rocket

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.

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.

A one-minute clip of an Atlas Agena rocket losing pressure on the pad and collapsing. The Atlas relied on tank pressurization for structural integrity, so a simple failure tore it apart.

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.

A very long, detailed look at the A4/V2 rocket turbopump, the steam-turbine-driven twin propellant pump system. It covers the peroxide and permanganate catalysis that drives the turbine. This is part 1 of a series on V2 components.

A 1966 NASA safety film teaching workers how to handle toxic rocket propellants such as hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. It explains the hazards of these corrosive, flammable and toxic chemicals and what to do after contamination.

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.

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.

SpaceX engineers present at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference on a multi-physics code that simulates the full-scale Raptor methane engine. It covers GPU-based turbulent combustion modeling with adaptive grids and wavelet compression.

SpaceX's own compilation of failed orbital booster landing attempts, set to sound, showing the crashes before landings succeeded.

A BBC Four documentary following Alan Bond and Reaction Engines as they pursue the Skylon spaceplane and its SABRE engine. It covers the history from HOTOL and the heat-exchanger breakthrough.

The first episode of Clickspring's series on reproducing the Antikythera Mechanism by hand, laying out the plan and the history. The series follows a machinist building the ancient Greek device with traditional tools and methods.

A short Guardian clip of historian Rutger Bregman at Davos telling attendees that the real issue is tax avoidance, not philanthropy schemes.

A Channel 4 Equinox documentary on the NK-33 engines built for the Soviet N1 moon rocket and how they ended up in the USA. It includes rare footage and interviews with veterans of the early Soviet space program.

SpaceX footage of the Grasshopper vehicle's 744 m test hop, filmed from a hexacopter that gets closer than earlier flights. Grasshopper was a vertical takeoff and landing rig built to test returning rockets to the pad.

A four-pane view of Armadillo Aerospace's Mod vehicle on a June 2010 boosted hop. The flight includes engine shutdown, drogue chute deployment, an engine restart and a safe landing.

SpaceX footage of the Grasshopper reusable rocket prototype flying 325 m before landing on its pad. It was the first test to use the full navigation sensor suite and closed-loop control for a precision landing.

A short test firing of the XRS-2200 linear aerospike engine at NASA Stennis Space Center, which was designed for the cancelled X-33 VentureStar. The engine is shown at roughly 80 percent of max thrust.

A SpaceX concept animation of a Falcon 9 and Dragon launch with powered vertical return of both stages and the capsule. It was uploaded to YouTube in 2011.

SpaceX's livestream of the Falcon Heavy test flight, including the launch, side booster landings and Tesla Roadster payload. It was the first launch of the most powerful operational rocket at the time.

Footage from a camera on a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster from liftoff through descent, with audio enhanced by Skywalker Sound from the original camera microphones. The sound is real, not foley.

Sal Khan interviews Elon Musk in a 2013 Khan Academy entrepreneurship series. Musk discusses PayPal, rocket efficiency and reusability, and how he approaches education and learning.

A 1968 NASA film from the US National Archives explaining why the US needed a nuclear rocket and how the engine works. It also shows combined nuclear and chemical stages for a manned Mars mission.

Footage of the failed Mercury-Redstone 1 launch, where the engine cut off almost immediately after liftoff. The escape tower and parachutes then deployed because the rocket thought the flight was over.

SpaceX footage of the Grasshopper vertical takeoff and landing test vehicle making its first roughly 6-foot hop in McGregor, Texas, on September 21, 2012. It was an early step toward a reusable Falcon 9 first stage.

SpaceX's September 2019 Starship update presentation, where Elon Musk describes the design and development of Starship and Super Heavy. It covers construction and plans for reusable orbital rockets.

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.

Video of the March 2014 Senate Defense Subcommittee hearing on National Security Space Launch programs. Elon Musk of SpaceX testifies alongside ULA's CEO, a GAO official and a policy expert, on launch contracts and Russian engines.

Sped-up onboard camera footage of the Falcon 9 first stage landing on a drone ship during the THAICOM 8 mission on May 27, 2016. It shows the descent from grid fin deployment to touchdown.

SpaceX's recap of the Falcon Heavy debut launch, with side booster landings and a Tesla Roadster with Starman sent into orbit.

Raw 500 fps footage from Camera E-8 on the launch tower for the Apollo 11 Saturn V liftoff, transferred in HD from the 16mm original. More than eight minutes of film covers about 30 seconds of real time.

Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut talks with Elon Musk right after Musk's 2019 Starship presentation. Musk discusses Starship's design, why SpaceX favors conventional engines over aerospikes, and how deleting parts and processes speeds up development.

A SpaceX concept animation showing the planned fully reusable Falcon 9, with both first and second stages performing vertical landings.

SpaceX's official footage of the CRS-6 Falcon 9 first stage landing attempt, in high resolution and slow motion. It shows the descent and touchdown on the drone ship.

A one-minute clip from James Burke's 1978 BBC series Connections in which he walks past a Saturn V rocket and a timed take-off happens behind him in a single shot, with no green screen.

A TED conversation with SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell about the company's race to put people in orbit and the BFR rocket. It also covers the idea of using the rocket for fast point-to-point travel on Earth.

Footage of an unmanned Apollo boilerplate capsule launched on a Little Joe II booster to test the launch escape system. The booster went out of control and broke up, but the escape system worked and the capsule was recovered undamaged.

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.

USLaunchReport footage of the September 2016 SpaceX Falcon 9 static fire anomaly that destroyed the rocket and AMOS-6 satellite at Launch Complex 40.

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg interview Elon Musk at Code Conference 2016 about one-way Mars missions, electric vehicles, autonomous cars, SpaceX booster reuse and AI.