Stakes Are High For Elon Musk’s Latest Starship Test
In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at SpaceX’s upcoming Starship test, new science heading to the international space station, a way to make older brains more youthful and more. To get The Prototype in your inbox, sign up here.
On Sunday evening, SpaceX will attempt the tenth test of its Starship rocket, its first since late May when the ninth test ended in an explosion, just like the seventh and eighth tests did. Earlier this week, the company released the results of its investigation into the previous failure, which suggested a faulty part in the fuel tank’s pressurization system was to blame. The company hopes its redesigned part in the spacecraft launching Sunday will fix the problem.
The stakes are high for Elon Musk’s space company. The consecutive failures on earlier tests have delayed others that SpaceX had hoped to perform this year, pushing them to 2026. Starship is also a crucial piece of NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade. Still, the company has faced doubters before and went on to succeed, said Jeffrey Hoffman, a former astronaut and current professor of aerospace engineering at MIT. “They have a good track record of analyzing failures and learning from them,” he said.
But Starship’s complexity, even by spacecraft standards, means there’s a risk it may never work as designed. “Let’s hope that’s not the case with Starship,” he said. “Because we’re really counting on it for future space activities.”
Stay tuned.
Growing Mini-Organs And Setting Up A Data Center On The Space Station
Also on Sunday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry supplies, equipment and a set of scientific experiments to the International Space Station. Two of these experiments could aid in developing future medicines. Cedars-Sinai has sponsored one project that aims to grow miniature versions of hearts and brains from stem cells. Scientists hope to understand if they’ll function more like true organs if they’re grown in space, where they’ll have more three-dimensional structures when not affected by gravity.
NASA will also be working with Wake Forest University to test what’s known as “bioprinting.” Astronauts on the ISS will be using a bioprinter, which creates biological tissues in a manner comparable to 3D-printing, to make artificial liver tissues. Like with the mini hearts and brains, scientists hope that the microgravity conditions will enable the liver tissues to sustain more blood vessels so that they can live longer than the 30 days they last on Earth.
Another interesting experiment on the launch: Axiom Space and Red Hat have developed a prototype data center that can work in space, which will also be on board the SpaceX launch. Computation can be slower in spacecraft because data often has to be downlinked to Earth, where it is processed and then sent back. Orbital data centers would speed this up on future space missions.
DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK: THIS PROTEIN CAUSES THE BRAIN TO AGE (IN MICE)
A team of scientists studying the brains of both older and younger mice found that there appeared to be only one significant difference between them: the presence of a protein called FTL1. Older mice had more, younger mice had less. When they added the protein to the brains of younger mice, they began to show slower cognitive functions like those of older mice. But when they used a compound to reduce the amount of FTL1 in older mice, they performed better on memory tests, and their brains showed more connections between nerve cells than untreated older mice. The scientists are hopeful this research might one day be applied to humans.
FINAL FRONTIER: USING AI TO PREDICT SOLAR WEATHER
The energy and radiation produced by solar storms can disrupt technology here on Earth by disrupting GPS and damaging satellites. To better plan for such incidents, NASA and IBM teamed up to train an AI model on 14 years of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The model, which can predict solar activity, has been released on Hugging Face for use by other researchers.
FORBES CALLED IT: FIRST TREATMENT FOR A RARE DISEASE
The FDA has approved Papzimeos, a medication developed by pharmaceutical company Precigen, for the treatment of the rare disease recurrent respiratory papillomatosis–a condition where patients with an HPV infection develop benign tumors in their respiratory system. It’s the first FDA-approved treatment for the disease. I profiled the company’s CEO, Helen Sabzevari, in 2021 when we selected her for our annual 50 Over 50 list.
WHAT ELSE I WROTE THIS WEEK
I was a guest on The Sway Effect podcast, where I talked about the state of play for biotech, healthcare, AI, federal research funding and more.
In my other newsletter, InnovationRx, Amy Feldman and I wrote about Phil Knight’s $2 billion gift to support cancer research, how one startup is using AI to clear red tape in healthcare systems, a new medical device that can treat a chronic pain condition and more.
SCIENCE AND TECH TIDBITS
California-based startup Grid Aero is developing swarms of small, autonomous planes that could bring needed supplies to a battlefield–while being harder for anti-air missiles to hit.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is getting its first quantum computer, developed by Finnish-based company IQM. The 20 qubit machine will be installed in the third quarter of this year.
Carbon removal company Deep Sky has begun operations in Innisfail, Alberta. Its new, solar-powered facility will directly capture about 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year and permanently store it underground.
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a hydrogel material that can capture chemicals like phosphates or ammonia from wastewater so they can be repurposed as fertilizer or other chemicals.
PRO SCIENCE TIP: GOT A BIG DECISION OR PERFORMANCE? SAVE IT FOR LATE MORNING
A group of psychologists analyzed the results of over 100,000 oral exams for both undergrads and postgrads at an Italian university (note to my U.S. readers: oral exams are more common in Europe than they are here) over a span of years and found that the scheduling of the exam had a big impact on the outcome: those who had their exams in the late morning were more likely to pass, with rates peaking at noon and then dropping. Those who had early morning or late afternoon exams were more likely to fail. The authors note that this aligns with multiple other studies, such as ones that show the time of day affects how judges are likely to rule on cases, suggesting that the best time to make critical decisions is in the late morning. So keep that in mind next time you’re planning your day.
WHAT’S ENTERTAINING ME THIS WEEK
This weekend, I’m running my first 15km race, a pit stop in my training as I work towards my first half-marathon this fall. Running is relatively new to me–I ran my first 5K race about a year and a half ago–and a resource I keep turning back to time and again is Runner’s World magazine, which is chock full of practical advice for training that I’ve applied to my workouts. I appreciate that the journalists there stay grounded in evidence, often citing journal articles and quoting academic researchers, not hyping up the latest supplement or fad exercise.
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