NASA shared updated renders of the SpaceX and Blue Origin cargo landers that will bring rovers and other equipment to the Moon.

NASA shares updated render of the Cargo Starship variant

StarShipis in the Non Fungible Tokens Industry

StarShip

’s SpaceX is developing a super heavy-lift launch vehicle called Starship. Starship is the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built. It also uses reusable rocket parts like other SpaceX rockets. Elon Musk SpaceX has been developing Starship since 2012 and started manufacturing prototypes in 2019 at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX tested seven of Starship’s upper-stage prototypes between August 2020 and May 2021. The last of the seven, a full-size Starship SN15, successfully landed after reaching an altitude of 10 kilometers. Only the lower parts of SpaceX rockets are currently reusable, but Starship’s upper part is too reusable. Thursday, on 20th April 2023, of the Starship rocket, but it, unfortunately, exploded in the middle of the flight. SpaceX tested a full-scale orbital test flight Video of the rocket captured flashes as several of the 33 engines failed on the lower portion of the spacecraft because of the frozen valve, the Super Heavy booster. The guidance system could not manage it with several failed engines, and the vehicle started tumbling. The upper-stage Starship vehicle did not separate from the booster, and four minutes after liftoff, the automated flight termination system destroyed the rocket, ending the flight in a fireball. This shows the launch vehicle had several flaws, and the triggering of them one by one caused the test to fail. In an update, SpaceX said the rocket got as high as about 24 miles over the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX called it a “rapid, unscheduled disassembly.” It is the professional way of saying, “The rocket just blew up.” There was no crew on the ship. SpaceX and Elon have seen many failures since the company started, and every time it has proved to teach something valuable. The mistakes are the reason behind the progress of SpaceX. Elon has described the Starship rocket explosion as a " successful failure". Elon Musk dreams of humans becoming interplanetary species. Starship can make it possible as it can take up to 100 passengers to space. Starship can make space tourism affordable as its parts do not burn up or get discarded in the ocean after launch. They are returned to land and can be used in another rocket which is not the case with other launch vehicles. Despite the costly failure, scientists from all parts of the world are offering congratulations to SpaceX for the test. “Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk because with great risk comes great reward,” Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, wrote on Twitter. https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/status/1649054379029458949?s=20&embedable=true Company’s CEO Elon Musk congratulated the SpaceX team on Twitter and announced the next launch. “Learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months,” he said. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649050306943266819?s=20&embedable=true “It may look that way to some people, but it’s not a failure,” said Daniel Dumbacher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a former high-level NASA official. “It’s a learning experience.” The flight plan called for the Starship spacecraft to reach a higher altitude of about 150 miles (241 km) before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii about 90 minutes later. Why are all the people saying this? Let’s find out. Before the launch, Elon Musk said it might take several tries for Starship to successfully fly to the Lower Earth Orbit and return to land. Starship was in the air for four minutes. The short flight gave a lot of data for engineers to understand how the rocket performed and what to improve. Super heavy rockets like Starship are hard to fly and keep it flying, even for a minute, so lifting a 5000-metric tonnes rocket for 4 minutes is a great success, and it should be praised. The engineers at SpaceX could spend months thinking and planning about the main launch, but they cannot learn as much as they can from launching a test rocket. It is always a better option to launch a test rocket to get all the information about the atmospheric pressure, resistance, friction, power required, engine status, aerodynamic structures, fuel efficiency, automated systems, and other components and physical conditions - before the actual launch of the main rocket. You always need to identify a mistake to correct it. That’s what SpaceX has been doing for all these years, and that’s why they are happy even if their launch failed. According to the reports, 8 of the 33 Raptor engines failed after the takeoff. The engineers at SpaceX can now find the problem and fix it for the launch of the main Starship rocket. The best thing about SpaceX is that it can “afford” to fail because it is built on failures. Let’s take the example of NASA. NASA spends billions of dollars and years building nearly flawless rockets and satellites. NASA usually does not build test rockets and tries to be successful on the first try with the main rocket. NASA cannot afford failure as they are the most advanced space agency and are known for achieving its goals on the first try; even a minor NASA failure can damage the agency’s reputation significantly. SpaceX’s method is expensive, but it is much faster. SpaceX can launch dozens of heavy rockets in space, but other agencies like NASA struggle to launch even two or three a year. Engineers should not worry about failures and should focus on larger goals. This is what the SpaceX staff is doing as they are working on the new designs and improvements of the Raptor engines. Popular Science author Eric Berger describes the launch: “They are like the first fish to walk out of the sea 375 million years ago on Earth, beginning the extraordinary transformation of life on Earth. With these Falcon 9 landings—and now Starship—we are seeing the transformation of life Earth.” off So, as long as SpaceX has a continuous inflow of money, they do not need to worry about the future. Indeed, they are like the first fish to walk out of the sea as they pioneered reusable rockets that will save millions of dollars in money. Also Published . here

SpaceX's Starship: A Successful Failure in the Pursuit of Interplanetary Species

Atterrissage vaisseau 3D - CGI Spaceship landing (Dades Production) 50m starship + 70m booster is essentially a thin and 130m tall wonder of the world. Take a matchstick with essentially the same length to width ratio and try to keep it standing upright. Pretty hard even without the slightest wind. right? But the moment SpaceX mastered rocket engine vectoring all kinds of new design possibilities suddenly opened So why do we actually still launch and land vehicles with thin profile in position that is generally unstable? More flights mean faster return of investment and bigger chance of becoming multiplanetary civilization before statistically inevitable happens. But here is current 14 pretty strict (no wind over 30mph) . weather launch criteria for falcon 9 Being limited to static launch tower means being limited to weather conditions there too. Remember. There is no Sci-Fi. Just predictions. So what If we were stable enough to launch or land from anywhere, even sea It’s not even that hard.  We simply need to be more wide than tall. Due to the wonders of engine vectoring we can now be 10m tall (instead of the current 130m) during landing or launch and transition to supersonic upright config anytime. Could we then launch or land in much harsher weather even with strong winds? Would we then actually get rid of expensive static launch towers on Earth, the Moon, or Mars? Could we then suddenly launch fly and land anywhere even at sea not needing lengthy cranky FAA permission near crowded areas? Weather is definitely the main deciding factor. Making most of the days pretty much no go. And with Climate change, we clearly opened pandora’s box of brutal weather unpredictability and force. So with tall sticks, we will be sitting ducks a lot of the time. Starships independent from static launch sites and their local limits able to move fast to any place over the sea on earth would allow fast parallel launches from anywhere. Time and Money Lost Waiting for Good Weather or Bureaucracy is What We Can’t Afford if We Want to Become Multiplanetary. So. What if we take the current spaceship 50m + booster 70m and slice it instead to 2-3 shorter tubes, put them next to each other with 2 rotatable engine groups on sides and 2 groups on the bottom? Trading 130m 4 flaps 4 fins batteries avionics and connection ring weight for 10m height stronger frame and front engine vectoring mounts By merging perhaps a significant amount of weight can be now removed. No need for ship booster connection ring and hydraulics 10t?. No need for avionics grid fins and heavy batteries from what was 200-160t booster shaving. 20-40t and another 20-40t? can be shaved by removing what was flaps and heavy batteries from what was the ship. Hopefully, leaving 50-90t? old budget for side reinforcement beams on a beer can hull between two front rotating 8 motor cluster mounts and two bottom ones with vacuum engines from the ship. Also in case of launch problem, whole 4 clusters of 8 motors are perhaps more easily swapped faster or accessed than 29-32 engine dense plumbing maze. Refueling connects at 1m ground is also a lot less risky than at 70m (space shuttle chunk of ice incident). Front engines could rotate optionally to move to the bottom to reduce thermal stress to the hull. Getting rid of vacuum engine weight by having variable-ratio nozzles Maybe SpaceX should try to make their own cheap carbon fiber to expand their material options for some parts if the only price is holding them back from composites. Considering how efficiently they made iterating steel who knows where carbon composite iteration in parallel would lead them too. Those two are not mutually exclusive. Steel is heavy and not every part makes sense to be made from steel radiation or weight-wise. The simplest way to make carbon nanomaterial even at home is to drop graphite dust on soapy water. Recently one Chinese company found a way to make supercheap carbon nanomaterial batteries. Since you can hover now, you can cheat You can launch 3 ships and chain refuel from 2 at 15km ;D Joking. Or not? If we are still too heavy to reach orbit we can go back to some parts as composites instead of steel or have a second tube smaller in diameter to form an airfoil shape to use the surface for added lift. That would also help with fuel efficiency until going fully vertical or for two starship tubes in the middle and two returning side boosters config starting and landing in VTOL 10m height config. Two tube starships just to be stable on the moon and Mars dust storms. Spreading the Same Force Over a Larger More Stable Area with Proper Landing Legs Instead of Concentrating it to a Single Unstable Spot At the launch of large loads, we are fighting mostly gravity, not air. Sidewind stability, proper landing legs, wide-area spread failure redundancy is much more important during launch/landing than thin shape for air resistance. Then in higher altitudes past strong winds we can simply transition to the same supersonic upright flight position as before having engines transition inline with the same engine power. So let’s just slightly reshuffle engines and mfg. pipelines that we already have. Single Angle Engine Vectoring Can Reduce Complexity and Many Points of Failure Since the engine can no longer randomly point in random directions in case of sudden computer latency or wind gust, one can argue the biggest points of failure are being removed or reduced. Movement and hovering freedom Vectoring can now be done with simple valves by thrust just like in quadcopters most of the time even manually if a computer fails. Ie. a higher chance to save a vehicle in theory. The ocean is an incredibly big area and in the quad mode, you are now stable enough to launch from simple and cheap 4 empty used old starship bodies acting as floats below deck you use to catch falcons. It is a great strategic advantage that SpaceX can now manufacture big steel tubes cheap and fast. So perhaps no 100 expensive oil rigs needed to hold 130m tall rockets either. Just 1 ship to pull a chain of starships on floating decks out on the sea. Landing anywhere especially in the ocean. The whole ship will on landing be essentially one big empty barrel full of air and will float pretty well too. But maybe the whole idea is stupid too heavy to reach orbit without 2 stages. I don’t know. But that’s me, never afraid to have crazy stupid ideas. I am curious to hear your opinion guys. ;D Please let me know through your feedback. I am really curious. I asked this question to a few people from SpaceX I found on Linkedin (around 20 :D ?). Curious what their answer will be but I haven’t received a reply so far. But If there are any open-minded people anywhere willing to take risks and think outside the box to push boundaries of what is possible then it is definitely at SpaceX. Previously published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-starship-quadcopter-ladislav-nevery/

Starship Transformer: Launch And Land Anywhere  Even In Wind

This week, the coverage of one of humanity’s most impressive milestones was reduced to a climax of fire. Starship didn’t fail. Science divulgation, however, might have. It’s finally happening. I’m sitting in front of the TV after a three-day excruciating wait. It looks like Starship is ready to launch and the excitement and exhaustion are palpable. From our different corners of the world, space enthusiasts (and everyone else we could drag in) watch in awe as the 394ft tall Goliath finally fights the dense layer that keeps us all breathing. Up, up it goes, defying all of our preconceptions about what was possible in our lifetime. Like a perfectly coordinated dance, Starship’s newly developed Raptor engines manage to climb, roll, and — to everyone’s amazement, bellyflop back into a vertical position. Each of these steps is, on its own, a historical achievement. The gorgeous gimbal and throttles as the novel engines glide back to earth make for an incredibly memorable moment. Even though the of this ballet is a ball of flame, YouTube streamers are giggling, the chatrooms celebrate, and Musk is tweeting again. coda We’re going to Mars! The media, however, had a very different opinion. The Guardian headlined with “ ”. SpaceX Starship SN8 explodes on landing after test flight The NYT chose an equally moody “ ”. Starship Launch and Explode in Crash Landing To those who hadn’t been sipping caffeine all throughout the three consecutive launch windows, the message could have been interpreted as: “Starship was a failure”. Multiple voices thanked the heavens there weren’t actually people inside the rocket. Others began to cynically sell their Tesla stock or declared science expenditure a waste. I’m still pumping adrenaline, surprised I’ve managed to experience such intense joy amidst one of humanity’s most challenging years. And I’m flabbergasted. SN8 was, by all measures, a success. Even if it didn’t accomplish that last task. Science embraces failure. Science fails regularly and at a high rate — and that’s what makes it extraordinary. Discovery is about finding those unexpected results, growing those simplistic models. We can’t find solutions to problems if we avoid failure; on the contrary, failure encourages us to broaden our perspective and explore alternatives. Minutes after Starship met the ground a little too enthusiastically, Musk said: “ ”. A first test, of a new engine, from a company that has made launches a weekly occurrence. SpaceX has obtained all the data we needed from the test Eileen Parkes expresses it perfectly: “ ”. Science reporters should know this. They should feel compelled to correctly communicate the scientific method. Comfortable science is an oxymoron Heck, to communicate the immense joy and heartbreaking failure that make science a unique human experience. Because if you want to make discoveries, sometimes you need to take a leap in the dark. Or butt-dive into a giant plume of fire.

Why SpaceX’s Historic Starship Flight Wasn't a “Failure”

is a space exploration company owned by a genius and a visionary who’s also the CEO of . The main goal of SpaceX is to make space travel and exploration easy and efficient. Throughout the years, Elon Musk has done a lot of amazing things and has stayed completely open to the questions of the people. I think that Elon Musk’s transparency is his best quality. Anyways, let’s take a closer look at the latest advancement of SpaceX. SpaceX Elon Musk Tesla Inc The Starship The Starship or (Big Falcon Rocket) is a reusable rocket that is under development by SpaceX. It was renamed ‘Super Heavy’ during the first stage and then ‘Starship’ in the second stage that started in November 2018. It is supposed to be a giant rocket ship standing at 387 feet tall that will make space travel possible for all. Elon Musk says that the ship will be completely reusable. BFR The rocket will be huge and will reportedly weigh at least 100,000Kg. Well, it seems like it’ll take a lot of time and hard work to accomplish such a humungous task. In the meantime, the SpaceX team is focusing on tests and prototypes. The Starhopper The Starhopper is the first prototype of the humungous Starship by SpaceX. It was planned to be tested on August 26th, 2019, however, the test failed due to some technical difficulties. Elon Musk on August 26th, 2019 at 7:41 EST “Igniters need to be inspected. We will try again tomorrow same time” after the test’s failure. Musk later addressed the issue more by tweeting “Appears to be a wiring/connector issue” in the thread. Well, when Elon Musk says something, you must believe it’s true. tweeted The SpaceX team detected and fixed the problem with the Igniters and the Starhopper was ready for another test. The goal of the test was to make Starhopper go up to a height of 150m (500ft) and then land on the landing spot on the testing area. On August 27th, 2019, Elon Musk “About to do next Starhopper flight test”. tweeted The test took place in Boca Chica Beach, TX. The test was live-streamed on a lot of channels and the of the test happening successfully was uploaded on the official YouTube of SpaceX on August 27th, 2019. The video has since amassed almost 2M views and 62K likes. video channel It’s safe to say that the test was a success and has opened a lot of gates for the whole SpaceX team and the Starship (BFR) project. Elon Musk tweeted “Congrats SpaceX team!!” congratulating the whole team of the test and showed his enthusiasm towards the future accomplishments of the company. What’s Next For The SpaceX Team? Well, we all know what is the main objective of the Starship project… to land on Mars. And not rovers or machines, actual humans on Mars. Elon Musk said that he wants to make space travel possible with this project and it seems like those days are not very far away. A few days ago, it was a prototype, which succeeded. Who knows, tomorrow we could witness a SpaceX team exploring the rocky and yet to be completely understood planet known as Mars. Elon Musk further tweeted in the same on August 27th, 2019, “One day Starship will land on the rusty sands of Mars”, showing his enthusiasm and sheer determination towards the Starship project. This resulted in a lot of people retweeting and sharing the tweets and the videos related to the experiment. All of them sharing the same enthusiasm as Musk with a dream of walking on Mars one day. thread Conclusion/My Take On the Project According to me, whatever Elon Musk does is a result of pure genius. He is a man with a vision to make this world a better place for all of us to live in. Musk has always been a brilliant human being and he showed this by establishing world-changing enterprises such as (a solar energy company), (an electric car manufacturing and an energy company), and (a space exploration company). SolarCity Tesla Inc. SpaceX Just like every other project led by Elon Musk in the past, I am pretty sure that the Starship project will prove to be a huge success. You never know!! We might be standing on Mars in a couple of years talking about how it was all just a fantasy back in the day. Images source: https://www.shutterstock.com

Starhopper: The Prototype Of Starship By SpaceX

In this article, we will develop an Arduino Starship game which will be displayed on LCD display 16x2. The game will be controlled by a joystick and by a computer through the Serial Monitor. In addition, we will store a high score in EEPROM and update them when the record is broken. The project code is published on my GitHub . In the article, we will deal with each element separately and how it will all work together. ‘Arduino_Starship_Game’ project page The project is interesting and opens up opportunities to learn new: How does an LCD display work How to make and display a custom character on the LCD display How to read data from the Serial Monitor How does a joystick work How to read and write data to EEPROM (non-volatile memory) In the game, the player controls the starship. In front of the flying starship will be some enemies. As there will be a collision of the starship with one of the enemies, the game will be over. Starship has a bullet to fire but with a limit. The limit for the bullet is only one bullet at a time. It means, that while we can see the bullet on the screen, no more bullets can be fired, we should wait until it collides with one of the enemies or disappears from the screen. Video of the gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW6j_PRgFx4 First, we will go through each element individually. Then we will figure out how all this will interact to make the game run. If you know how an element works, you can skip to the next section. LCD display Let's start with the LCD display. In the project, I have been using the popular LCD Display 16x2 which can be found almost in every Arduino kit. In my case the display comes with an I2C LCD Adapter and the connection will be GND-GND, VCC-5V, SDA-A4, and SCL-A5. Code As always, first of all, we need to include libraries: #include <Wire.h> 
#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>
LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x3F, 16, 2); In the LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x3F, 16, 2) function we define the address of our I2C LCD Adapter. And Yes, it means, we can connect many I2C elements to Arduino. The address by default is 0x3F or 0x27. The next two elements are the size of our display. Here is how we initiate and display text: void setup()
{
  lcd.begin();
  lcd.backlight();
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  lcd.print("Hello World!");
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print("Chingiz");  
} lcd.begin() - initiates the lcd.
lcd.backlight() - turns on LCD backlight.
lcd.clear() -  clears the display
lcd.setCursor(0,0) - sets cursor to the written position. Please note that the first digit is X axis and the second digit is Y axis.
lcd.print("Hello World!") - prints the written text to the LCD. Custom characters Each display digit consists of 5x8 pixels. To create a custom character as a spaceship, we need to define and initiate it: byte c1[8]={B00000,B01010,B00000,B00000,B10001,B01110,B00000,B00000}; //Smile-1
byte c2[8]={B10000,B10100,B01110,B10101,B01110,B10100,B10000,B00000}; //Starship-2

//In setup:
lcd.createChar(0 , c1);   //Creating custom characters in CG-RAM
lcd.createChar(1 , c2);   //Creating custom characters in CG-RAM As you can see the custom character creation is done by using a byte with a length of five which stands for one line and we have eight of them to have one custom digit. I found a that will be helpful with LCD custom character creation. Here you can draw your custom character and the code will be automatically generated for it: site And here is how we display our custom character(s): lcd.print(char(0));
lcd.print(char(1)); Joystick The joystick has a button, X and Y-axis. The button works as usual. The X and Y axis can be thought of as a potentiometer, which provides data between 0 and 1023. A default value is half of that. We will use only the X-axis to control the starship. I have connected the SW to pin 2 and X-axis to A1. Here is the initiation of the joystick: // Arduino pin numbers
const int SW_pin = 2; // digital pin connected to switch output
const int X_pin = 1; // analog pin connected to X output

//In setup:
  //joystick initiation 
  pinMode(SW_pin, INPUT);
  digitalWrite(SW_pin, HIGH); //default value is 1 Reading the Joystick data and detecting commands: //In loop:
  //Joystick input to commands:
  if(digitalRead(SW_pin)==LOW){
    //Fire bullet detected
  }
  if(analogRead(X_pin)>612){
    //Go up command detected
  }
  if(analogRead(X_pin)<412){
    //Go down command detected
  } Game development Initiation Let’s include all libraries and initiate all required variables for the game: I tried to name each variable so that it was clear what it is for. Three custom characters: starship, enemy, and bullet. Lcd array 2x16, which has been used to easily debug the game. game_score and game_start are used to get the score of the game. and we have some variables related to the bullet and enemies. #include <Wire.h> 
#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>
LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x3F, 16, 2);
#include <EEPROM.h>
byte c1[8]={B10000,B10100,B01110,B10101,B01110,B10100,B10000,B00000}; //Starship
byte c2[8]={B00100,B01000,B01010,B10100,B01010,B01000,B00100,B00000}; //Enemy
byte c3[8]={B00000,B00000,B00000,B00110,B00110,B00000,B00000,B00000}; //Bullet

String lcd_array[2][16] = 
  {{"}"," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "},
   {" "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "}}; 

/*
} - Starship
> - Bullet
< - Enemy
*/

const unsigned int MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH = 12;
int starship_possiton = 0;
bool game_is_in_progress = false;
unsigned long game_score = 0;
unsigned long game_start = 0;
bool bullet_is_in_progress = false;
int bullet_possiton[2];
unsigned long bullet_last_move = 0;
unsigned long bullet_speed = 100;
bool enemies_array[5] = {false,false,false,false,false};//{false,true,true,true,true};//
long randNumber;
int enemies_possiton[5][2] = {{-1,-1},{-1,-1},{-1,-1},{-1,-1},{-1,-1}};
unsigned long enemies_last_move[5] = {0,0,0,0,0};
unsigned long enemies_overall_last_move = 0;
unsigned long enemies_speed = 200;

char message[MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH] = ""; //w - UP, s - Down, f - Fire

/*
Commands:
Up
Down
Fire
*/

// Arduino pin numbers
const int SW_pin = 2; // digital pin connected to switch output
const int X_pin = 1; // analog pin connected to X output Setup In the setup, we will initiate the Serial monitor, LCD, Joystick and set a starter game screen. Here we have used some of earlier initiated variables. void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
  lcd.begin();
  //Creating custom characters in CG-RAM
  lcd.createChar(1 , c1);
  lcd.createChar(2 , c2);
  lcd.createChar(3 , c3);
  //initiate random
  randomSeed(analogRead(0));
  //joystick initiation 
  pinMode(SW_pin, INPUT);
  digitalWrite(SW_pin, HIGH); //default value is 1
  //Starter screen of the game
  lcd.backlight();
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  lcd.print(" Starship game");
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  lcd.print(char(1));
  lcd.print(" Press any key to start");
} Loop In the loop we will listen to the serial monitor to get a command to go up (w), down (s), or fire (f): while (Serial.available() > 0){
  static unsigned int message_pos = 0;
  //Read the next available byte in the serial receive buffer
  char inByte = Serial.read();
  //Message coming in (check not terminating character) and guard for over message size
  if ( inByte != '\n' && (message_pos < MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH - 1) ){
    //Add the incoming byte to our message
    message[message_pos] = inByte;
    message_pos++;
  }else{//Full message received...
    //Add null character to string
    message[message_pos] = '\0';
    //Print the message (or do other things)
    Serial.print("[[");
    Serial.print(message);
    Serial.println("]]");
    print_array_to_serial();
    //Reset for the next message
    message_pos = 0;
  }
} As one of the keys will be pressed the game will be started: //Start game
if (game_is_in_progress==false && (message[0] == 'w' || message[0] == 's' || message[0] == 'f')){
  game_is_in_progress = true;
  game_start = millis();
} We need to update the position of the starship as we get the Up or Down command. As we get fire command, we need to make sure if the bullet is not already in progress and after that, it will be initiated with X position 1 and Y position as the current starship position. //Processing input
    if(message[0] == 'w'){ // Up command
      starship_possiton = 0;
    }else if(message[0] == 's'){ // Down command
      starship_possiton = 1;
    }else if(message[0] == 'f' && bullet_is_in_progress == false){ //Fire command
      bullet_possiton[0] = starship_possiton;
      bullet_possiton[1] = 1;
      bullet_is_in_progress = true;
      bullet_last_move = millis();
    } Moving the bullet We will check if the add-up of bullet_last_move and bullet_speed is equal to or less than millis(). Because of that, if you want to make the bullet faster the bullet_speed variable needs to be decreased. We will move the bullet till the end of the screen and as its position will go over the screen size, the bullet will be reset. if(bullet_is_in_progress && bullet_last_move+bullet_speed <= millis()){
      if(bullet_possiton[1] != 15){
        Serial.println("moving bullet");
        bullet_last_move = millis();
        bullet_possiton[1] = bullet_possiton[1]+1;
      }else if(bullet_possiton[1] == 15){
        bullet_possiton[1] = -1;
        bullet_is_in_progress = false;
      }
    } Enemies initiation We will have a maximum of 5 enemies at a time. As earlier, we need to check if we have an inactive enemy to activate it. Also, to have a bit of space between enemies, we will wait for triple of enemies speed from enemies overall last move. We will generate a random value from 0 to 6. If the value is zero or one, the enemy will be initiated with the corresponding Y position and the last cell (15) in the X position. //Enemies initiation
    if((enemies_array[0]==false || enemies_array[1]==false || 
       enemies_array[2]==false || enemies_array[3]==false || enemies_array[4]==false) &&
       enemies_overall_last_move+enemies_speed*3 <= millis() ){
      // print a random number from 0 to 6
      randNumber = random(0, 6);
//      Serial.print("randNumber: "); Serial.println(randNumber);
      if(randNumber==0 || randNumber==1){
//        Serial.print("Enemies initiation: "); Serial.println(randNumber);
        for(int i=0; i<5; i++){
          if(enemies_array[i]==false){
            lcd_array[randNumber][15]="<";
            enemies_array[i]=true;
            enemies_possiton[i][0] = randNumber;
            enemies_possiton[i][1] = 15;
            enemies_last_move[i] = millis();
            enemies_overall_last_move = millis(); 
            break;
          }
        }
      }
    } Moving enemies is pretty similar to moving the bullet but in the reverse direction: //moving enemies
    for(int i=0; i<5; i++){
      if(enemies_array[i]==true && enemies_last_move[i]+enemies_speed <= millis()){
        enemies_possiton[i][1] = enemies_possiton[i][1] - 1;
        enemies_last_move[i] = millis();
      }
      //if enemy passed through starship
      if(enemies_possiton[i][1]==-1){
        enemies_array[i]=false;
      }
    } Update lcd_array and check crushes. We will insert our game elements to the lcd_array. By default, all cells will be blank. Then, we will draw the starship, bullet, and enemies. In the array the elements have the following symbols: } - starship bullet < - enemy for(int i=0;i<2;i++){
      for(int j=0;j<16;j++)
        if(game_is_in_progress){
          lcd_array[i][j] = " ";//by default all cells are blank
          //drawing starship
          if(starship_possiton==i && j==0){
            lcd_array[i][j] = "}";
          }
          //drawing bullet
          if(bullet_is_in_progress == true && bullet_possiton[0] == i && 
          bullet_possiton[1] == j){
            lcd_array[i][j] = ">";
          }
          //drawing enemies
          for(int k=0; k<5; k++){
            if(enemies_array[k]==true && enemies_possiton[k][0] == i 
            && enemies_possiton[k][1] == j){
              lcd_array[i][j]="<";
            }
          }
        }
      }
    } Next one, we will check for crushes: bullet enemy crush starship enemy crush for(int k=0; k<5; k++){
            if(bullet_is_in_progress == true && bullet_possiton[0] == i && 
            bullet_possiton[1] == j &&
            ((enemies_array[k]==true && enemies_possiton[k][0] == i 
            && enemies_possiton[k][1] == j) || 
            (enemies_array[k]==true && enemies_possiton[k][0] == i 
            && enemies_possiton[k][1] == j-1) )
            ){
              Serial.println("bullet enemy crush");
              enemies_array[k] = false;
              enemies_possiton[k][0] = -1; 
              enemies_possiton[k][1] = -1;
              bullet_is_in_progress = false;
              bullet_possiton[0] = -1;
              bullet_possiton[1] = -1;
              lcd_array[i][j]=" ";
            } 
          }
          
          //starship enemy crush
          if(j==0 && starship_possiton==i){
            for(int k=0; k<5; k++){
              if(enemies_array[k]==true && enemies_possiton[k][0] == i 
              && enemies_possiton[k][1] == j){
                Serial.println("starship enemy crush");
                //Game Over. Your score. High Score
                game_score = millis() - game_start;
                
                //need to reset all game values
                starship_possiton = 0;
                game_is_in_progress = false;
                bullet_is_in_progress = false;
                for(int z=0; z<5; z++){
                  enemies_array[z] = false;
                  enemies_possiton[z][0] = -1;
                  enemies_possiton[z][1] = -1;
                }   
                enemies_speed = 200;
                message[MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH] = ""; //w - UP, s - Down, f - Fire
                break;
              } 
            }
          } In the bullet enemy crush, if we check only if the bullet and enemy are in the same position, we can face an issue when the enemy and bullet change their position at the same time. This will look like the enemy passed through the bullet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Qm3N1_h5o This will be not every time but quite often. To prevent it, we also need to check if the enemy is located behind the bullet. It does not interfere with the game in any way and perfectly solves our problem. After the starship and the enemy crush, we will get the game score by subtracting the game start millis from the current millis. Also, game variables will be reset. After the lcd array update, we will print the array to the LCD. The enemy, bullet, and enemy symbols will be replaced by our custom characters: //Printing game to lcd
    for(int i=0;i<2;i++){
      lcd.setCursor(0,i);
      for(int j=0;j<16;j++){
        if(lcd_array[i][j] == "}"){
          lcd.print(char(1));
        }else if(lcd_array[i][j] == "<"){
          lcd.print(char(2));
        }else if(lcd_array[i][j] == ">"){
          lcd.print(char(3));
        }else{
          lcd.print(lcd_array[i][j]);
        }   
      }
    } After the crush of the enemy and starship, we will display the high score (record) and the score of the game. If the game score is more than a high score, it will be updated. Next time the new high score will be displayed, even after the Arduino power off: if(game_score!=0){
      EEPROM.get(0, game_start);
      Serial.print("High score: ");
      Serial.println(game_start);
      Serial.print("Score: ");
      Serial.println(game_score);
     
      //Game over screen
      lcd.clear();
      lcd.setCursor(0,0);
      lcd.print("Record: ");
      lcd.print(game_start);
      
      lcd.setCursor(0,1);
      lcd.print("Score:  ");
      lcd.print(game_score);
      if(game_score > game_start){
         EEPROM.put(0, game_score);
      }
      game_score = 0;//reset game score for next game
    } At the end of the loop we will have a short delay and reset command: delay(50);
  message[0] = ' '; //reset command The printing of the lcd_array to the serial monitor has been separated to function and can be displayed by request or constantly: void print_array_to_serial(){
  //Printing game to Serial Monitor:
  Serial.println("lcd_array:");
  for(int i=0;i<2;i++){
    for(int j=0;j<16;j++){
      Serial.print(lcd_array[i][j]);
    }
    Serial.println("");
  }
} And the game control by the joystick is added in this easy way: if(digitalRead(SW_pin)==LOW){
    message[0] = 'f';
  }
  if(analogRead(X_pin)>612){
    message[0] = 'w';
  }
  if(analogRead(X_pin)<412){
    message[0] = 's';
  } Conclusion This game will help you practice creating a game at a basic level and you will further turn on your imagination to create more complex games. For fans of Arduino and game development, this is a good base to polish your skills. The best thing after such a lot of work is to play the game that was developed by you. Hope the project was interesting for you. Through this project, we have learned about and used in practice the LCD display and the joystick. Here are some enhancement ideas for the project, which can be implemented by you: Lives Game difficulty levels A complication of the game as the player progresses Make a Boss enemy which will have the ability to send enemies and fire bullets. Ability to enter name or nick if the high score has been broken. Which will also be entered into the EEPROM.

How to Build an Arduino Starship Game Controlled by Joystick and Computer

Cómo construir un juego Arduino Starship controlado por joystick y computadora

(Check out more jokes from the source .) here All jokes aside, Mr. Musk has captured international media headlines once more by creating a vehicle that could be a game-changer for space travel. The Starship is a reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle (rocket) designed to travel to space with cargo and humans on board. According to SpaceX, “It is powered by sub-cooled methane and oxygen.” According to Elon Musk, it’s simply “a dream come true.” But why is it such a big deal? Building rockets is extremely challenging and making this happen has been impossible until now (potentially). fully reusable [On August 6, 2021] the Starship was stacked on top of the Super Heavy booster and briefly became the tallest rocket ever built. The intention for this vehicle is to travel to the Earth’s Orbit, to the Moon, and to . Mars Administrative Efforts One of the most important steps in a project of this size is to secure funding. According to Elon Musk’s estimate for the ultimate cost of the Starship program is that it will cost $5 billion. CNBC, Funding for the Starship came from various investors, himself, as well as Elon Musk . NASA All that being said, funding is being secured as the project continues, and was not gathered all at once. Another important element of making a project like this come to fruition is to make sure that you are allowed to actually make it happen. This means it is necessary to act in accordance with the law. This is likely to involve lobbying the government on topics like the: Department of Defense Appropriations Act, United States Space Force Act, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act, Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies Act, and many more. Currently, SpaceX is in limbo because it needs to obtain the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration before ‘being allowed’ to launch the rocket, and the FAA doesn’t have a ‘schedule for completing the final assessment.’ Gathering talent and finding the appropriate space to do the testing is also a requirement. This process includes securing launch pads in a variety of locations, as well as securing a ship(s) to catch the rocket. Further to this, securing an adequate flow of materials from companies around the world is a challenge in and of itself. These are barely scratching the surface. Booster: Super Heavy The Super Heavy booster is the bottom piece of the two-stage spacecraft. It has multiple engines, massive grid diamond-shaped fins, and six landing legs. The rocket is 9 meters in diameter, and 70 meters tall, with a propellant capacity of 3400 tonnes. The Super Heavy supports 29 Raptor engines and produces 72MN of thrust. Interesting fact: Raptor engines are the first full-flow staged combustion rocket engine ever flown. It seems the company is literally blazing the trail again. Spaceship: Starship The Starship is the top part of the two-stage spacecraft. It is 9 meters in diameter and 50 meters tall. Starship owes its notable power to three sea-level optimized Raptor engines and 3 vacuum-optimized Raptor engines. This is the part of the ship that’s responsible for carrying passengers, long-duration cargo, traveling to other in the solar system, as well as re-entering the earth’s atmosphere to land on a specific launching pad. System features include on-orbit propellant loading, retro propulsion, and “body flaps.” planets Thanks to its large compartment, Starship also allows for new, unprecedented missions. Eventually, the Starship is projected to come in different versions, including Surface Cargo Starship, Orbital Cargo Starship, Tanker, Lunar‑surface‑to‑orbit transport, and Crewed Starship. Materials and Testing Initially, the Starship was planned to be made out of carbon fiber. Today, SpaceX switched to stainless steel, since it’s more cost-effective and easier to produce. Usually, rocket designs go through many renditions and tests including low altitude prototypes, high altitude prototypes, and orbital launches. Testing can frequently include costly explosions and sometimes casualties. Conclusion SpaceX was founded in 2002, and 19 years later continues to make history and move human progress forward. It is an example of a company whose vision and project management are changing the universe. Credit for the above piece goes to Ellen Stevens, Tatsiana Isakova, and Hang Ngo. Subscribe to ’s newsletters via our subscribe form in the footer. HackerNoon

How to Build SpaceX’s Starship

Space travel remains the dream of many people, and Intuitive Machines' has brought us one step closer. Although it “tripped” while landing on the Moon, Odysseus has managed to communicate with its control team on Earth, beaming back information and images. Odysseus is the first private spacecraft ever to land successfully on the moon — and the first American vehicle to do so since the final Apollo mission in 1972. Odysseus lander Of course, the Moon is probably only meant to serve as a practice pad and “truck stop” in the future for more ambitious missions that will take humans to Mars and elsewhere. The Moon will hopefully be used for scientific experiments, training purposes, and as a way station for future astronauts who will spend lengthy periods of time in space. While the Odysseus was unmanned, NASA has plans to send astronauts back to the Moon through its Artemis program. Billionaire and SpaceX founder Elon Musk he believes that humans could already be making their way to the red planet in just a few years. said last year Musk an ambitious plan to establish a human colony on Mars and that he aims to transport one million people to the Red Planet, stating that “civilization only passes the single-planet Great Filter when Mars can survive even if Earth supply ships stop coming.” In the past, Musk has said he plans to have a million people on and that “a on the red planet could sustain our species if all humanity is extinguished on Earth.” recently revealed Mars by 2050 permanent colony Musk has long voiced his intent to make humanity multi-planetary, often pointing to human settlement on Mars as an insurance policy for civilization in case Earth is struck by any number of calamities. With the space race in full gear, the question of who gets what contract has become a matter of serious competition. Companies like Intuitive Machines, Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, or Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic are all competing for the eventual ability to ferry Earth’s inhabitants back and forth between our planet and whatever way station or permanent habitat we build elsewhere, whether on the Moon or Mars. SpaceX's first priority is "establishing a cargo route to Mars," in the past. Musk has said Musk is relying on the much-touted Starship to advance his plans. His early plans involved sending unmanned ships to the surface of Mars and then sending people after that once the flights were proven safe. The first missions would work to convert water and CO2 found on the Mars surface into the liquid oxygen and methane fuel that powers the Starship. By doing so, SpaceX would guarantee a long-lasting fuel source. Once refueled, the Starships would be able to make the journey back to Earth. Following the initial flights, Musk wants to bring large groups of people to Mars to build colonies and factories to make the planet self-sustaining. One of the main priorities would be to build a factory for rocket fuel, essentially turning Mars into an outpost for ever-expanding space travel. In Musk’s vision, people could go from Mars to the asteroid belts, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and the Kuiper belt. While in the beginning stages, people on Mars would have to live inside large protected air-tight structures on the surface or even underground, eventually, though, Musk said he envisions having the ability to warm the planet to make it habitable and allow humans to live outside without the need for supplemental oxygen. But this is where some scientists begin to see problems with Musk’s grand plan. According to experts, there just on Mars that you can mobilize and create a long-lasting atmosphere the way Musk believes he can. The other problem, even if this was possible, is keeping the CO2 contained in the atmosphere. isn't enough CO2 Musk has said he understands this issue and realizes it would take a long time. He acknowledged that this is a project that would span several generations, and even if we cannot create an atmosphere now, we could at least build the first colony on Mars, preparing the way for future generations. One of the greatest advantages of space exploration in today’s day and age is that we now have new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to expand our capabilities more than was possible when space travel first became possible. For instance, AI is to help scientists analyze data more quickly and accurately and automate operations on spacecraft. The continuous development of other planets and moons in ways never before possible. currently being used in the space industry AI is helping rovers and landers explore “SpaceX has been improving and refining how rockets operate. The company uses AI to monitor and analyze data from the rocket’s sensors and telemetry systems, allowing for better decision-making and more precise control of the rocket’s trajectory and speed. SpaceX also uses AI to automate certain aspects of the rocket landing procedure.” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has also recently developed an that can autonomously plan a spacecraft mission based on given parameters and constraints. Machine learning algorithms are being used to identify potential water sources or mineral deposits on the planet’s surface. AI-based mission planning system Clearly, AI is essential to the future of space exploration and will increasingly be implemented across various future missions in space—from Mars colonization efforts to interplanetary travel to supporting astronaut health. We are getting closer to this vision of becoming an interplanetary species. As long as it does not hallucinate or generate false information, as some AI technologies currently do, AI will help us achieve this unique and incredible vision.

AI Will Help Mankind Colonize Mars

NASA and SpaceX have both been hit with setbacks this month. Astrobotic Technology, a Pittsburgh-based company with a $108 million contract from NASA, has abandoned plans for a soft landing on the moon with its Peregrine Mission One lunar lander after the lander experienced critical propellant loss due to a fuel leak shortly after liftoff, making the scheduled moon landing on Feb. 23 impossible. This setback is a disappointment for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which aims to reduce the cost of lunar lander development and comes at a time when NASA is facing delays in returning astronauts to the moon. At the same time, SpaceX has been forced to scrub its launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station due to weather concerns. The Falcon 9 is being launched to deploy a batch of 23 Starlink internet satellites. In addition, SpaceX lost its last Starship after it exploded in midair due to what founder Elon Musk said was the venting of extraneous liquid oxygen. SpaceX’s massive, reusable Starship rocket conducted two test flights in 2023, the first in April and a second in November, and company representatives now say the third such mission could come as soon as Feb. 2024. These incidents demonstrate that even in 2024, mankind’s effort to conquer space through space technology is still wrought with difficulties and challenges. They serve as poignant reminders of the formidable technical and logistical challenges involved in everything from launches to lunar landings. Despite the tremendous progress made in space exploration, rocket launches and lunar missions continue to demand meticulous planning, cutting-edge technology, and unwavering precision to ensure a safe and successful journey to the moon's surface. The legacy of the Apollo program lives on as a testament to human ingenuity and determination, inspiring future generations to tackle the ongoing complexities of lunar exploration. Landing humans on the moon during NASA's Apollo program in the late 60s and 70s was a remarkable feat, especially considering that the computers used at the time possessed significantly less processing power than our smartphones. Despite the advancements in technology over the past five decades, successfully launching rockets as well as landing on the moon remains an extraordinarily challenging endeavor. In recent years, several notable missions have underscored the difficulty of lunar landings. One such example is Israel's Beresheet spacecraft, which unfortunately crashed into the ancient lunar volcanic field known as the Sea of Serenity in 2019. Similarly, in the following year, Russia's Luna-25 mission and a commercial Japanese lander named Hakuto-R also met with unfortunate outcomes as they collided with the moon's unforgiving surface. It is worth noting, however, that India recently celebrated a significant achievement by becoming the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon. Now, Astrobotic is the latest private entity to have failed in a soft landing. NASA’s overall goal is to seed a commercial lunar economy and reduce its own overhead costs. Several private companies have decided to enter the fray and all of them are competing as well as cooperating to provide the next generation of tourism and commercial vehicles that will be used in space. When SpaceX transports Starship to the launchpad later this year for its third trial, a crucial aspect of testing will involve assessing the spacecraft's capability to transfer super-chilled rocket fuel while in space. NASA has placed its reliance on SpaceX to transport astronauts to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis III and IV moon missions, for which SpaceX holds a $4.2 billion contract. To achieve this mission, SpaceX must first master the complex process of refueling a Starship while it is in low-Earth orbit, subsequent to its initial launch from Earth. This challenging procedure is referred to as "cryogenic propellant transfer" and has never been attempted before in the conditions of microgravity. During SpaceX’s media teleconference last week, this topic was discussed as well. In 2021, NASA selected Starship as its crewed lander for Artemis 3 — the vehicle that will carry two astronauts to the surface of the moon and then back up to lunar orbit once their stay is complete. But because rockets and spacecraft burn through most of their fuel while escaping Earth's deep gravity well, a massive vehicle like Starship would need to be refueled in orbit before continuing to the moon. The efforts by NASA and SpaceX to achieve perfection is laudable as we seek to extend our influence beyond the bonds of Earth and establish a human presence on the Moon and eventually Mars. Every failure only brings us closer to success.

STARSHIP

deploystarship.com

-- employees

Since n.d.

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STARSHIP

deploystarship.com

-- employees

Since n.d.

COMPANY RANKING

STARSHIP

EVERGREEN INDEX #10616

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