Like many, I’ve been watching the developments in Boca Chica, Texas, with great interest. SpaceX, one of Elon Musk’s companies, is building the “Starship Hopper,” a shorter and simpler version of a spacecraft that could revolutionize space travel. Seeing images of the mostly complete test vehicle, clad in shiny stainless steel, makes me feel like a kid again.
Elon Musk remains a frequent target in the media. Clickbait journalists clack away at their keyboards and smear the Tesla and SpaceX CEO on a regular basis. Sometimes an outside perspective is needed — especially from someone who really knows science and space. To that end, CNBC recently sat down with renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to get his take on Elon Musk.
Elon Musk has been the target of a relentless smear campaign this year. While greedy (and shadowy) figures spew salacious gossip, diehard Tesla fanboys claim to know the real deal — right down to the most obscure detail about The Ironman. Hint: see item #5 below. To test your own knowledge, see if you’re aware of these surprising 15 factoids (via CNBC and Redbook) about Elon Musk.
Another article attempts to discredit Tesla, this time targeting its financial practices.
It’s the 13th year of NOAA’s brilliant, visually beautiful, and timely Arctic Report Card. (Full 2018 PDF here.)
Alta Devices’ record-setting solar cell has just begun a one-year test by NASA in the latest Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE-X) flight investigation, launched in November on board the NG CRS-10 mission. NASA is testing Alta Devices solar technology at the Space Station in order to evaluate the technology for future NASA low-Earth orbit missions, including powering CubeSats, a trending, small, inexpensive satellite design.
Prep for travel to Mars and beyond (no, really!) with two handy reference books and a fun game about the tension between exploration and exploitation.
I flew out of Tampa airport recently. To travel to Tampa from Sarasota, we chose zero-emissions transport. It was the longest experience I’ve had in a Tesla Model 3. Booking a shuttle service to the airport, I was not thinking futuristic travel. I was thinking of the time, convenience, and zero emissions. Yet, it seemed to feel the most futuristic of all my experiences in Tesla vehicles. (It was my second time in the back seat of the Model 3, and I’ve spent many times in the back seat of a Tesla Model S.)
The obsession with space has driven innovation and not only extended the capabilities of technology, but delivered remarkable breakthroughs and created new materials and products. Solar panels, for example, were the powering force behind InSight, the robotic probe launched six months ago by NASA that landed on Mars’s surface on the 26th of November.
In an interview with Axios, Elon Musk talked about the Tesla Model 3, AI, human brain to computer interlinks, and living on Mars. Here are the highlights of that discusssion.
