Weekly Dose of Optimism #169
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Ground-effect vehicle
17 min read
The article discusses Poseidon Aerospace building ground-effect vehicles that ride on 'a cushion of air just above the water's surface.' Understanding the physics and history of ground-effect vehicles (including Soviet ekranoplans) would give readers fascinating context for this emerging technology.
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Rare-earth magnet
12 min read
The article extensively discusses Vulcan Elements' work on neodymium magnets and America's loss of rare earth magnet leadership to China. The science behind why these magnets are so powerful and their critical role in EVs, wind turbines, and electronics would deepen reader understanding.
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Space-based solar power
14 min read
The article mentions Google's Project Suncatcher exploring data centers in space to harness solar power, and Star Catcher breaking records for optical power beaming. This concept of collecting solar energy in space and transmitting it to Earth has a rich history of proposals and technical challenges.
Hi friends đź‘‹ ,
Happy Friday! Tough week for capitalism in my home city of NYC, but, undeterred, capitalism decided to deliver a week jam-packed with technological and economic miracles. Go humans.
Let’s get to it.
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(1) AN ASTRONOMICALLY BIG WEEK IN SPACE
On Halloween, Casey Handmer wrote a takedown of NASA and Lockheed Martin’s Orion Space Capsule that was so spicy he felt the need to include the following:
Lockheed isn’t Boeing but even so, I am not and have never been suicidal, I have 3 (soon to be 4!) children, and I intend to live a long and productive life.
He also wrote, “My purpose here is to entertain, inform, and motivate.” And while we can’t give Casey all of the credit, the week since he hit publish has seen the most space news since July 1969… we’ll just do it all here.
Jared Isaacman is BACK after President Trump renominated the entrepreneur, pilot, and two-time SpaceX flight self-financer to serve as NASA Administrator. Given his SpaceX flights, Isaacman is closely associated with Elon, and he’s beloved by startups in the industry. If confirmed, he would replace acting administrator Sean Duffy, who Casey depicted as the dog-in-burning-NASA-room in that picture above.
Google is Exploring Data Centers in Space through Project Suncatcher in order to “more of the sun’s
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.