Selenian Boondocks

Clark Lindsey posted some links on Hobbyspace to a recent presentation given by SpaceX at COMSTAC. The Briefing had some interesting pictures and information, and this one at least doesn’t appear to have any sort of statement saying it shouldn’t be distributed, so if they don’t mind, I’m going to post a few of the [...]

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Leonard David has a good article up on Space.com about us and Armadillo Aerospace. Now that we have a full year to get our vehicles up and running, and as much flight experience as we can, I think that people will take us a lot more seriously as a competitor. John mentions that we have [...]

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Ok, I finally got around to perusing the new US National Space Policy that came out a few weeks ago. Most of the noise I’ve heard so far has been by people attacking the policy for being too belligerent. While I can see one or two sentences in there that could possibly have ominous interpretations, [...]

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Well, now that I’m back from Las Cruces, I figured it might be good to wrap up the Masten Space Systems X-Prize Cup 2006 saga, picking up where I left off. Before I go into the more detailed story, I’d like to thank the X-Prize Cup people, and particularly our pad manager Alan Perryman and [...]

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Well, I just wanted to drop a quick note, since I have the chance. Dave’s off at some VIP function tonight, and he let me use his laptop while he was gone. The trip down went fairly well. Ian and I left Sunday night, and camped out under the stars at Needles, CA. We then [...]

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by guest blogger ‘Moon’ Murph I don’t try to hide the fact that it’s my intention to become the most knowledgeable person of my generation with regards to the Moon. It’s a great slacker goal – I come from a small demographic and have picked a relatively esoteric niche (since most of my generation is [...]

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See you all there in Las Cruces. Alas, I doubt I’ll have much if any opportunity to blog while I’m gone. The whole MSS crew is going to be there, along with our vehicle, and some live-fire demonstrations of our vernier engines. Should be lots of fun. The only drag is that I’m not sure [...]

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by guest blogger (and Lunar Librarian) Ken It looks like the Congressional Budget Office decided to jump into the launch vehicle fray, releasing this week a report entitled “Alternatives for Future U.S. Space-Launch Capabilities”. (Hat tip to the ever dependable NASAWatch) This study was prepared at the request of the “Ranking Member of the House [...]

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Alan Boyle has a pretty good article over on Cosmic Log about the Lunar Lander Challenge as well as the Artemis Lunar Lander (aka LSAM) that NASA intends to field in the coming years. I think the fact that Northrup is sponsoring the event highlights the “furry dinosaurs” (“mammal-friendly dinosaurs” maybe?) trend I was mentioning [...]

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About that “light blogging”…little did I know that I’d catch the bug that Jonny had, and be stuck at home with a nasty stomach flu… Anyhow, one of the ideas that I’ve given a lot of thought to lately has been that of orbital cryogenic propellant transfer, and how to actually make it happen. The [...]

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