PickVidsBest Space exploration & spaceflight Videos
The 164 Space exploration & spaceflight videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 5 introductory, 29 intermediate, 127 for a general viewer, and 3 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are an explainer. What they share is that one picture or analogy is used to supply a missing concept. Channels you will keep seeing include SpaceX, Scott Manley, Everyday Astronaut.
The Moon's Orbit is WEIRD
A minutephysics explainer showing that the Moon's path around the Sun is not a spiral but closer to a 12-sided polygon with curved corners.
Space Oddity
Commander Chris Hadfield performs a revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded aboard the International Space Station.
Should We Colonize Venus Instead of Mars?
A PBS Space Time episode asking whether Venus would be a better colonization target than Mars.
Why SpaceX is Making Starlink
Real Engineering explains why SpaceX is building Starlink, including the economics of satellite internet.
7 Minutes of Terror: Curiosity Rover's Risky Mars Landing | Video
NASA's animated explanation of the Curiosity rover's Mars landing, which relied on a complex automated sequence taking about seven minutes.
Building a Marsbase is a Horrible Idea: Let’s do it!
A Kurzgesagt animation walking through how a Mars base could be built and why it would be punishing, covering radiation, temperature extremes, toxic dust and the need for shielding.
Riding the Booster with enhanced sound
Footage from a camera on a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster from liftoff through descent, with audio enhanced by Skywalker Sound from the original camera microphones.
KSP Doesn't Teach: Rocket Engine Plumbing
Scott Manley explains the plumbing of rocket engines, including pressure-fed, gas generator, expander and staged combustion cycles.
How to achieve nanometer precision in space?
Breaking Taps explains how the cryogenic mirror actuators on the James Webb Space Telescope achieve nanometer precision using flexures.
Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)
A short, music-driven video built from Neil deGrasse Tyson's remarks on why advancing the space frontier matters, contrasting NASA's small budget with war spending and stressing inspiration.
A4 / V2 Rocket in detail: Turbopump
A very long, detailed look at the A4/V2 rocket turbopump, the steam-turbine-driven twin propellant pump system.
The Incredible Sounds of the Falcon Heavy Launch (BINAURAL AUDIO IMMERSION) - Smarter Every Day 189
Smarter Every Day shares a binaural audio recording of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch made by Trevor Mahlmann, with explanations of the sounds including the sonic booms of the landing boosters.
Senate hearing on National Security Space Launch Programs with Elon Musk
Video of the March 2014 Senate Defense Subcommittee hearing on National Security Space Launch programs.
Starlink revisions, Nov 2018
Mark Handley of UCL looks at how SpaceX's November 2018 revisions to the Starlink constellation affect network behavior.
Saving Voyager 1! - Bruce Waggoner at !!Con 2024
Bruce Waggoner of the Voyager team describes how engineers diagnosed Voyager 1's 2023 loss of telemetry and patched its flight software from 15 billion miles away.
THE SAGAN SERIES - The Frontier Is Everywhere
A short unofficial NASA-style spot from Reid Gower's Sagan Series, setting Carl Sagan's words about humanity spreading through the Solar System to visuals and music.
How GPS Works, And How It Got Better Than The Designers Ever Imagined
Scott Manley covers how GPS works and how civilian accuracy went from a planned 100 meters to about one meter.
The Halo Drive
Astrophysicist David Kipping presents the halo drive, a proposed way to propel a starship to a good fraction of light speed by gaining energy from a black hole.
THE MARS UNDERGROUND [HD] Full Movie
A documentary following Robert Zubrin and the Mars Society as they push the Mars Direct plan for sending humans to Mars using current technology and local resources.
'Oumuamua Is Not Aliens
PBS Space Time examines the interstellar object 'Oumuamua and the popular theories about it, including the light-sail hypothesis.
Low Latency Routing in Space
A short visualization from HotNets researchers of routing and latency over SpaceX's proposed Starlink constellation, based on its FCC filings.
"Uptime 15,364 days - The Computers of Voyager" by Aaron Cummings
A Strange Loop 2019 talk by Aaron Cummings on the computing systems aboard Voyager 1 and 2, which control the spacecraft and record and return data decades after launch in 1977.
Orbital Data Centers Yes or No
Eager Space examines the practicality of putting data centers in orbit, walking through three scenarios with cost calculations and the launch cost reductions that would be required.
The Insane Engineering of James Webb Telescope
Real Engineering explains the engineering behind the James Webb Space Telescope, including its folding mirror, sunshield, orbit and cooling systems, and why deployment was so difficult.