Watch a rocket tank being built, mostly by robots
Capitalism in space: The video below the fold shows the process by which Interorbital Systems built a rocket test tank for the Neptune smallsat rocket it is developing. It is definitely worth watching if you want to see the future of complex manufacturing. Robotic equipment does most of the work, in a precise manner that would be impossible for humans, which therefore allows for the construction of engineering designs that were previously impossible or too expensive. Now, such designs can be built relatively cheaply, and repetitively.
Hat tip Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: The video below the fold shows the process by which Interorbital Systems built a rocket test tank for the Neptune smallsat rocket it is developing. It is definitely worth watching if you want to see the future of complex manufacturing. Robotic equipment does most of the work, in a precise manner that would be impossible for humans, which therefore allows for the construction of engineering designs that were previously impossible or too expensive. Now, such designs can be built relatively cheaply, and repetitively.
Hat tip Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
See this on a larger scale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmmrkswDHp0
Or a broader view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWocCSl8bY0
Yes, interesting video! Is there a companion video where they pressurize it until it explodes?
Mitch-
good stuff.
I’d nominate this series as one of the better portrayals of historical, hypnotic, mass assembly:
Master Hands (Part IV) 1936
Chevrolet assembly plant, Flint, Mi.
https://youtu.be/YtNXTezmZpE
wayne asked: “Yes, interesting video! Is there a companion video where they pressurize it until it explodes?”
Be careful when testing to destruction. One time, we tested to destruction the standoffs for a chilled electronics box, thinking that our design would impress the customer at the high dynamic G-load that it took to break the composite standoffs. Instead of awe, the customer was shocked, saying “the unit broke?” The best laid plans of mice and engineers …
This is the basic question of capital investment that began with the industrial revolution and accelerated with numeric computer controls. It’s justified when economics says it is.
A technician I know justified by one act his employment to the end of time by adding a sensor that avoided tool breakage on a row of powder presses he worked with by stopping the machine from double punching a part. Machines can be impressive but it’s people that make things happen.
Could you imagine up-scaling this tech and building space habitats using a reusable, inflatable mold almost a 100 meters long and 50 meters in diameter.