Someone Just Blew Up This Space Station

Someone just blew up this space station… but that’s actually great news. Let me explain.

There’s big effort right now to find an easier way to build habitats in space, for astronauts to live, eat, sleep, and do research. A good habitat needs to be compactly bundled up, sent out to space, and then inflated once it gets there. This means they can build more livable space for astronauts using fewer rocket launches. This habitat is made of a special woven material that, when inflated, is stronger than steel and it's going through lots of safety tests, like for how much internal pressure it can withstand…

The good news is that the company making it was able to fill it with more air than NASA’s safety levels require before it burst apart. This tech could let us explore and live in space more easily than humans never have before.

This video is part of our show Huge If True. If you like optimistic science and tech stories, follow for more!

#shorts #NASA #sciencefacts #hugeiftrue #stem #education

[roaling]

Dude I swear everything is stronger than steel now, steel needs to up its game.

[MichaelRoy-hclz]

Not only is this channel full of interesting subjects Cloe's enthusiasm is both entertaining and contagious

[mrstardian]

I was thinking this would be an april fools joke about the ISS blowing up 🫠

[dalilguy]

Brings a whole new meaning to the housing bubble burst.. on a serious note do we know if the fibers wear out, kinda like how a bulletproof vest is only good for so long before the fibers become useless

[vishank]

Feedback: Please mention the company's name!

[Graezar]

Honestly thinking about tech like this actually makes me giddy, like you can store a hotel suite level of space in a nose cone sized area and then just inflate once you’re in space, this is wild!

[smellybearc]

“How’s it going”

“My house just popped”

[chrisclark]

People in the comments acting like the engineers and scientists are not testing for space debris or micrometeors.

[planetsec]

Sierra Space is a super underrated space company imo

[MrTeddy]

one small grain of space sand moving at 87% the speed of light:

[paulbckr]

It would give me anxiety if only a puffed-up layer of rubber protected me from death

[jackdezmen]

Cleo the thing is that your beauty and grace surpasses all the awesome news you bring. And I cannot help but admire your superb beauty. Thank you for making this world more beautiful.

[Methodician]

This makes such perfect sense! Why would we build rigid structures when they're going to a place with no air and all it takes is atmospheric pressure to make it rigid? I would not be at all surprised if in the future this is the de facto way to build large structures in general if it's going to stay in space. I wonder if they could build something that could be deflated and inflated repeatedly for reusable starships... Compress it and fold it up before reentry and then puff it back out when you are going to be in space for an extended time. Kind of like an RV with those expandable segments.

[Noobixm]

Everybody gangsta till a piece of space debris pulls up to your glorified balloon.

[Nepafarius]

Our future starships are gonna look like the stay puft marshmallow man.

[HalkerVeil]

It's not the pressure that's the problem, its the micro meteorite that pops it rather than just causing a tiny hole. That is the problem.

[Preston]

Rents are getting so high we may as well try moving to space.

[SilverHuskyYT]

They were actually able to pressurize it past the point that would be compatible with life anyway. They can also use the data to determine how the module would stand up to micrometeorite impacts and where its weakest spots are. Cool dream job stuff

[PhoenixSeer_]

Yeah no I feel like my pants can be stronger than steel nowadays

[mab]

Honestly, this idea sound so natural, that it's weird it wasn't implemented so far!