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Category: space travel – Page 384

How we’ll get to Mars — what’s the biggest challenge, money or technology?

“There are a number of critical technologies that have to be assessed and tested before we go to Mars,” he told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald.

His short-list includes reusable landers, new space suits, mining gear, water and fuel production plants and safe nuclear power sources that could be used to power habitats and equipment on the red planet.

Thirsk himself is currently working with the Canadian Space Agency to investigate the unique biomedical and health care issues involved in long term deep space missions.

Sean Carroll: Quantum Mechanics and the Many-Worlds Interpretation

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech and Santa Fe Institute specializing in quantum mechanics, arrow of time, cosmology, and gravitation. He is the author of several popular books including his latest on quantum mechanics (Something Deeply Hidden) and is a host of a great podcast called Mindscape. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

This is the second time Sean has been on the podcast. You can watch the first time here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NJrvyRo0c

INFO:
Podcast website:
https://lexfridman.com/ai
iTunes:
https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify:
https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS:
https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/
Full episodes playlist:

Clips playlist:

EPISODE LINKS:
Something Deeply Hidden: https://amzn.to/2C5h40V
Sean’s twitter: https://twitter.com/seanmcarroll
Sean’s website: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/
Mindscape podcast: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

OUTLINE:
0:00 — Introduction
1:23 — Capacity of human mind to understand physics.
10:49 — Perception vs reality
12:29 — Conservation of momentum
17:20 — Difference between math and physics.
20:10 — Why is our world so compressable.
22:53 — What would Newton think of quantum mechanics.
25:44 — What is quantum mechanics?
27:54 — What is an atom?
30:34 — What is the wave function?
32:30 — What is quantum entanglement?
35:19 — What is Hilbert space?
37:32 — What is entropy?
39:31 — Infinity
42:43 — Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
1:01:13 — Quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime.
1:08:34 — Our branch of reality in many-worlds interpretation.
1:10:40 — Time travel
1:12:54 — Arrow of time
1:16:18 — What is fundamental in physics.
1:16:58 — Quantum computers
1:17:42 — Experimental validation of many-worlds and emergent spacetime.
1:19:53 — Quantum mechanics and the human mind.
1:21:51 — Mindscape podcast

CONNECT:

Continue reading “Sean Carroll: Quantum Mechanics and the Many-Worlds Interpretation” | >

Air Force’s mystery space plane lands, ends 2-year mission

The Air Force’s mystery space plane is back on Earth, following a record-breaking two-year mission.

The X-37B landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Sunday. The Air Force is mum about what the plane did in orbit after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2017. The 780-day mission sets a new endurance record for the reusable test vehicle.

It looks like a but is one-fourth the size at 29 feet.

Space – the next frontier – requires innovation in nuclear fuel design and testing

To go where no man has gone before (and to get back) will require quite a bit of oomph. All that energy must come from somewhere. Traditional chemical rocket fuels could work for some missions, but nuclear-based propulsion systems have several advantages.

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) rockets use a nuclear reaction to heat liquid hydrogen. When the hydrogen is heated, it expands and is forced through a nozzle to produce thrust. This is similar to how air can stream out of the stem of a balloon and cause it to fly across the room. With rockets, this happens with much greater speed and force.

These hydrogen propelled rockets are designed for space exploration, not for use on Earth, and subsequently would not be turned on (i.e. brought critical) until after they left Earth. Although the specific type of fuel for these applications has not been formally selected, the fuel envisioned for use in an NTP environment is uranium fuel.

Podcast #35: NASA, The Next Ten Years, with Dan Dumbacher

A new space race is upon us. But unlike the cold war-driven days of the 1960’s and early 1970’s, it is now a multi-player competition to dominate and exploit the final frontier. The U.S. and Russia have been joined by the European Union, China, India and Japan, as well as numerous commercial space ventures, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Where does NASA sit in all of this, in the rapidly changing world of the second space race. In Seeking Delphi episode #35, host Mark Sackler gets an overview of where the agency is headed, from former NASA program director for launch systems, Dan Dumbacher. There’s also a very special announcement of the upcoming ASCEND** space conference, slated for Las Vegas in November of 2020.

** Accelerating Space Commerce, Exploration, and New Discovery.

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