3-in-3: The Unbelievable Things Happening in Space and Robotics Right Now!

Some humanoid robot news this week make me think my 2024 predictions are on point... (more in Thing 2 below)

Thing 1 - Polaris Dawn launch

Screenshot from Polaris website

Polaris Dawn is about to make history. SpaceX is gearing up to launch the first commercial spacewalk, aiming for the highest Earth orbit since Apollo, all while testing new tech like Starlink’s laser communications.

Plus, the crew will tackle 40 health experiments and read a children’s book Kisses from Space from orbit, all to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Meet the Crew

Screenshot from Polaris website

• Jared Isaacman, the mission commander, is an aviation whiz and CEO of Shift4.
• Scott "Kidd" Poteet, the pilot, is a retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel with serious flying creds.
• Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, is all about blending music and space.
• Anna Menon, another SpaceX engineer, will serve as the mission’s medic and read her book from space.

Why It Matters

• They’re shooting for 870 miles (1400 km) above Earth - the highest orbit in over 50 years - and three times higher than the International Space Station.
• First-ever commercial spacewalk? Yep, that’s happening.
• Starlink’s about to get its speed tested in orbit.

Thing 2 - AI of the week

• Unitree upgraded its G1 robot into a mass-production version.

• Figure is manufacturing 1 humanoid per week and ramping up to 2 per week within the next 2 months. Reminder: their humanoid robots already work in BMW factories.
• Cursor raised $60M. Cursor is the top tool this week for writing code.

Relevant quote on Q, Amazon's AI assistant for software development:

We estimate this has saved us the equivalent of 4,500 developer-years of work (yes, that number is crazy but, real)

- Andy Jassy (Amazon CEO)

• I came across a python utility called LLM for interacting with large language models from the terminal. This opens up possibilities for scripting - cool!
• HuggingFace dropped an in-depth tutorial on how to build your own robot (more info)
• Agibot, a China-based robotics startup, unveiled 5 advanced humanoid robots
• Astribot, another China-based company, revealed Astribot S1. It has wheels instead of legs but does human tasks in real-time without teleoperation
• Luma Labs released Dream Machine 1.5, a significant upgrade to their AI video generation model - just 2 months after the last one!
• Salesforce announced two new autonomous AI sales agents to help scale and train sales teams
• Google increased the max PDF page upload size to 1,000 pages or 2GB (up from 300 pages) in Google AI Studio and the Gemini API.

...and a dude built a nuclear fusor in his bedroom with NO EXPERIENCE - he used AI - Claude Sonnet 3.5 to be exact.

Thing 3 - Why leaving it all behind can lead you to who you are deep down

I read a quote by Michael Crichton that explains how I feel when traveling alone. So here it is:

Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. There is no mystery about why this should be so.

Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes—with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience.

Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That’s not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating. I eventually realized that direct experience is the most valuable experience I can have.

- Michael Crichton

After a trip, I always have the urge to do cool stuff and build things. The challenge is then to not get sucked into the rut of the routine.

What about you?

Cheers, Zvonimir