Everyday Astronaut is such an impressive dude, I don't understand why he doesn't just work for SpaceX at this point. He knows more about rocket engineering and can explain it 10x better than most aerospace new grads.
There's a big difference between researching a topic to a standard good enough for 'popular rocket science' and 'understanding the maths well enough to work in the field'.
Has he built prototype rocket engines like Integza, Ben Krasnow, or Tech Ingredients? They're still primarily divulgadores (there isn't a good word for this in English) but they have a certain amount of practical experience getting things to work.
OTOH at the point that you're EDM-drilling thousands of micron-scale holes in your combustion chamber for film cooling, you may start to need practical experience with different things.
I've never heard the term _divulgadores_ (I don't speak Spanish, so that's no surprise), but it sounds maybe like "science communicator" in this context? There's something a bit more to the people you've listed in that they are also entertainers, not straight educators, I don't know if that's wrapped up in divulgadores as well?
It comes from the word "vulgar", meaning "common", like vulgus, the common people, for whom Jerome wrote the Vulgate (since they didn't read Greek or Hebrew). English "divulge" is a cognate, but as in many cases, the English word has experienced larger meaning shifts than Spanish. (Pidgins commonly have high rates of change.) The image I have is something like someone coming down from the ivory tower to bestow the blessings of their wisdom upon the jostling masses teeming without.
Yes, straight educators are not generally considered divulgadores; if someone is teaching a university class on linear algebra, that doesn't make them a divulgador. Unfortunately https://dle.rae.es/divulgar is not very helpful, but https://www.etymonline.com/word/divulge gives a bit of the flavor.
Hmm interesting, thank you! It sounds a bit like "vernacular design" used to kind of mean "design and manufacturing done by the common people" to meet simple needs rather than overly fancy mass-manufactured objects. "Vernacular" kind of means "the local language".
He is definitely knowledgeable, but strikes me as too much of a fanboy to be taken seriously. I have a hard time taking his videos all that seriously. And it's not about his knowledge, it's about his presentation.
I take him seriously (although frankly there's no requirement that it all be serious) and enjoy some of his stuff but it's true that sometimes the screaming glee level and emotional outbursts are way beyond my comfort zone, landing somewhere between cringe and get me out of here.
Reminds me of the launches I have seen where I really wanted to soak in the thumping sound of the rocket engines, but the people nearby are just screaming at the top of their lungs… "America!!!" as if that's helping anything at all.
He's also friends with a previously Tesla-focused YouTuber (name redacted, but rhymes with "Ken Mullins") who imho sold out to affiliate and sponsorship deals to the point where I lost all respect for him (the friend) and can no longer trust a word he says. So I have a suspicious eye on Tim's fire hose of cash harvesting mechanisms, but he seems to be staying legit so far. And he does have fantastic content. Also I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the cash he's earning; he puts it to good use and has a growing staff, as I understand it.
I watched the first 5 minutes of that video and it just seems like someone talking about something they’re interested in, in a relatively normal way. He’s definitely a spaceflight fan but I didn’t see anything that unusual in the part I watched
I know you are getting a lot of snarky comments, but honestly I know what you are saying. I can't watch his channel for whatever that gushiness thing is.
Worth checking it out again, he toned it down a lot recently IMO. Still prefer Scott Manley, but only astronaut gets the level of access like that. I mean Elon showed him basically everything in front of a camera.
I guess some people's exuberance can turn people off, but honestly its great in my opinion. Why should someone's joyful exuberance for something make his educational content not worth watching? The guy is obviously just very passionate about spaceflight and people who are pushing the boundaries of science/technology. I think 99% percent of the people I talk to approach this kind of stuff with mundane indifference and cynicism, so I think seeing someone genuinely passionate and excited by it is a breath of fresh air.
I find he toned down the fanboy aspect a bit. A few years ago, he could have been part of SpaceX marketing department.
He still loves SpaceX, and to be fair, who doesn't. You may not like Elon Musk, his fanboys, the outrageous claims, and the way the company is run, but most of the exciting news in rocketry for the last decade are about SpaceX. But for the last few years, it is clear that he makes some efforts to be impartial and focus on the technical aspects.
And you should watch the videos he made with Elon Musk when he visited SpaceX. I expected little more than an ad for SpaceX, and it turned out surprisingly technical and hype-free.
I did watch both those videos, and they were excellent! Well, Elon's parts were excellent. I still found the questions to be more on the fanboi side than the engineering side, and that's okay. It's his brand, he can do what he likes.
I prefer Scott Manley's approach to things, and so I watch him instead. And when he says that EverydayAstronaut has a great video, I go watch it :)
I understand the sentiment: he comes across as one of those "hype guys" who's always talking about get-rich-quick schemes, but he's honestly incredibly knowledgeable about rocketry. He toured Starbase with Elon and asked questions that belayed a deep understanding of the mechanics involved.
Based on what he's said elsewhere, it isn't "caring too much" that's the issue, it's just his style. Scott Manley isn't any less enthusiastic about space or SpaceX, but his style is a lot less 'hyper'.
Maybe a better comparison would be that Everyday Astronaut's style is a lot like 'new YouTube', fast paced, with a strong emphasis on being exciting etc, including the stereotypical big YouTuber slick studio setup etc.
Scott Manley's style is more of 'old YouTube' (fits given how long he's been doing things), a more casual and slow paced but still informative style in a sort of standard framework that isn't all too flashy, just casually recorded from his room.
Personally I too prefer Scott Manley's style over EA's, although I'll still watch EA for interesting enough content. With Scott's videos I can watch them essentially whenever I see them, while with EA's videos I feel like I can only enjoy them when I'm feeling energetic, as otherwise the style feels kind of draining.
In the end though, it's down to personal preference.
I completely agree, but the fanboy aspect isn't really my main sticking point, it's his tone that feels like he's teaching elementary schoolers something.
I've seen this kind of comment before about his presentation, and I don't really understand it. It's true that he's a fanboy and that's especially visible in his video interviews/visits with Elon Musk, but the style of those videos is markedly different from the more educational ones which are often trying to cover a topic with a lot of detail while remaining relatively accessible.
I watched the video version of the article linked here this morning, and don't recall any part that was fawning over anyone or anything in particular.
What is it about his presentation that puts you off?
I don't know what the right word is for it. I used "fanboy" but maybe there's some other better word. Somebody else above used "gushiness" I think and that sounds about right.
It's like having a friend who won't shut up about a new sushi place they found. Yes, the sushi is amazing. Yes, the staff is nice. Yes, the atmosphere is great. And I could enjoy it more if my friend would stop making a big deal about every little thing about it.
Edit: Just skipped through the video this thread is about and that vibe just won't go away. I don't feel like I'm being informed, I feel like I'm being sold. The information itself is very, very good!
For what it's worth, the Professor of Rock on YT has the same vibe for me.
Having a YouTube channel with 1M+ subscribers and videos that get 5M+ views each is a much more profitable and generally better gig than SpaceX employee #10,000+ working 60-80 hours a week in a high pressure culture.
Also... even aside from the $/year, having 1M+ fans (many quite enthusiastic) is a far stronger position to be in than having one boss whom you must keep happy at all times.
As I understand (as a Patreon), in general, Tim writes the video and then one of his team write an article that covers what the video says only with more text to substitute for the lack of visuals.
For Pre-Launch Previews they are written first by a team member.
I worked there for a few years, on flight software. The culture depends quite a bit on what department you're in. I learned how to push back on schedule pressure and was able to strike a reasonable work-life balance, and the head of my department was very good at buffering us from management. My departure was uncommon in that I left on good terms while I was happy. There were other departments, though, that seemed to operate more like a fraternity, and plenty of burnt-out people.
I don't actually think he's that impressive and I don't get people's praise for him. His videos have a lot of mistakes in them and while they're written in a way that dumbs down a topic well for an audience who doesn't understand the subject very well, that's his only major skill that's involved here. He's not especially smart or ingenious, he's just a good communicator. If he was to work somewhere it would be in a communications department, but he probably makes more from Youtube than such a job would provide.
That's why he doesn't work for somewhere in the industry, youtube makes him more. (He makes enough money to hire other people to write for him, as we can see in the linked article.)
Tim spends countless amount of time going through the scripts, read throughs, first recordings, and so on, with Patreons. I've been on many of these read throughs, usually with several engineers in the aerospace industry present, and it's meticulous how Tim makes sure any possible mistake is identified and rectified. Even then, once you upload, there's no editing of a video.
The goal is to bring the subject down to a level where everyday people can still follow. It's not meant to be a college course, so of course there will be some dumbing down.
That's just wrong and I think you've been sucked into the "distortion field" that surround him. I jumped to a random spot in this video and found several inaccuracies in seconds in how he described how the cooling process worked.
