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Elon Musk Gives Sneak Peek at SpaceX Starship Prototype’s Construction

SpaceX’s Starship prototype is coming together: Elon Musk recently teased some photos of the spacecraft and its construction site looks like something straight out of Star Wars.

The spacecraft, which serves as a prototype for SpaceX’s Mars-bound Starship, is currently under development, CNN reported. It follows the Starhopper, SpaceX’s first Starship prototype that aced a major hover test in August. Now, SpaceX is ready to build a prototype that may be able to fly into our planet’s orbit.

Droid Junkyard, Tatooine pic.twitter.com/yACFR9y04P

Elon Musk shows off Starship prototype progress

Billionaire company founder Elon Musk tweeted a pair of photos this week apparently showing progress on one of the Starship prototypes SpaceX is currently developing.

SpaceX has said it plans to use the rockets to shuttle passengers and cargo across the planet or beyond it.

“Droid Junkyard, Tatooine,” Musk wrote in the first tweet, making a joking “Star Wars” reference.

SpaceX’s orbital Starship prototype construction progress detailed in new photos

SpaceX is making progress assembling its Starship orbital spacecraft prototype, as seen in new photos shared by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. This full-scale testing version of the Starship will take over for the StarHopper, which was a scaled-down version used to test the Raptor engine initially with low-altitude “hop” flights.

The Starship Mk I Prototype and Mk II prototypes, which are under construction simultaneously at SpaceX facilities in South Texas and Florida, will be used to test flights at higher altitudes and higher speeds, and will use as many as three to six Raptor engines simultaneously, versus the single engine used with the StarHopper.

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Space Talent puts jobs at Blue Origin, SpaceX and elsewhere in one big database

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are often at odds, but there’s at least one place where those two space-industry rivals are on the same page: the newly unveiled Space Talent job database.

The search engine for careers in the space industry is a project of Space Angels, a nationwide network designed to link angel investors with space entrepreneurs.

“If you’ve ever considered working in space, this jobs board has 3,000 reasons to make the leap,” Space Angels CEO Chad Anderson said in a tweet.

Prof. Steve Fuller on Transhumanism: Ask yourself what is human?

Prof. Steve Fuller is the author of 25 books including a trilogy relating to the idea of a ‘post-’ or ‘trans-‘human future, and most recently, Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Age.

During this 2h 15 min interview with Steve Fuller we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the social foundations of knowledge and our shared love of books; Transhumanism as a scientistic way of understanding who we are; the proactionary vs the precautionary principle; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Omega Point; Julian and Aldous Huxley’s diverging takes on Transhumanism; David Pearce’s Hedonistic Imperative as a concept straight out of Brave New World; the concept and meaning of being human, transhuman and posthuman; humanity’s special place in the cosmos; my Socratic Test of (Artificial) Intelligence; Transhumanism as a materialist theology – i.e. religion for geeks; Elon Musk, cosmism and populating Mars; de-extinction, genetics and the sociological elements of a given species; the greatest issues that humanity is facing today; AI, the Singularity and armed conflict; morphological freedom and becoming human; longevity and the “Death is Wrong” argument; Zoltan Istvan and the Transhumanist Wager; Transhumanism as a way of entrenching rather than transcending one’s original views…

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

Tesla’s ‘Joe Mode’ in its V10 update is a lifesaver for parents

Tesla owners who travel with kids can breathe an extra sigh of relief with the electric car maker’s V10 Update, as the company has introduced a new feature known as “Joe Mode.” The new feature will allow drivers to lower the volume of alerts and prompts that will are engaged while the vehicle is in motion.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced some details on V10’s “Joe Mode” earlier this year while replying to numerous followers who speculated about what new features will be coming to be new update. As one follower asked for a mode that would help keep his children asleep during drives, Musk replied with introductory information about the V10 feature.

Hoping to get “Joe Mode” into V10. The default, of course, is normal volume, but selecting “Joe Mode” would lower the volume of strident beeps & chimes by half.

Brain chips could soon give people superintelligence

Brain-to-computer interfaces and intelligence boosting chips implanted in the brain could soon make their way out of the realms of science fiction and into reality.

Already, some of the biggest tech giants in the industry like Elon Musk and Facebook are working to create brain-computer interfaces.

CBS Chicago recently spoke to Dr. Moran Cerf, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, who is currently developing a non-invasive computer chip that when implanted in the brain could give an individual super intelligence.