 Hey what's up everybody, welcome to tomorrow. This week I wanted to talk about some recent updates that SpaceX has given regarding the Falcon 9 explosion back on September 1st, plus more details that they've given about their interplanetary transport system in a recent Ask Me Anything on Reddit. This is your space pod for November 8th, 2016. So since the explosion on September 1st, investigators from SpaceX, NASA, the FAA and United States Air Force have been trying to find the cause that led to the explosion. SpaceX published an update on October 28th to summarize their findings so far. This has led to several tests that are taking place at their facility in McGregor, Texas to try to recreate the accident, specifically focused on the COPV helium tanks in the upper stage, and COPV stands for Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel, and SpaceX is narrowing down one of three that may have burst. Through these experiments in Texas, SpaceX has proven that they can recreate a COPV failure entirely through the loading conditions while it's being fueled, specifically the temperature and pressure while it's being fueled. So while SpaceX is trying to find out the exact cause of the explosion on September 1st, these experiments are allowing them to find out better ways of loading the helium tanks to more safely and reliably fuel the Falcon 9 before launches. Now even though this accident has grounded any future Falcon 9 flights for the time being, they do have a first stage at Vandenberg Air Force Base that can be used for a launch, and another first stage is going to begin doing static fire tests in McGregor, Texas in the next few days. Work has also continued to convert the old shuttle launch pad, Launch Complex 39A, into a Falcon launch pad for both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. The pad might be a lot closer to being operational than some of us have previously thought, because there is a placeholder date of December 17th in planning documentation at Cape Canaveral for a Falcon 9 to launch Echo Star 23. So that gives me confidence that they're a lot further along in their progress in re-converting this launch pad than I've thought before, so that's really cool. And even if they're not going to be ready to launch at Cape Canaveral before the end of this year, they might be ready in just a few months. So that's awesome. I'd like to move on now to the Ask Me Anything on Reddit where Elon Musk answered questions about the Falcon 9 and their new interplanetary transport system. There's a lot of really great info and discussions in this thread, and I'm going to put a link in the description so that you can read it for yourself, but it seemed to me that the common theme or the biggest news was new names, and here's what I mean. First off, when talking about Falcon 9, Elon referred to the final upgrade of Falcon 9 as Block 5, and the reply from Destructor 1701 had me laughing out loud until I cried a little. But if they do stick with Block 5, if that name sticks, I am totally okay with retconning the previous versions of Falcon 9 to Block 1, Block 2, etc. That would be great. Two more new names that Elon dropped was a name possible name for one of the ITS spaceships, which he was calling Heart of Gold, and then the first initial base that would be set up on Mars would be called Mars Base Alpha, and he said that these were just working titles and are subject to change. He even said that the ITS interplanetary transport system name or designation isn't working, and that might even change. These new names came about as Elon was trying to explain in more detail what the initial missions to Mars would look like before they start sending 100 people at a time to Mars. I'm just going to quote through what he said. He said that the first step would be sending Dragon Scouting missions, initially just to make sure that they know how to land without adding a crater, and then to figure out the best way to get water for the carbon dioxide and oxygen saboteur reaction. So what is the saboteur reaction? It's actually a chemical process that was discovered by French chemist Paul Saboteur in 1913, where hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the presence of a nickel catalyst and high temperatures and pressures will create methane and water, and this is the process by which we're going to be doing in-suitor resource utilization to take the resources out of there at Mars to create fuel for the interplanetary transport system, which is going to be running off of methane. This process is already being used at the International Space Station today to decrease the amount of water that we have to send to the space station to keep the astronauts alive. And this whole chemical process is going to be crucial to future deep human space flight. And in fact, I think I'm going to devote an entire space pod just to go into greater detail into this subject, but for now I want to get back to the different steps that Elon was talking about on getting to Mars. So after the Red Dragon scouting missions, the heart of gold spaceship would land with only equipment to set up the future propellant plant so that they can make more fuel to get home. The third step would be the first crewed mission with as few as a dozen crew members and more equipment to set up a rudimentary base and also complete construction on the propellant plant. And then the final step would just to be to try to double the amount of flights that are sent during the Earth Mars orbital rendezvous, which happens every 26 months, to get to the point that enough equipment and people are being sent that the city can grow itself. Now in this Ask Me Anything, there was more technical information as well, ranging from the number of engines that will be on the booster to the manufacturing methods of the fuel tanks to the amount of G forces that the spaceships will hopefully be able to withstand and more technical information. You should check out the link below if you want to read that for yourself if you're interested. For now, I'm going to wrap this video up here, but I want to know your thoughts on these updates and my question for you is whether or not you think SpaceX will be able to fly the Falcon 9 again before the end of 2016. Any of their available launchpads? So let me know in the comments section what you think and please go into detail about your thoughts. Also, I'd invite you to connect with us on our social medias, our Facebook, Twitter, subreddit, or our website, tomorrow.tv, or all of them so that you can join in the conversation. This is of course a crowdfunded show through Patreon and I'd like to thank all of our patrons whose continued contributions allow us to keep making these videos. Every little bit helps to create content that you want to see and I'm very grateful for your contributions. If you would like to support the show, if you're not already, please visit patreon.com slash space pod for more information and to sign up at whatever level that you feel is appropriate. Thank you for watching this video, my name is Michael Clark, keep moving onwards and upwards everybody and I will see you in the future.