space policy

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.

The full webcast of SpaceX's Falcon 1 Flight 4, the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit, on 28 September 2008. It includes the crew's cheering and Elon Musk's statement afterward.

A short SpaceX video of the Dragon 2 pad abort test, in which the capsule's thrusters fire to carry it away from the launch pad. It also shows the pad deluge system.

Commander Chris Hadfield performs a revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded aboard the International Space Station. It was released as a music video in 2013.

Patrick Boyle analyzes SpaceX's IPO prospectus, covering its financials, speculative products, AI business, related-party dealings, compensation, and a governance structure with minimal shareholder rights.

Urban explorers break into the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to film the abandoned Soviet Buran space shuttles. The video shows the decaying orbiters and the dangerous trip to reach them.

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.

Scott Manley explains the thermal balance of spacecraft and how a satellite could be configured to radiate away the heat from datacenter-scale computing in space. His rough numbers suggest it is feasible.

Thunderf00t's critique of SpaceX's claims, arguing its launches are not actually cheaper than competitors or the Space Shuttle. It questions the economics of reusability.

A clip of Sandy Munro, a veteran automotive engineer, describing his visit to a SpaceX Starship design review and meeting Elon Musk. He says he was struck by how deeply Musk is involved in engineering.

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

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

Bret Copeland, in an astronaut costume, gives an energetic talk on how the Space Shuttle landed from orbit, including reentry and the unpowered glide. It includes real-time landing footage with HUD and audio.

Isaac Arthur explores space-based solar power, in which satellites beam energy down via microwaves to rectennas on Earth. He discusses feasibility, profitability and its role in spurring space colonization.

Patrick Boyle examines SpaceX's planned IPO at a roughly $1.75 trillion valuation. He covers the merging of other Musk companies, orbital data center claims and the fast-track index rules that may help the listing.

In her final days as ISS commander, Sunita Williams gives an extensive tour of the station's modules and research facilities, narrating the work done aboard.

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.

Scott Manley tries a Space Shuttle Return To Launch Site abort in the Orbiter simulator without manuals or checklists. He explains how the maneuver works and where his attempt went wrong.

EEVblog's Dave Jones critiques Reflect Orbital's plan to sell sunlight to solar farms after dark using orbital mirrors. He walks through the numbers to show the idea does not work out.

A PBS Space Time episode hosted by Gabe Perez-Giz on the nature of spacetime and whether space and time are fundamental. It builds up reference frames and causality in a short, dense format.

NASASpaceflight's 24/7 live stream from SpaceX's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, showing Starship and Super Heavy development, testing and launches.

Joe Barnard of BPS.space shows his model rocket Scout F landing vertically like a SpaceX booster after seven years of attempts. The video documents the successful landing and the build-up to it.

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.

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.

Scott Manley examines why SpaceX, Google and others are looking at orbital data centers. He walks through the economics, heat rejection and solar power arguments, with links to the Lumen/Starcloud and Google Suncatcher papers.

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

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 CNN segment showing William Shatner emotionally describing his Blue Origin suborbital flight to Jeff Bezos right after landing.

Top Gear segment in which Hammond and May try to turn a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle. Launching is easy, but landing it safely is the problem.

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.

SsethTzeentach reviews Space Station 13, the chaotic multiplayer game, by recounting absurd stories of singularities, malfunctioning AIs and plasma fires.

Theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed gives a public talk on why spacetime may not be fundamental and what might replace it, including newer approaches to scattering amplitudes.

A tour of Christian Schallert's 24 square meter apartment in Barcelona, designed so that it looks like an empty cube until he builds the furniture he needs. Kirsten Dirksen shows how the space is transformed for cooking, sleeping and dressing.

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.

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.

Real Engineering explains why SpaceX is building Starlink, including the economics of satellite internet. It covers the latency advantage of light in vacuum over fiber for long-distance links.

A short, music-driven video built from Neil deGrasse Tyson's remarks on why advancing the space frontier matters, contrasting NASA's small budget with war spending and stressing inspiration.

A short visualization from HotNets researchers of routing and latency over SpaceX's proposed Starlink constellation, based on its FCC filings. It shows orbital shells, link topology and how inter-satellite routes could beat terrestrial fiber on long distances.

Music video for Public Service Broadcasting's "Go!" from the album The Race For Space, built from NASA audio and archival material of Apollo-era voices.

EEVblog interviews Richard Stephenson of NASA's Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex about how the 70m DSS-43 dish is used to contact Voyager 2. It covers the ground antenna and low-noise receiver side of deep space communication. This is a 2023 re-release of a 2017 video.