What is a chopstick?
Ahh!
You think I am asking a weird and useless question but actually not.
What do you think?
Chopsticks are generally thin pieces of wood which are used by people to eat food mostly
in the Asian countries and you can also catch a fly with a chopstick if you are well trained.
Right?
But, have you ever thought of catching large rockets with chopsticks?
Strange, no?
But, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX has thought of doing something like that, so the video
is going to be pretty interesting and to know everything about this idea watch the video
till the end.
Hello friends and welcome back to Space Tech.
In today's video I will be going to tell you the strangest idea ever of the SpaceX CEO
of catching the largest man made rockets with chopsticks.
Before starting, if you are new to my channel I specially invite you to join many of our
lovely fans.
I know you all are very curious, so without wasting any more time let's get into the video.
Elon Musk, a man with amazing and unlimited ideas, is best known for his interest in exploring
the space and he makes every possible effort to achieve his plans.
The founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has revealed a shocking idea on social media
when he tweeted a short clip from a 1984 film titled 'The Karate Kid'.
Musk had shared a YouTube link in his tweet that shows Mr. Miyagi from that film is using
the chopsticks to catch flies and after watching Mr. Miyagi doing that Daniel LaRusso tried
to attempt the same.
The tweet which Musk had shared aroused the interest of most of his followers and the
tweet had got more of the attention from the caption written.
The caption of that tweet states that SpaceX will attempt to capture the largest flying
object ever with robot chopsticks.
Unveiling everything to his followers Musk wrote that 'Success is not guaranteed, but
excitement is!'.
At first, it's common to understand as SpaceX had already landed several spaceships on Earth
but the excitement increases when the word chopsticks comes.
But, actually what does Elon refer to with robotic chopsticks??
That's going to be pretty interesting!!
Keep watching.
The main idea which Musk has revealed afterwards is that SpaceX will try to land the largest
man made spaceship on a newly made launch tower which will be completed soon.
Do you know that the chopsticks which Musk is referring to are actually the robotic arms
which will be connected with the main launch tower and will play an important role in catching
the Starship.
Musk followed his first tweet with an another short second tweet on which he wrote, Stage
Zero, which is not understood by any of his followers and it is still like a mystery,
that what it refers to.
The idea of catching the Starship Super Heavy booster is not new and from the outset, SpaceX
main vision has been to extend its reusable rocket technology to the Starship.
As previously stated, that the Starship will be landed on the new launch tower, it's now
the time to take a close look at the launch tower.
The launch tower which will later be attached with robotic chopsticks to catch the Super
Heavy Starship is taking shape at the SpaceX's launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Elon Musk has shared a tweet of a drone footage which shows a complete 360° view of the launch
tower just like a bird eye.
The drone footage shows a very impressive structure of the launch tower which is rising
at a very tall height from the South Texas facility of SpaceX known as the Starbase.
The drone footage which he has shared is letting the most of his followers to imagine the rocket
coming from the space and is landing on the launch tower.
Want to know something shocking?
Take a look!!
SpaceX said that the 469 foot tall launch tower with its 10 foot tall lightning rod,
is made to "lift its new rocket and booster on the launch mount, and to catch the super
heavy Starship booster upon return from launch."
SpaceX added by saying, "The launch and catch tower will be constructed out of the structural
steel trusses to allow the mechanical arms to lift vehicles."
This is about the launch tower which will catch the Starship Booster, but we will also
need to see a little bit about the Starship Booster we are talking of.
The whole Starship system consists of a upper stage of Starship and the most Heavy booster.
Both the parts of the Starship are reusable and they together make a 394 feet tall rocket.
The Starship will be the tallest rocket ever built and it has more than 100 metric tons
of lift capacity and is capable of carrying 100 persons in it.
The main purpose to make the Starship is to send crew to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
The upper stage of Starship had successfully landed in its test and the test of lower state
is not done yet.
This launch tower is built to land that heavy booster and it will catch the boosters with
its robot chopsticks.
I mean robot arms.
The robotic arms which are the main part required to catch the Starship Booster are titled as
'Mechazilla' by the CEO of the company.
Mechazilla, how cool does that sound?
The robotic arms that will be fitted on the main launch tower are under development by
SpaceX and just after two months they had started working on the arms, SpaceX had already
installed three of the robotic arms or we can say chopsticks on Launch tower.
Now even if the launch tower is completed, with all the arms fitted alongside in it,
there is one main risk of landing the Starship Booster.
What do you think?
The biggest risk with the landing is the possibility of crash landing.
If the operation to land the Starship Booster failed, the company will lose their booster
as well as the launch tower will also be destroyed due to the crash.
Due to all this, SpaceX is thinking of pushing the catch system a little bit away from the
platform as in case something goes wrong the platform will be completely destroyed and
the company does not want to lose the platform as the platform is a complex structure and
it is also very expensive.
But that's still not guaranteed.
If the Super Heavy Starship landed successfully, it will just look like the rocket is launched
in reverse motion.
Now, the main question which may be arising in your mind is will this plan work or not?
If we check the previous landings done by SpaceX, so it has been found that the SpaceX
had successfully landed it's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters most of the time.
But the Starship Booster is almost two times bigger than the Falcon Heavy.
Accordingly, it also weighs more than Falcon Heavy.
Because of this the vertical landing process will become more challenging for SpaceX.
When asked to Musk, he said that the launch platform and grid fins located on the rocket
are designed in such a way that it can manage the stress.
He added by saying that SpaceX will reduce the final speed of the rocket and transfer
the final speed and shock forces to the actual mass of robotic arms and launch platform.
The system is designed to increase the landing reliability, but the actual reliability will
be checked at the moment of testing.
It's time for the comments!!
What do you think will Starship returning from Space take a soft landing or it will
crash?
What do you guys think?
Will SpaceX move the landing away from the platform or not?
And don't forget to comment on which topic you want the next video on?
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