they beat traditional jet and rocket engines.

A video essay on how the editors of Star Wars: A New Hope recut and rearranged the footage to rescue the film. It walks through specific changes that improved pacing and drama.

PBS Space Time surveys five realistic options for interstellar travel, from conventional rocket fuel to antimatter and nuclear pulse propulsion. The options rely only on known physics.

Half as Interesting explains why airlines flew empty 'ghost flights' out of Heathrow to keep their landing slots under use-it-or-lose-it rules.