In light of how well today went at the Augustine Committee, I felt that it would be worthwhile to post the propellant depot white paper that a group of us submitted last week. I was originally planning a much longer paper, trying to make the case that depots were technologically mature enough to be worth [...]
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Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, ESAS, International Space Collaboration, International Space Competition, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Policy, Space Transportation, Technology on Jul 30th, 2009
Or at least that’s how Stephen Flemming put it on Twitter regarding Jeff Greason’s presentation at the Augustine Committee meeting today in Florida. To be fair, the rest of the subgroup also did an amazing job, especially Chris Chyba’s wrapup near the the end, where he made the case forcefully that becoming a spacefaring civilization [...]
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Just reading some of the comments from the Constellation used-car sale pitch going on in Huntsville today. One of the topics discussed was how Ares-V enables manned missions to Mars. The Marshall guys put up a chart showing that depending on whether we go with NTRs or chemical propulsion, Ares-V could place the needed mass [...]
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Last week, right after I finished sending my propellant depot white paper in to the Augustine Committee, I got contacted by David Shiga of New Scientist with some questions for an article he was writing. The article is now available online, and while it probably doesn’t say much that is new for most readers here, [...]
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Posted in NASA on Jul 28th, 2009
I know this may sound mean-spirited, but I’m genuinely curious: does anyone know of any big projects that MSFC has played a major role in over the last 30 years that were actually successful? I’ve only been paying attention since the mid-nineties, and almost everything that I’ve seen has been the megaprojects that they’ve run [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 25th, 2009
guest blogger john hare It is a requirement of living that you make assumptions about things. If you have to have all conceivable information on any subject, and have all of it verified to a high degree, before you do anything, you will never do anything. You have to assume you will get paid for [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 25th, 2009
guest blogger john hare Momentum exchange tethers could be one of the enabling technologies of the next phase of space development, and almost certainly will be a centerpiece in the phase after that. The problem with them is the same as that of RLVs, turborockets, SSTOs and a host of other enablers, “How do you [...]
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Posted in Administrivia on Jul 20th, 2009
I’m just about to head out from the NewSpace 2009 conference. Honestly, I ditched out of all of today, and parts of the other days, between my propellant depot panel, and the white paper I was working on. The panel went pretty well, though I’d only give myself a B+ overall. One of these days [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 19th, 2009
guest blogger john hare Whether or not the ribbon propellant system of Universal will work well or not is a subject of interest. I gave some thought to similar concepts some time ago, which makes it more interesting to me than others. My notes on the idea are gone, but I’m going to take a [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 19th, 2009
guest blogger john hare Air breathing engines have many problems competing with rockets on acceleration missions. High on the list is the inlet that slows the incoming air and uses that kinetic energy to compress the air before sending it on to the engine. Air breathing engines really really don’t like supersonic, or even very [...]
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