We’re fortunate to live in a time when we have two new launch rockets intended to enable crewed launches to Mars. The two rockets on the left have flown already. The Falcon Heavy flew in 2018 and is currently 32M miles from home traveling at 58K mph. The Saturn V launched the Apollo Missions between …
Author Archives: Neal Mueller
Sage from creator Casey Neistat
Casey Neistat is an observer of the modern world (e.g. NYC bike lane obstructions), and he has sage advice about avoiding basic embellishments.
68 bits of unsolicited advice from a 68 year old co-founder of Wired
My favorite part is that Kevin teaches most readers a new word, with the last word on his list –– “Pronoia” is a neologism coined to describe a state of mind that is the opposite of paranoia.. Here are 3 of of my favs from his list: 1- Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points. …
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On self-driving cars
We’re a decade from self-driving cars. When I write self-driving I mean a car that drives you around while you sleep, which is level-4 and level-5. Since I think we have 10 years until that, in the meantime let’s talk about level 1, 2 and 3 in a granular way.
#ToMarsAndBack
In 2021 pieces of Mars will land safely on earth as part of Mars 2020. The Mars 2020 rover collects samples and leaves them in canisters on the surface. The lander deploys a fetch rover to collect the samples and deposit them in an ascent vehicle, which blasts into Mars orbit. There, a return orbiter …
Video- The Nine Gravity Assists That Bring Our Satellite to Orbit Around Mercury
The BepiColombo mission launched in October 2018 will enter orbit around Mercury on December 5, 2025. Here’s an incredible animation of its 9 gravity assists past Earth (once), Venus (twice) and Mercury (six times).
Video– Visualizing how much fuel a Saturn 5 used per second in terms of elephants
The Saturn V rocket got to the moon burning 20 tones of fuel per second. An African elephant weighs roughly 5 tons. So roughly 4 elephants worth of fuel per second. Amazing video illustration:
SpaceX Falcon 9: How Elon Musk’s Rocket Is Winning the Reusability Race
This wonderful illustration from July 2019 National Geographic explains one of Elon Musk’s greatest space innovations – rocket reuse.
Video– First year of life for six Swainson’s Hawks
This mapped graphical visualization of six Swainson’s Hawks from Data is Beautiful caught my attention. Via reddit
Video– 3D animation of my route on Mount Everest
3D model and animation by Jeremy White via NYT.
