NextBigFuture.com

Ocean planets are a proposed class of low-density, terrestrial exoplanets with substantial liquid water layers. They may exist in a variety of climactic states including ice free, partially ice covered, or completely frozen over at their surfaces. Researchers call ocean-bearing planets with ice-covered surfaces as cold ocean planets. Cold ocean planets may be plentiful in ... Read more

The SpaceX Starship fleet is now over four Starship and three Super Heavy Boosters. The construction of over one Raptor engine per day in 2024 will enable ten Starships and Super Heavy Boosters to be built in 2024. The Raptor engine factory has the capacity to make over eleven Raptor Engines per day. This would ... Read more

The largest Gaza tunnel found so far can fit vehicles into it and was built with tunnel boring machines. The tunnel-boring machines used in the construction had been smuggled into the Strip. Israel has not found the tunneling machines yet. The massive underground network is 50 meters deep in some places and wide enough for ... Read more

Analysis of the Cassini probe data shows evidence for Enceladus habitability a step further. They've found strong confirmation of hydrogen cyanide, a molecule that is key to the origin of life. The ocean below the ice of Saturn's moon holds a powerful source of chemical energy. Unidentified until now, the energy source is in the ... Read more

There is a 10% credit for energy storage with domestic content. Tesla Megapacks will have 95% domestic content. This content level will not work with CATL (China batteries). Lenders will be able to project finance energy storage like Megapacks including the 10% credit if they qualify for the credit. WHEN Tesla gets 4680 supplies ramped ... Read more

Elon Musk says clear truths that without humans there is no bright future for humanity. Nextbigfuture has written about this and looked at the detailed numbers of declining birthrates. The world population in 2200 will be about 250 million if if all countries have a total fertility rate of 1.0 or less. This is the ... Read more

Professor Guilan says that IF the original South Korean LK99 team are not direct cheaters then the evidence is that they did create room temperature superconductors. Armen Gulian, professr of physics Chapman University, discusses his effort to make LK99 thin film with funding from the US Navy. At about 37 minutes into the talk, he ... Read more

The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics' review committee on Wednesday said LK-99, an alleged room-temperature superconductor created by a South Korean research team, has not shown any key features of superconductivity. The Seoul-based startup Quantum Energy Research Centre, headed by Lee Suk-bae, the first author of the LK-99 research, did not send the superconductor ... Read more

India's Skyroot Aerospace raised $27.5 million from Singapore's Temasek in October. Indian startup Agnikul Cosmos raised a similar amount. Skyroot launched India's first private rocket in 2022 and will launch the Vikram-I rocket in 2024. The launch vehicle can take payloads of upto 300 kilograms into low earth orbit. They are developing rockets for small ... Read more

Youtuber Pilot Photog describes new mirror coatings on some new Navy F-35C stealth fighters. This is being used to achieve greater stealth against new infrared sensors used on Russian and Chinese planes.

Lex Fridman interviews Jeff Bezos about Blue Origin and Amazon. Jeff also admitted the obvious that Blue Origin's progress has been too slow and Elon Musk is a great business leader. 0:00 - Introduction 0:24 - Texas ranch and childhood 4:02 - Space exploration and rocket engineering 16:36 - Physics 26:10 - New Glenn rocket ... Read more

Ukrainians are using new drone and counter-drone strategies to blunt Russian offensive. Ukraine is targeting the radio-jammers the Russians use to ground Ukrainian drones while setting up their own jammers to ground Russian drones. Russia attacked Avdiivka with masses of tanks and infantry. This cost Russia a lot of losses in the range of 17000 ... Read more

Kathy Lueders , SpaceX Starbase General Manager, indicated the third SpaceX Starship orbital launch should be in Q1 2024. This will most likely be February or March. However, the SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy could be on the pad for tests by the end of this year. Kathy Lueders confirmed a second tower at Starbase.

Fast neutron reactors of Russian design can increase the usable uranium and nuclear fuel by 100 times. Russia alone has already accumulated about 1 million tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride. U-238 of near-nuclear purity can be used to produce fuel for fast reactors. Russia's depleted uranium alone carries energy which is 100 times greater than ... Read more

The BN-800 sodium-cooled fast reactor at unit 4 of Russia's Beloyarsk NPP has registered a year of reliable and safe operation using an almost full load of uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. Russia says this proves the readiness of the closed nuclear fuel cycle technology for implementation on an industrial scale. The BN-800 is using ... Read more

GE Aerospace has shown a bew architecture with Rotating Detonation Combustion (RDC) could power super-efficient hypersonic vehicles with longer range that will go faster than MACH 5 (over 4,000 MPH). The team has moved very fast. It took just 12 months from start to finish for the DMRJ with RDC demonstration. The team is on ... Read more

Google's Gemini LLMs (Large Language Model) produced a new math discoveries and solves real-world problems. This is a significant step to AGI. The AI is speeding up progress in math and science. This is the first time a new discovery has been made for challenging open problems in science or mathematics using LLMs. FunSearch discovered ... Read more

Uber drivers will get up to $3000 to buy new Tesla inventory vehicles if they take delivery by December 31, 2023. Tesla is trying to increase sales of vehicles to get as close to 500,000 vehicles in Q4 globally. Uber requires that drivers give over 100 rides by February to qualify. BREAKING: Tesla has partnered ... Read more

What if the fictional Dr. Frankenstein was real? What if Dr. Frankenstein was a food science chemist? What would he make? Wonder no longer. Doritos has made Nacho cheese flavored alcohol. Doritos unveiled a collaboration with global flavor innovator Empirical: Empirical x Doritos(R) Nacho Cheese Spirit. This limited-release offers a multi-sensorial, savory nacho cheese-imbued beverage ... Read more

SpaceX and the US Space Force prepared a Falcon Heavy to launch a X-37B spaceplane this week, but instead the Falcon Heavy rocket will be rolled back to its hangar for servicing. The ground equipment problem that prevented liftoff Monday night could be fixed as soon as Wednesday. But it will take longer to resolve ... Read more

Warp-drives are solutions of general relativity widely considered unphysical due to high negative energy requirements. Most research has focused on macroscopic solutions towards the goal of interstellar travel but faster than light communications is far more practical. The warping effect would only need to be large enough to send through particles or laser communication. The ... Read more

Dr Know it all, John Gibb, explains the increased steering wheel nag on older versions of Tesla Autopilot software. Tesla provided an over the air software update to comply ensure drivers are always paying attention when Autopilot or FSD is engaged. There is also more software restrictions around when Autopilot is allowed to be engaged. ... Read more

The five-member FCC, led by Democrat-appointed chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, rejected SpaceX Starlink for a rural broadband program. The FCC claimed Starlink failed to demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service (100 megabits download and 20 megabit upload). Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr dissented with the decision and said that President Biden gave federal agencies ... Read more

There is a video of the 2002 situation where a moon conspiracy grifter harassed Buzz Aldrin when Buzz was 72. Buzz Aldrin is the second man to walk on the moon. Buzz Aldrin punched a conspiracy theorist who kept harassing him and his family and demanding that he swear on the Bible that he walked ... Read more

Dr. Scott Walker points out that the Logo usually goes on a product when prototyping is complete. There would be a huge impact for Tesla if one hundred thousands Teslabots can be made and used the Tesla factories. Usually, the logo goes on when prototyping is complete. pic.twitter.com/Y2pTyNtwPW - Scott Walter, PhD (@GoingBallistic5) December 13, ... Read more

Tesla will send out an over-the-air software update to 2 million cars that will incorporate additional controls and alerts to those already existing on affected vehicles to further encourage the driver to adhere to their continuous driving responsibility whenever Autosteer is engaged. The picture above does not show the actual new Tesla alerts In certain ... Read more

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has halted interest rate increases. The markets expect several cuts in 2024. The pricing expectations are four or five quarter rate cuts in 2024. The expectations are for cuts to start around March to June. Rate cuts are good for technology and growth stocks. The concern is that rate cuts ... Read more

Kelvin Mu, Translink Capital, estimates that OpenAI's $1.5 billion in revenue is split pretty evenly right now between B2C (GPT plus subscriptions) and B2B (API tokens). B2B will be the larger future revenue. For B2C: The total TAM is about $10-20B. Tech incumbents make more now. Google ($280B), Microsoft ($218B), and Meta ($117B). The breakeven ... Read more

China's HTR-PM (High Temperature) modular pebble bed reactor has finally started commmercial operation. It has two small reactors (each of 250 MWt) that drive a single 210 MWe steam turbine. It uses helium as coolant and graphite as the moderator. Each reactor is loaded with more than 400,000 spherical fuel elements (pebbles'), each 60 mm ... Read more

Ford has cut back its F150 Lightning electric truck sales target in 2024 from 160,000 to about 80,000. It is estimated that Ford loses $36,000 to 60,000 USD on every EV it sells. The scaled back plans would reduce annual losses in the EV division by $2.5 to 5 billion. Ford has also postponed about ... Read more

Tesla has introduced Optimus Gen 2. Tesla designed actuators and sensors 2-Dof actuated neck Actuators integrated electronics & harnessing 30% walk speed boost Foot force/torque sensing 22lb (10kg) weight reduction Better hands, able to handle eggs and other delicate work There's a new bot in town Check ... Read more

Computer coding genius George Hotz asks the Mistral 7B model to make the Q* algorithm in python and run it. This is near AGI level actions. He added in a human in the loop safety feature. It worthwhile to watch how George Hotz prompts the LLM.

X (aka Twitter) is making $600 million per quarter in ad revenue and this is 70% of total revenue. This is $3.4 billion annually. Elon Musk had said expenses were about $2 billion per year and another $1 billion per year for debt servicing. This was after cutting excess staff and other expenses. The total ... Read more

SpaceX and the US Air Force Research Lab will have a series of 2024 test flights and is testing systems with a mockup. The Military department will test and gather data for a decision in 2026 on whether to operationalize Rocket Cargo or move onto something else. Rocket Cargo is one of the lab's so-called ... Read more

Felix Schlang at What About It? and Ringwatchers have photos, diagrams and reporting that SpaceX has built and is ground testing the Starlink satellite pez dispenser system.

2023 was a huge year for AI and Large Language Models. What are the predictions for AI in 2024? Nvidia is making the main chips that power AI and has insight into what thousands of companies are doing with AI. Nvidia has its 2024 AI predictions. Hundreds of Customized AI For Each Company Customization is ... Read more

The DOE funding $42 million to support three hubs to develop inertial fusion. The hubs will be led by researchers at Colorado State University, the University of Rochester, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Projects funded by the program-known as Inertial Fusion Energy Science and Technology Accelerated Research (IFE-STAR)-will bring together expertise and capabilities across DOE's ... Read more

- Helicity Space got $5 million in seed round funding from several new investors including Airbus Ventures, TRE Ventures, Voyager Space Holdings, E2MC Space, Urania Ventures and Gaingels. There is no need to wait for terrestrial fusion power to begin using fusion propulsion in space. Pushing a spacecraft with short bursts of fusion can be ... Read more

SpaceX and Space Systems Command USSF-52 mission with a space plane on Monday night was scrubbed. Space Force X-37B spaceplane is slated to launch its seventh mission overall and first on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, headed to a unique orbit as soon as 8:14pm ET tonight. SpaceX has scrubbed tonight's launch of a Falcon Heavy rocket ... Read more

Quantum computers leverage some aspects of quantum physics to make computers. They can create huge amounts of quantum states but it is also difficult to make the actual algorithms to use the abundant states. A classical (regular) computer would need more atoms than are in the entire universe to match the number of quantum stats ... Read more

Joe Tegtmeyer has close up analysis of the Tesla. The Tesla Cybertruck can complete the interior other than the A,B and C pillars along with the front windshield. It is then just five major parts to complete the outside body including the bed of the cybertruck. This is far fewer parts and steps for the ... Read more

Joe Tegtmeyer has a youtube channel where he has extensive daily coverage of what is happening at the Tesla Austin Texas Gigafactory. Joe operates drone coverage of the entire site. Joe has determined that General Assembly line 3 is being built now and it will be used for the next generation car. A lot of ... Read more

Youtuber Pilot Photog has created 3D models of the Lockheed NGAD concept. Lockheed's Ultimate Secret Projects (Skunkworks) team has just unveiled the silhouette and concept drawing of their next generation air dominance fighter, the NGAD. Pilot Photog has a groundbreaking 3D model and explore the incredible capabilities of this game-changing fighter. There is detailed look ... Read more

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch for the US air force has been delayed to Monday, December 11. Now targeting Monday, December 11 for Falcon Heavy's launch of the USSF-52 mission, with weather conditions forecasted to improve to 70% favorable for liftoff on Monday night. The team will use the time to complete additional pre-launch check ... Read more

China's Navy researchers have claimed to have solved issues to make military relevant and useful railguns. China has mounted a single test railgun on a ship since about 2018-2019. China has talked about 32 megajoule power range tests and plans and future 100 megajoule systems. The US is now working with Japan to develop and ... Read more

IF SpaceX can launch all of the planned Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launches planned in December, then they can hit their goal of 100 launches in 2023. This would include two failed Starship Super Heavy orbital launch attempts. It will go down to the wire to see if the SpaceX can reach 100 launches ... Read more

The SpaceX Super Heavy Starship is made from stainless steel just like the new Tesla Cybertruck. The Tesla Cybertruck has a cold rolled process that converts the stainless steel to corrosion resistant Martensitic steel. The Tesla Cybertruck will be mass produced with 250,000 to a million units per year. The conversion of the austenitic stainless ... Read more

The Tesla Cybertruck is the first car with a 48 volt lower power system and this will save about 70% of the copper used in the vehicle. The Cybertruck is running gigabit ethernet cabling for data along with the 48-volt power on the same cable. This uses 4 times lower amperage and replaces the device ... Read more

US Air Force mission USSF-52 (OTV-7) is targeting a 5:14 PM PST launch tomorrow December 10, 2023. SpaceX won a competitive bid for the Air Force mission with a Falcon Heavy over a Delta IV. SpaceX's 92 launch of 2023 took place on Thursday, December 7 when a Falcon 9 successfully launched 23 Starlink v2 ... Read more