Shadowing Practice: Starbase Catches up after Flight 13 | SpaceX Starbase - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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We're going to get back in the swing of things with some Starbase summaries in this episode.
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Seeing the cutie arm coming off of pad one, that's the ship cutie.
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This weird nose cone has been making the rounds.
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Making the cones.
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I don't know the right way to say that.
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But it's got an odd seam down the side of it.
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We'll talk a little bit more about that in the video.
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And we've actually got some behind the scenes shots of Dan rewiring a camera.
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and some other stuff that we've been doing before
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and after flight 13 after out there at starbase but It's a starbase summary.
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My name is John talk to you down in the comments
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Let's start it off with this crane getting hooked up to
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that ship quick desk connect arm now The front part of it was already removed
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and we've been seeing them do a lot of work on this But again, this is over at pad one Right, so we'll see watch the watch the arm itself.
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You see the strings the the the leaders tighten up
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and then we see it sort of take the load
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and you see some cutting happening did you see it shift a little bit there like look rewind it
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if you didn't see that but they make those cuts you see some sparks
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and you see the whole thing shift just a little bit
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so that whole QD arm coming off there's a wider shot over from the highway site taking it down
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but again pad 2's on your left there you can see
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that OLM the second OLM and then pad 2 was on the right in that shot
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So why would I just say no pad 2 was on
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the left pad 1 was on the right is the correct way to say
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that we just switch shots before I was done talking It happens a lot
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So putting this down on the ground clearly going to be
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doing some rework They've got a lot of lessons on
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that pad to ship quick disconnect arm Are they gonna leave
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it here are they gonna roll it back to work on it?
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I guess we'll see but coming all the way off the tower so that they can perform You know something?
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I'm going to say that it's more upgrades than just maintenance.
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They're going to get this thing in line with Pad 2.
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Because remember, with the whole rapidly reiteratable...
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Rapidly what?
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Whatever.
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The rapid iteration that they do, they don't just make one design and then make 50 of them for parts like this, for the towers and stuff.
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At some point, they're going to need to standardize these things, right?
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You're not going to want 40 different tower designs with 50 different arm designs.
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I don't know how that would work, but I guess the chopsticks have two arms each.
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So there's technically three arms in each tower. So the math works.
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But I imagine they're going to be bringing these things in line
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so you don't have a bunch of different designs out there in the wild.
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As much as they could.
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I mean, the tower from Pad 1 is not being completely brought down, right?
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Knock on wood.
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But trying to get these things a little bit lined out so there's some consistency, sharing parts, sharing designs, sharing maintenance, all that sort of stuff.
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Other things happening over at Pad 1 you can see that big crane and that gantry there as well.
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The service structure, I guess I called it the gantry, the service structure.
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Got some crane pieces on the ground as well But they have been working on getting that service structure framework again.
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It says service structure.
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It's really
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The side of the launch mount remember the launch mount is the big box looking thing
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and it's got the circle in the middle It has a sign on it says insert rocket here
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Right and this is the part that is to the side of
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that sort of the trapezoidal bunker shape And this carries all the piping, consumables, framework, blah, blah, blah.
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It does not include the actual launch mount.
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So we'll expect...
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Oh, look at that!
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What is the reflection?
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This has to be a morning shot, because the reflection...
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The sun would be rising...
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Yeah, there you go.
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The sun is to the left.
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And the sun rising behind that camera was right there on the office building.
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That's interesting that this time of year, that's set up just right.
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But anyways, I'm here looking at the sun angles.
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There you can see a boom lift being lowered down into the trench over at Pad 2.
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They've been working on these upgrades, or upgrades, I guess, reconditioning.
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I don't actually know what the right term to use is.
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But after Flight 13, we've been seeing them doing a lot of work around Pad 2.
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You can see top of the OLM booster quick disconnects are still a little scuffed.
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I guess that actually looks like a surveying instrument.
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Do you see that little tripod?
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I know it's not a deployable camera.
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It's not one of our cameras, but that really does look like a surveying instrument.
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We're deep in discussion about this.
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The rocket goes up.
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I don't know what they were actually saying there.
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I wonder if they're checking that the amount is still true.
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Is it still level?
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Did things get knocked out of whack?
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I wonder exactly what they're looking at there.
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That's actually super interesting.
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That's a really good catch there.
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here we've got a lift going up the side of the
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tower it's got this sort of just after golden hour time
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here caesar was out there catching stuff got some lights
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but you still got the sky a little bit lit up some lifts working underneath the uh pad there in
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that previous shot this is sort of a morning sort of thing we've got some grass waving in there there's
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that asu still not online yet but largely constructed most of the main elements of that construction are in place.
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What have we here?
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That looks like a valve.
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Either they're going to install mailboxes for people getting mail out at the ASU, or that is like a valve structure, like a little roof that goes over some sort of control boards,
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or something like that.
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It's curious that that wouldn't be inside.
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So, okay, it's going up to the roof.
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Those almost look like bottle straps, but that wouldn't make any sense.
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Huh.
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I wonder what y'all think that thing is?
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I'm curious, going up on top of the ICU.
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So as promised, here are some behind-the-scenes shots.
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There is Mr. Dan working on Dune.
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I love how we still have the litter carry arms on
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that because it's way easier to carry with those arms on it.
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But out there maintaining the cameras, we had to rewire some of this stuff.
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We're always trying to keep things going, especially in this dome-up configuration.
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Wow, this high-definition shot of Dan in the daily here.
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Looking very dapper, Dan.
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Tightening down the M6 bolts there with great precision.
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That's going to be going out to north.
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Oh, nice.
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We've got the dog with us as well.
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Yes!
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It says bark. Does that?
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It's a NASA?
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Bark at the moon.
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Okay.
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Over at the North Beach site, that camera that's hanging down at the very top.
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For flight, we actually flip that camera over.
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don't tell the warranty company.
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It looks like it's flipped over right now because it's, I mean, it's got bird poop on it, right?
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But we don't leave it that way long periods.
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The camera's not designed to be weatherproof in a dome-up orientation.
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So right before flight, we flip it dome up.
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That allows us to get the tracking shots and look up above the horizon, right?
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Then after flight, we go out there, we put the ladder on the tower.
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You see the braces on the tower there, right?
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It's got a huge base plate, and those braces have these huge ground stakes drilled into the ground there.
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But we flip that camera dome down for the longer term sort of stuff.
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That's Beach 3 up on top of the tower.
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Got a hair in there and a little bit of, you know, wood out in the ocean.
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In this area right near Beach 3, it's actually an old resort, the Del Mar Resort.
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And there is the remains, the pilings of a dance hall there.
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And depending on how much sand there is, you can see the pilings or not see the pilings.
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Don't hit them with your vehicle.
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They will not give your tire a bad or a good day.
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It'll be a bad day for your tire.
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So here on this, right, this is this flanged nose cone.
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You see the weird sort of seam down the side of it.
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It's rolled into Mega Bay 2, which is, of course, where all the shipwork happens.
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See, there's not heat tiles or anything, or not a lot of them.
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There's a couple of them there, right?
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But what are they doing with this?
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Is this some sort of test jig?
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Are they working on ideas for a nose cone that can open, like the Chomper nose cone?
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It's really interesting.
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We're going to see where that thing rolls out.
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And of course on Starbase Live 24-7 we will keep up with where that thing ends up.
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Progress on the Giga Bay over here.
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It's been going up.
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Got a little pause because of the flight that was in there.
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But the crane's not actively craning anything right now.
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It just continues to grow up out there next to the Star Factory.
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You see all the stations?
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Do you see the booster stations in there?
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Do you see how many boosters they can work on in between each one of those things?
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There's sort of work platforms with booster workstations.
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So that is going to be nuts, those massive doors we have on it.
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And I hope that at some point we're able to look in there, and it's nighttime, and it's all lit up, and you just see rows of boosters being worked on.
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It's like booster freaking 40 through 82 or something in there.
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I don't think it's going to hold at 42 boosters.
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Got some pipes.
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What if those are drain pipes?
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They got a flange on one end?
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I really wonder if that pipe is like for drainage off the roof or something.
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You're not piping any mass quantities of consumables around in there.
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That's not a thing.
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I'm curious.
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I bet you it's something like super mundane, like water trains.
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Got a quick correction on the camera angle there, but the driver of the SPMT riding by in style on the little...
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It looks like you could put an artillery piece on the...
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The offset driver makes me think of like a military vehicle or something.
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Here, looking over at Massey's, that's the 39.1 test tank.
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It is moving from left to right because it's coming back was leaving Massey's after some tests occurred on it.
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Rolling up Highway 4 here, those power lines there are coming sort of towards the production side.
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Got a patchwork of tiles over there, working on some different ways to layout, to attach the tiles, I guess,
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would be my guess, to see how they stick during different parts of the vehicle test, like when it's cryo inside, it gets cold, How do things expand, contract?
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How do they work whenever you go through that testing?
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That hose hanging off the side.
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I wonder if that hose is, like, I'm surprised it's not secured.
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You've seen what happens to unsecured hoses around Starbase.
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But that one looks like it's hanging in there, quite literally.
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Nighttime roll, causing a little bit of a traffic jam.
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Look at the most of the vehicles in there are propellant trucks.
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They're big cryotankers.
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You can see all the round backs of the trucks.
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They're all going to pass and go over to the launch site, I guess topping off the launch site after that, Flight 13.
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Got a little bit of a silhouette show, shadow show there for a minute, but there is the Starbase summary.
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Hey, getting back into it, like I said, after Flight 13, massive thanks to all the crew that was out there for Flight 13, catching all that footage.
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If you haven't seen the other footage where we just had, like, the super cut of slow motion and telescope and behind-the-sheen shots, make sure you see that.
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It was the shots.
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The angles you didn't see was the name of the video, probably a couple under this one.
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But that'll do this one for Starbase summary.
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Again, see you down in the comments.
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Think I missed something?
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Have an idea about how something's going to work?
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Let me know, because I read them all, and I will see you nerds later.
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Thanks for watching.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Starbase Catches up after Flight 13”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: pad, shot, arm, tower, flight. This video has 198 sentences and 2191 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:25. The speaker talks fast, about 192 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| starbase noun | A base (for trading, military operations, etc.) located in space, among the stars. | |
| booster noun | /ˈbustɚ/ | Something that boosts. |
| cone noun | /ˈkoʊn/ | A surface of revolution formed by rotating a segment of a line around another line that intersects the first line. |
| pipe noun | /ˈpaɪp/ | A wind instrument consisting of a tube, often lined with holes to allow for adjustment in pitch, sounded by blowing into the tube. |
| dome noun | /dəʊm/ | A structural element resembling the hollow upper half of a sphere. |
| crane noun | /kɹeɪn/ | Any bird of the family Gruidae, large birds with long legs and a long neck which is extended during flight. |
| flip verb | /flɪp/ | To throw so as to turn over. |
| piling noun | /ˈpaɪlɪŋ/ | A structural support comprising a length of wood, steel, or other construction material. |
| tile noun | /ˈtaɪ.əl/ | A regularly-shaped slab of clay or other material, affixed to cover or decorate a surface, as in a roof-tile, glazed tile, stove tile, carpet tile, etc. |
| hose noun | /hoʊz/ | A flexible tube conveying water or other fluid. |
| upgrade verb | /əpˈɡɹeɪd/ | To improve, usually applied to technology, generally by complete replacement of one or more components. |
| consumable adjective | /kənˈsjuːməbəl/ | That is consumed or depleted upon use. |
| cutie noun | /ˈkjuti/ | A cute person or animal. |
| disconnect verb | /dɪskəˈnɛkt/ | To sever or interrupt a connection. |
| gantry noun | /ˈɡæntɹi/ | A framework of steel bars resting on side supports to bridge over or around something. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| bring down verb | To make (a ruler or government) lose their position of power. |
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| come off verb | To become detached. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| flip over verb | To turn upside down. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
| go over verb | To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I don't know the right way to say that.
- Do you see that little tripod?
- I wonder what y'all think that thing is?
- You see all the stations?
- Do you see the booster stations in there?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been making · we've been doing · we've been seeing |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was already removed · was done · being lowered |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | You've seen · haven't seen |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | were actually saying · was leaving |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 53 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, we've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: weatherproof /ˈwɛðəpruːf/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/, iteration /ˌɪt.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, workstation /ˈwɝkˌsteɪʃən/, correction /kəˈɹɛkʃən/, configuration /kənˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ̯.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: consumable /kənˈsjuːməbəl/, iteration /ˌɪt.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, artillery /ɑɹˈtɪləɹi/, configuration /kənˌfɪɡ.əˈɹeɪ̯.ʃən/, consistency /kənˈsɪs.tən.si/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like starbase, booster, cone.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.