Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Administrivia on Apr 25th, 2009
This next week is going to be pretty intense. Between trying to finish the mods to our XA-0.1B-750 (aka B-750) vehicle and trying to get it in the air, preparing for a presentation I’m giving at a local AIAA conference on the next Saturday, and having my folks and Tiff’s folks in for a baby [...]
Posted in Business, Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, RLV Markets on Apr 25th, 2009
One of the most common metrics used in discussing new launch vehicles and particularly RLVs is the price in $/lb delivered to LEO. You almost can’t have a discussion about the Space Shuttle, Saturn V, SpaceX, new commercial RLVs, or almost any other launch vehicle without the discussion at some point talking about the $/lb [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, RLV Markets, Space Transportation, SpaceX, Technology on Apr 22nd, 2009
[Editor's Note: It's been too long since I wrote the first article in this series, and I wanted to write some more on this topic. My tendency to try to cram everything into one ginormous ominbus post has been almost completely preventing me from publishing anything original about space lately, so I'm going to try [...]
I was reading my RSS feeds tonight, when I stumbled on this article. I remember discussing this concept of cycles of history with both my mom, and my brother-in-law. Jame’s Delong’s description of the “Special Interest State” I think fits our current political climate very well (both Democrat and Republican). If you’re in for more [...]
Thus sayeth the esteemed Dr Griffin: Engineers do not deal with “perfect”. Your viewgraphs will always be better than my hardware. A fictional space program will always be faster, better, and cheaper than a real space program. Now…someone remind me who’s been flying their existing rocket for seven years now, and who will be amazingly [...]
Does anyone here have solid budget numbers for how much has been spent to-date on the Constellation Program? Especially Ares-I and Orion? Just curious.
Posted in NASA on Apr 14th, 2009
I just saw an news article stating that former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin will be taking a position as a professor at University of Alabama, Huntsville. In spite of all the disagreements I’ve had over the years with Dr. Griffin’s policies as NASA Admin, I have to say I’m genuinely pleased by this news. I [...]
Posted in ESAS, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, Space Policy on Apr 11th, 2009
Several recent news items paint an interesting budgetary picture for the future of NASA’s preferred approach for spending tens of billions of dollars to send a few government employees to visit the Moon sometime supposedly starting in 2020. The three big pieces of new information (in addition to NASA not getting the large budget increases [...]
Posted in Family on Apr 7th, 2009
I got a call from Tiff around 10:30am letting me know that she was going into labor. I raced home and then down to Bakersfield, and the baby arrived at 12:44–about 30min after we got to the hospital (fortunately there were no cops along the way–a ticket for going 110 in a 65 zone would’ve [...]
Posted in Administrivia on Apr 4th, 2009
It’s been really crazy over the last few weeks. Tiff’s in her final week now (today was the original due-date). We just moved apartments to a bigger three-bedroom one in the complex. I have a new church calling that is keeping me busy. I’m trying to find time to put together a propellant depot paper [...]