Kind: captions
Language: en
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we live in a built
World engineering and Technology built
upon Innovations and inventions
stretching back thousands of years some
of our Creations like machines boost our
body's abilities others help us reach
outside our comfort zones we have left
an indelible mark on the planet and now
the time has come to use our skills to
Make a Better
World building taller
buildings that stay steady in the wind
as Extreme as this feels this is nothing
compared to what the building is
designed
for or submarines that dive deep imagine
a craft that allows you to explore a
part of our world that you simply
couldn't see any other
way to give an unprecedented underwater
view it's like being in a goldfish Bowl
only the fish are on the outside and the
people are on the
inside clothes that let us go farther to
places we never could
before or even a new
structure to replace the International
Space Station we can put three floors
inside this have up to six people live
for months on months
building
stuff reach it right now on
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humans unlike a lot of other animals
we're not exactly fit to thrive in the
wild we lack fur to protect us from
cold and speed to out run
Predators exposed to the elements many
of us would struggle to survive but
luckily we have other strengths
engineering is all around us and we
often don't recognize it one of the
things that engineering lets us do is to
do things that we can't do with our
bodies ever since our ancestors first
evolved humankind has refused to stay
put humans are infinitely adaptable we
live All Around the World in different
climates and conditions engineering has
made that
possible I think it's in human nature to
solve problems and solving problems the
basis for
engineering btic tanks we've learned how
to compensate for our
vulnerabilities by building
stuff and reaching to every imaginable
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Place we've been building Skyward for
thousands of
years from Raising huge Stone monuments
to building massive
pyramids to framing today's Mega tall
skyscrapers million dollar
view each step higher presents new
engineering
challenges Chicago storyed Michigan
Avenue towering over 800 ft is 1, 000 m
a 73 story skyscraper under construction
along the city's
Lakefront where it will be fully exposed
to the city's notorious winds you can
see some pretty decent wind loads so we
have some unique conditions
here each building is unique and it's
kind of its own recipe that gets put
together Chicago is often considered the
birthplace of the
skyscraper the home insurance building
constructed in
1885 is widely considered to be the
first skyscraper though only 10 stories
tall over the decades Engineers have
relied on a blend of Art and Science to
cope with
wind not only are you considering the
wind as it is naturally occurring in
that space But you take a a City like
Chicago in which there are several other
tall buildings you have to design not
just for how the wind would naturally
occur but for how the wind would also be
altered by the tall buildings around it
the strongest wind David Fields is the
chief structural engineer at
1,000m in our modern era we're seeing
buildings get taller and taller and more
and more slender this is pushing the
Ragged edge of structural engineering
and what can be built and what can cost
effective David is responsible for
ensuring the structure's strength and
integrity and of all the forces that can
damage a skyscraper wind is one of the
biggest
threats not only to the structural
Integrity of a building but to its very
livability as well it can make people
physically ill with a kind of high-rise
seasickness it's a problem that only
became apparent as tall build buildings
evolved from heavy structures like the
Empire State
Building to today's lighter steel-framed
buildings like
1000m originally designed by the late
architect helmet Yan Now overseen by
architect Linda
dossy architecture is a balance between
Beauty and function we are hired to
solve a problem and solve it beautifully
the ultimate goal is to deliver a
feasible functional building looking at
our structural plan we can see I think
of Structural Engineering as designing
the bones within a body we think about
where to put a core where to put bracing
and that happens very very early and it
shapes fundamentally almost everything
within the building I think you gave us
an extra few feet Structural Engineers
and Architectural engineers in in some
ways they're cut from the same cloth we
do push on them a lot to try and Achieve
our aesthetic goals
but at the same time we have a a
responsibility to safety and
comfort so why is wind such a
problem as wind blows on a building at
low speeds it tends to approach a
building and wrap around it smoothly as
the wind blows faster and faster it
starts to Eddy on the back side as Wind
Blows even faster those edies we call
them bices they peel off they peel off
the building rhythmically and kind of
kind of side to side this gets a
building rocking and swaying at high
wind
speeds if you're building a rental
building if you're building a Condo
building these are people's homes they
live in them and you want them to feel
as comfortable there as they would
anywhere
else all right well here we are top of
the
building luckily there is an ingenious
engineering solution under construction
here on the top floor
two large concrete boxes called Mass
dampers both will be filled with water
to suppress building sway as wind pushes
the building in One Direction the water
with all its weight sloshes in the
opposite
direction this counterbalancing motion
dampens or offsets the sway of the
building here we have a demonstration of
tuned slashing dampers we have two
frames that have effectively the same
natural
frequency now on top of these we'll put
two identical damper
boxes we'll fill one with just the right
amount of
water and we'll see both how much less
it sways and how much quicker the
swaying
stops the box with water settles faster
than the box without water what works
here is exactly the same that works here
a much larger scale the two large damper
tanks are located north and south of the
building's concrete
core to help combat frequent intense
winds at high
altitude the tanks are 40 ft long 10 ft
wide and 15 ft tall and will hold up to
11 ft of water about 33,000 gallons each
which is only about
0.2% of the mass of the building itself
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self so this big box it's basically a
swimming pool the water pressure will
try to push it outward that's why we
have rebar very densely all throughout
these walls next comes the outer form
work when complete the construction
workers will pour concrete between the
forms to make the walls looks like the
guys are working with more urgency now
that the forms are going up everybody
knows they got to get their part done
and although the construction team is
very experienced people can still make
mistakes fortunately we caught an issue
just before the formwork went up at the
bottom of the tank where the water
pressure is greatest we have major
piping coming through the wall the
builders failed to install critical
rebar at the weak point in the tank wall
created by the piping the guys are
solving the issue this is happening
about 5 minutes before the formwork
closes things up this never would have
been seen if we weren't here
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embedding steel bars reinforces the
concrete concrete is very strong in
compression but it's brittle steel is
flexible so combining the materials
creates a structure both strong and
resistant to
failure he's going to have 24 in of
unreinforced concrete so we had them
come and trim it out having the
engineers on site is critical because
they have
very in-depth knowledge obviously in the
structural design this way if there are
any issues that arise those things can
be mitigated up front very quickly uh
and it makes everyone's J that much
easier with the damper tank mold now
fully
constructed it's time to pour the walls
then just as the poor is
ending a storm rolls into
Chicago it's the perfect opportunity to
get a benchmark reading of how much the
building sways before the dampers are
filled with
water David holds a monitor connected to
an electronic motion sensor called an
accelerometer
it's attached to the building and
reports sway measured in fractions of G
Earth's gravity
force so we're taking our first
frequency measurements of the building
as Extreme as this feels the wind the
rain the thunder and lightning we're
seeing and hearing this is nothing
compared to what the building is
designed for the building's moving we're
reading four Mill right now these are
our first Dynamic measurements we'll
take these back to the office decide how
much water put in the tank and then
we're tuned
using water to stabilize sway has roots
in the
1800s when it was discovered that ships
can achieve greater stability by pumping
water ballast into the
hull the amount of water can be easily
adjusted as it's readily available at
Sea it's very much to engineer's
advantage to think back on how other
Solutions and other accomplishments and
achievements in the past
can perhaps serve as starting points or
even informers for what we are trying to
do today all design is redesign so if
you think about it you're taking things
that have existed in the past but you're
making them incrementally better um you
thought about it in a new way or you're
bring in a new technology that didn't
exist
before when 1,000m is nearly finished
David returns to tune the damper making
a final decision about exactly how much
water to put in the tanks so today's is
the culmination of 6 years of planning
and coordination and engineering and
we'll finally see exactly how much water
to tune it and damp it so it's
comfortable for everyone who will live
here all right here we
go I'll go check the
inflow water's flowing
in it's very exciting it means we're
getting close to the end it's just a
milestone moment so we're turning on our
application right now we have an
accelerometer this is very sensitive so
even on a modestly windy day like today
we know exactly the Motions we're
getting to micro G's you know these are
tiny percentages of the acceleration of
gravity last time we took readings we
were seeing roughly four milles today
we're down closer to one half of Mill
part of that's a function of the tanks
being filled part of that's a function
of it's a less windy day to begin with
by tomorrow morning when the tanks are
full we should see the building sway
being about half of what it would
otherwise
be that's one hell of a view that is
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incredible it's views like
this that reveal just how extensively
Humanity has developed the
land yet over 80% of the ocean remain
unexplored and
untouched there's a reason for that of
all the environments that support life
on our planet the most forbidding and
remote are the Deep Oceans Where the
furthest reaches lie more than 6 miles
below the waves our ocean is the basis
for life on this rock and we are
impacting it in ways we don't even begin
to understand and the first step is
always exploration
the more you understand the ocean the
more you love the ocean the more you're
fascinated by it the more you'll fight
to protect
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it urgency to combat climate change here
we go has spurred new efforts to explore
ocean
depths sub is extremely
manuverable imagine a craft that allows
you to explore a part of our world that
you simply couldn't see any other way
engineering a safe submarine is
extremely
challenging and mistakes can be
fatal catastrophic implosion the
unthinkable became all too real in 2023
the world was horrified by the implosion
of the Ocean Gate Titan submersible that
was on an expedition to explore the
Titanic the disaster killed five people
including ocean Gate's co-founder
Stockton Rush have been safely down to
the Titanic recite 33 times and to me
the idea that that lives could be
claimed by an implosion in this day and
age is almost unfathomable it was a bad
idea and they were warned the carbon
fiber used in the hoe may have been a
critical fail point the material is
prone to buckling Under
Pressure especially when combined with
the elongated pill shape
but that was the Titan not to be
confused with the Triton
submersible being manufactured in
Sebastian
Florida Triton's design approach is
rigorous here Engineers are building
Subs designed to take
non-specialists hundreds and even
thousands of feet below the surface
safely Patrick lahy is the co-founder of
Triton submarines
safety begins with design it carries all
the way through to the selection of
materials the formation of those
materials into Parts those parts made up
into assemblies those assemblies then
tested and validated on their own then
incorporated into the complete vehicle
which is then tested
again if you're an engineer it is your
responsibility to do things in a manner
such that the end product is safe
because at the end of the day people are
relying on you to make a safe
product alt together their subs have
logged tens of thousands of hours
underwater without any
incident increasingly the vehicles are
being used for scientific research film
making and underwater
exploration so this is our most compact
threers sub pilot sits in the back two
passengers in the front they have this
incredible completely unobstructed View
from this acrylic pressure
boundary the pressure boundary is a
perfectly round plastic orb that is
transparent it's like being in a
goldfish Bowl only the fish are on the
outside and the people are on the inside
and it's
invisible you really feel like you're a
part of the
ocean the boundaries main job is to keep
occupants safe from the crushing water
pressure pushing in from all sides
a sphere is one of the strongest shapes
in nature a spherical Hull experiences
the same amount of pressure at every
point on its surface minimizing the
chances of structural
failure so far the only Subs that have
made it to the bottom of the Mariana
Trench more than 6 Mi below the surface
carried their passengers in spherical
enclosures and all were made of metal
like steel or titanium
test test we good on audio you're
getting a good film director and Ocean
Explorer James Cameron who is an
investor in Triton wants more people to
experience the Deep the way he has the
goal of Triton Subs is to make the best
commercial which also means scientific
Subs in the world and to make them
widely available in 2019 a Triton
titanium spheric enclosure sub completed
one of the most ambitious Global
Expeditions in modern history taking
people numerous times to the deepest
spot in each of Earth's five oceans
07 at including the Challenger Deep in
Mariana
Trench the geometry of a sphere limits
its usable
space the designers wanted to increase
the number of passengers beyond what a
sphere could reasonably hold so they
settled on an elongated
shape made from a common yet deceptively
strong
material
acrylic acrylic is an incredible
material it's completely transparent
unlike glass where even after 6 in
you're starting to see quite significant
discoloration increasing the thickness
of the acrylic increases its strength
and ability to resist the pressure of
the water while retaining
visibility it's completely different
from anything that's preceded it we
wanted to be able to put the most people
into the smallest volume possible when
it's complete this sub will hold up to
nine people including a pilot they call
it Ava it's designed to safely dive
depths of up to 600 ft the unusual shape
is the work of engineering firm dark
ocean and their principal designer John
Ramsey to accommodate nine passengers
it's incredibly difficult to do that in
a in a traditional sphere the way the
669 ARA works is it it just takes that
sphere and it optimizes it for the
passengers Inside by stretching it out
and allowing everyone to sit side by
side down into world's never before seen
this design draws from Decades of
research on acrylics
there's an 800 page kind of Bible of
submersible acrylics and you can go
through and see every bit of testing
that was done the material that makes is
possible is acrylic
plastic everything you do in engineering
is based on what other Engineers before
you have done if somebody's got a great
elegant solution why reinvent the
wheel at the factory the team is
attempting to attach Ava's pressure h H
to its steel chassis they've never had
to maneuver a shape like this okay uh
Chris bring yours up a little
bit one slip and the acrylic could be
damaged or scratched 1 2 3 this corner
the team positions the metal chassis
beneath the elliptical Hull it needs to
go towards you a little bit Monroe she
is such a l ready one
that doesn't look bad let's just keep a
little bit of tension on it yeah it has
tension so despite the best efforts of
the engineers all there we go all right
there are still small adjustments to be
made so we're trying to thread in this
big pin now some of the bits of machine
to within a 10th of millim or less to to
get that nice fit come back Monroe a
little bit whoa whoa wo go hold
attention it's slipping all
right give me a freaking heart
attack I mean it's so freaking
close it's not going to go anywhere
right now so just come down on your
forks Monroe okay tilt
forward okay back up the acrylic Hull is
secure for the moment but they'll have
to stop for the day to tweak the size of
the
screws does it always go according to
plan no am I really pleased with how far
we've got today oh
yes when we're solving problems when
we're building things we're engag in
this process of getting our hands dirty
and actually doing some trial and error
testing and see if what we've we've
built was effective if it
worked testing needs to be particularly
rigorous when lives are at stake you are
implicitly relying on the people who
designed it and built it to make sure
that they've thought about how it can
fail and they they've come up with ways
to get around that today every new
vehicle be it a car airplane or
submarine is subjected to thorough
testing and review throughout the
Engineering
Process the true Testament to its
reliability ultimately hinges on
obtaining certification from an
independent third
party they make sure that your
assumptions are not flawed that you're
not doing something that could be
dangerous that it complies with an
internationally recognized set of
rules the failed Titan submersible was
never officially
certified if you're putting passengers
on a sub you need it to be qualified by
some independent body whose job it is to
make sure that that vehicle is safe
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if there's any water Ingress in there we
are going to try toch the Ava sub is now
ready for its first dive senior approval
engineer ionel Dari is on site today for
final checks of all the sub's vital
systems making sure the submersible is
safe for passenger Dives down to 600 ft
everything went great we can issue the
final certificate for this
imers after getting the green light the
sub is ready to make a shallow
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dive all right topid top
sides hat is closed life support is on
and good Roger you have permission to
drive
way our
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way amazing I mean this is the first
time I've been down and it's been um 2
and 1 half years of work this is the
result and it's a magnificent one really
loving
this if Triton is able to fulfill its
mission of building more
submersibles many others will will soon
be able to have their first ride into
the deep
ocean this is this other universe that
is most of our planet and it's such a
magical
place and to be able to now explore it
in Comfort is a phenomenal ability that
is open to more and more people right
that be on the
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our inventions can act as force fields
between our bodies and the
environment protecting us from
extremes you can see them all around us
what we live in what we move in and even
what we
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wear at a textile research laboratory in
North
Carolina Engineers are preparing to set
a mannequin on
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fire their goal collect data that will
help make safer firefighting
suits and researchers are also focused
on finding solutions for women
firefighters who often struggle to work
in suits typically designed for
men what we do can be life saving
so there are no higher Stakes than that
textiles are the unsung heroes of the
world
period as firefighters battle flames and
smoke their clothing and gear is the
first line of defense but their suits
can also contribute to a hidden danger
heat stress when the body's core
temperature and heart rate rise to
unsafe
levels about 40% of work-related
firefighter deaths are the result of
cardiac incidents due to heat
stress the big question how can we keep
firefighters safe from flames and keep
their body temperatures within the suit
from rising to heat stress
levels for decades Roger Barker and his
team have been building new instruments
and test methods to measure both thermal
protection and
comfort an earlier iteration of their
mannequin couldn't move
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in a real life situation a firefighter
would almost never be
stationary after 3 years of development
researchers are ready to light up their
moving
mannequin Power It Up
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John thermal sensors throughout its body
allow them to study how heat is
transferred or blocked by the clothing
and if this motion creates new avenues
for hot air to enter and move inside the
suit so now we're seeing the combined
effects of the flame and the stresses
that'll be generated as the dynamic
Powerman moves their arms and their
legs with mannequin simulations they can
predict how long it will take for a
firefighter to sustain
Burns they also test for seams breaking
open fabric ruptures and the effects of
garment fit and Design
the tough outer shell protects against
flame and abrasions the middle layer is
a moisture barrier that keeps liquids
from penetrating the suit the innermost
layer resists any remaining heat that
gets through the first two
layers this system offers High
protection up to a
point a proper fit and design also play
a protective
role trying to create that Optimum
balance between protection and comfort
for all firefighters is so important and
for women in the field in particular an
ill-fitting suit designed for a man can
put them at higher risk of injury while
on the job the fabric on its own isn't
going to save you it can be the most
engineered upto-date
Advanced composite fabric but how it's
put together how it's worked around the
body the fit every kind of material
aspect of how that fabric is used that
is going to really make it an effective
technology today there are about 90,000
women in the fire surface in the United
States 80% report that their gear does
not fit properly they are doing the
exact same actions same motions as their
male counterparts so you know they
should have something that actually
works for them the goal for This
research team is to develop and design a
prototype suit made specifically for
female
firefighters the a large majority of
firefighting PPE on the market today is
made with a male body and mind and it's
patterned in that way there is sizing
for women but that sizing is not always
achieved by initially starting from a
female
pattern women also vary more in shape
than men do males are a little bit more
up and down while females have curves
because of the hips and the bust areas
I've always had an issue with the fit of
my jacket needing more space up in the
chest area in order to accommodate women
will often be given larger jackets
whenever you go up in sizing for jacket
it makes down here larger as well um so
you know you got the good mobility and
fit up here but then sometimes down here
you're going to have some extra fabric
so we're really t tailored fit is
important it's critical for their
Mobility for their Vision it's also
critical in terms of heat
stress an oversized garment creates
thicker air gaps increasing insulation
and potential protection from outside
heat but larger air gaps also restrict
the firefighter's ability to lose body
heat to the outside environment trapping
heat inside the
suit we've had female firefighters say
that the collars on their jacket are
really tall the length of it rising up
from the collar bone and how much it
takes up your neck if you're a smaller
stature female firefighter that can be
problematic because when you're wearing
your SCBA mask your helmet you really
start liotine mobility and if even the
air pack itself my helmet barely hits it
so it's hard to look up so you can see
what's going on above you imagine you're
in a fire you have everything sort of
caught here at your neck you're putting
yourself at higher risk for injury
because of your minimized range of
motion protecting the body from the
elements is a Pursuit as old as we
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are the history of clothing is also a
history of the relationship between
people and their
environments although humans started off
taking the skins of other animals and
putting them on their skin once they
discovered how you can use plant fibers
to make first of all string and thread
and then weave that together and make
fabric fabrics have always kind of
started and then inspired uh new types
of Innovations and
Technologies like the invention of the
eyed needle the first ones were made of
bone and once you have this concept of
bringing two things together a whole lot
of engineering possibilities open up to
you
it gives us seams it gives us tight
seams which means you can start to think
about having things waterproof or
windproof or even fire
resistant earlier firefighter suits were
made of wool chosen for its natural
flame
resistance today's suit offers much
better protection from fire but it's not
as breathable meaning body heat can get
trapped more easily than it did with
wool firefighting is physically
demanding work you're working hard
you're entering a a hot environment you
know you create all these microclimates
inside your
suit working at high levels of exertion
if their body traps too much heat they
may be subject to heat stroke or even
worse cardiac
events one of the ways our bodies try to
cool down is by sweating but that only
works if the sweat can
evaporate a suit's ability to release
heat is measured with this female
mannequin named
Liz she sweats through nearly 100 pores
designed to mimic human perspiration
when clothed in firefighter gear and
made to move in a hot environment
sensors can detect where the hot spots
are where the clothing is not allowing
evaporation to occur or the heat to be
released shown here in red and where
heat is escaping more efficiently
cooling the body shown in blue for Liz
her torso chest and hips are retaining
the most
heat to make protective garments
specifically for the female form the
research team will need a whole new set
of
measurements to make new patterns one
we're in the process of collecting
anthropometric data on hopefully as many
female figh Fighters as we can
anthropometric data is information about
the body's shape and proportions you're
going to do a front shot and it's going
to ask you to turn to the side so the
team is using three methods to collect
the measurements please move feed
slightly further apart first a remote
scanning application well done your body
scan is complete second a 3D
scanner finally hand measurements for
verification
33.2 they will turn the patterns into
fire suit
mockups then the next goal of our
research is to develop those into
wearable prototypes which we then plan
to
Pilot Fabrics are one of the many things
that are taken for granted in our Modern
Life that this piece of fabric was
engineered we think of it as a shirt
your t-shirt is
engineered one major leap was the
transition from natural fibers like Silk
and cotton to synthetics
before World War II most parachutes were
made of silk silk is very light but it's
very strong that's why it was used for
parachutes but in
1935 a new textile was invented at
Dupont a chemical company so they
developed this new material called a
polyamide which we now know as
nylon nylon with other synthetics
eventually made it possible for us to
walk on the moon and all along the way
women were helping us to reach greater
and greater
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Heights so Sophia can come out now there
may be some holes in their arm having a
group of women that really understand
the female body is so important in the
work that we're doing we all come at the
problem with different perspectives
different backgrounds different areas of
expertise
the other thing that really keeps us in
it is the enthusiasm of all the female
firefighters wow yeah cuz once they get
it they're like oh yes you know now I
can actually speak up I can be heard and
I can be acknowledged this scan looks
like it came through really well it's an
iterative process we are constantly
going to have to make changes as we
continue getting that out to the
firefighting community and you know as
long as there's some level of acceptance
I mean we'll slowly be I think moving in
the right direction of s of implementing
you know change for the
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better woven fabrics can be engineered
to protect here on Earth but what about
in one of the most challenging
environments of
all the harsh vacuum of outer
space when Cruz first occupied the
International Space Station in 20 2000
it marked the beginning of over 20 years
of continual human residence in
space but NASA plans to retire and
deorbit the station in the
2030s The Hope is that it will be
replaced and then
some we're going back to space to stay
we've proven that we can live in space
for long periods in the International
Space Station and now we're pushing the
envelope
again a variety of of companies are
eager to join this new phase of space
habitation which holds promise for
scientific
breakthroughs it's really Sierra space's
mission to fill that Gap fill that void
have an opportunity to have a platform
in
space NASA contracted Sierra space to
develop a new generation of inflatable
habitats designed and built to allow
humans to live and work in space as well
as on the moon and eventually on
Mars the habitat is called life for
large integrated flexible
environment today's engineering
challenge is to destroy it we're at
Marshall space flight
center for today's event we're doing
what's called an ultimate burst test
we're going to take this article and
we're going to pressurize it until it
fails huge explosion equal to 150 sticks
of dinos
it's going to be
epic they are in the exciting process of
watching their program intentionally
fail they're in that learning mode where
you know they go out and say we're going
to blow this thing
up one unique feature of the life
habitat is that it can be compressed to
fit into a single Rocket's payload
housing and then inflated by a factor of
six when deployed in space
you have these goals of going to the
moon or going to Mars a lot of focus is
being there not everyone's thinking
about actually living there and so this
is where we start to fill in those
gaps the life article is 300 cubic M we
can put three floors inside this have up
to six people live inside this for
months on
months at the core of the life habitats
technology are what are known as soft
goods flexible immensely strong
materials that can be tightly packed
down and then
inflated the life habitat is made up of
four different layers each with its own
purpose such as holding in air providing
insulation and repelling dangerous
microm meteorites which can travel at
tens of thousands of miles per hour and
are common in outer
space but the most critical layer of the
life habitat is the restraint layer or
primary structural shell which the
company is testing here the restraint
layer is composed of hand sewn pieces of
fabric made of high strength synthetic
Space Age material called
vectran vectran is a chemically spun
material made to be harder than steel so
it comes in a thread and then that
thread is woven into a strap you could
hang seven cars on this strap and that
strap would never break
like so many modern Technologies at its
core the habitat and its vectran webbing
depend on age-old knowledge in this case
on the Art and Science of making baskets
out of plant
fibers when you're designing structural
systems you don't start from scratch and
basket weaving has been around for
thousands of years but we've applied it
so you can use it in
space today's test is crucial for
assessing how the life habitat manages
the air pressure introduced in
space at sea level on Earth the average
air pressure is around 15 psi PB per
square
in that's the normal pressure that will
fill the
habitat however the structure has to
withstand significantly higher pressures
to prevent any risk of a disastrous
explosion that's where today's test
comes
in human are very squishy and they don't
play well outside of their own
environment being Earth so when a new
habitat is developed a lot of
intentionality goes into it so that the
human body is not exposed to things like
radiation extreme temperatures lack of
oxygen and anything that could be flying
around out there in
space the life habitat is following the
NASA guidelines for operating pressure
safety which is a times 4 safety Factor
so we have a 15.2 PSI operating pressure
we times that by four it gives us a 60.8
to reach the desired pressure of 60.8
PSI the habitat will be connected to air
pumps regulated by valves controlling
the flow of air the team will monitor
the habitat's inflation from a control
room more than a/4 mile
away we have sensors on the top and the
bottom of the article which are going to
give us what we call strain data all
those thousands and thousands of data
points our analysts are going to take
and take a look at it so we can validate
on Earth how our modules operate along
with validating it in
space today's test will be the first
ever of such a large inflatable
structure but the team has already done
several smaller burst
tests you want to build articles fast
test get that
data prior to this we did four articles
which gave us that data to catapult us
and give us the confidence to go into
our first full scale
burst Central to the habitat concept by
NASA and Sierra space is the vision that
multiple structures can be sent into
space gradually and linked together like
buildings along a city block modularity
is key to this concept you have a
modular design that you can configure
any way you need to you're going to have
a medical facility you're going to have
exercise you're going to have place for
people to live to enjoy themselves in
space as the team prepares for the
evening's burst test Beth lioli makes
her final checks on the life habitat's
vast array of wires and sensors we're
pretty much Looking ready for
burst safely watching from the control
room the team monitors the test in front
of a dozen screens that will capture the
burst so right now we're inside the test
room and we're taking a look at what is
happening on the screens and we're
preparing everything for the test rain
sight's been closed down um everything
is good to go the habitat sits out under
the lights at one PSI but that soon
changes we are pressurizing to 15 psi
for a 5minute hold oh you can hear it
yeah go
time fill rate uh 3.0 6 PSI per minute
35 PSI 35 PSI all right on the way to
burst here we go let's do this but about
half an hour into the test something is
going wrong the flow of air has started
to slow slowing down but the team still
hopes they can meet their goal got to
hit 61 call 61 okay
61 this is where it get
dicey hearing a little movement come on
I need second
now 61 PSI 61 PSI well
done fantastic let's keep going though
that is amazing they've reached NASA's
Target PSI but the habitat is not
filling as fast as expected are we
fighting it now yeah oh my gosh yeah one
potential explanation a
leak that could be disastrous in
space still
dropping yeah about an hour into the
test they decide to end it short of
their ultimate goal you good with
r311 closed yes okay r31 close it let it
leak down the lack of an explosion is a
major
disappointment testing to failure is
crucial to understanding the habitat's
ability to withstand
pressure after the habitat is De pressed
ized and safe the team gathers to
determine the source of the
leak all those straps want to be aligned
with the bottom of the plate so there
there is nothing pushing on that bladder
or doing anything I would I would highly
doubt that there's a leak right there
okay there's an air of excitement and
then there's air of like ah I wanted a
big burst you know you want to take it
to that failure this valve seems like
our culprit we over pressurized it as
air pressure built up in the the valve
it overcame the force of the spring
holding it closed allowing air to escape
when we found out that it was the valve
a little bit of a sense of relief you
know knowing that the design of the
structure was very viable they decide to
shut the problem valve off fortunately
the remaining working valve is still
able to inflate the
habitat the following night the group is
back in the control room 25 PSI 25 psi
get our fill rate 2922 2922 PSI per
minute ramp to
burst just keep going 55 Psi
Psi 63 PSI 63
PSI they've reached the same pressure as
the failed test the night
before going the burst and it keeps
Rising 70 PSI 70 PSI PSI 76 PSI this is
insane that's insane I heard a little
[Applause]
pop well done
guys this is the first one that we could
really feel the ground shake in this
control room which is incredible to see
it to really be here uh it's kind of
surreal and now they know the habitat's
limit 77
PSI it was just an amazing moment it's
one of those things you don't forget in
your career and you always talk about
it we're constantly on the
Move expand our reach upward outward and
toward New Horizons engineering is a
process you take the Baton and continue
to engineer our world and to build
things further bigger better more
efficient and more valuable the whole
Human Experience you could say is an
experiment in engineering of a society
that's better and and that's why
everything that we do is built upon what
has been done in the past throughout
history we've never been content to stay
put engineering is not a modern day
thing engineering is something that
expanded way into our past and I think
it comes from Curiosity it comes from
the need for survival 1 2 3 as we
continue building on what has come
before who knows what will innovate next
when we look at our lives and we look at
technology 100 years ago versus now we
couldn't imagine some of the things that
we see
today building stuff to reach be on
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