Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Administrivia on Oct 30th, 2009
I noticed about a week ago (or maybe it was a year ago–I’m not really sure) that we had nearly hit 300k visitors here at Selenian Boondocks. We finally crossed that threshold yesterday. I’d like to thank all the loyal readers who keep following us even though I’ve been way to busy to [...]
Posted in Astronomy, Fun, Propellant Depots on Oct 27th, 2009
I’ve been so busy lately that I’m only now getting a few spare minutes to show off some rather cool pictures I was sent a week ago. A week ago Monday, I got an email from Claire Flanagan of the Johannesburg Planetarium in South Africa, asking about some strange pictures, including the one taken above [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 26th, 2009
guest blogger john hare
Many of us think about the how to get there, though we may disagree where there should be. Far less often do we discuss why, and then it frequently becomes a series of circular arguments on both sides. First and foremost, the honest answer is, “We want to”. The good reasons for going, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 23rd, 2009
guest blogger john hare
In the ongoing discussions about NASA’s proper direction for the future, you constantly see the phrase ‘Shuttle derived’. It is an acknowledged requirement to keep as much of the current workforce employed as possible, while forging ahead with hardware with a track record. The current program of record seems a kludge. The [...]
Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NEOs on Oct 21st, 2009
This is kind of embarrasing to admit, but I had a long-time misconception about the delta-V requirements for reaching NEOs. A long time ago, I read some figure for delta-V requirements for earth-crossing asteroids. The figure was ridiculously low, something like 60m/s. At the time I read it, I didn’t really have a lot of [...]
This is poor taste, but too funny not to pass along (I apologize in advance to CxP workers reading this). Upon hearing about another CxP element that’s been supposedly defunded, a NASASpaceFlight.com member (Lawntonlookirs) expressed his frustration by creating the following, slightly modified mission patch for Constellation:
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 15th, 2009
guest blogger john hare
I did a resin cast nozzle with embedded string today to observe the effects as an air tank blew down. My intent was to start with a nozzle almost at separation and then add a boot to observe the flow patterns. Since the nozzle was slightly asymmetric and had excessive expansion, it had separated [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 11th, 2009
guest blogger john hare
I fail to understand the attraction of the complex nuclear and electric engines for deep space maneuvering when solar thermal promises to be so much simpler and higher performance. A few simple modifications to the normal methods of heating the working fluid and nuclear thermal becomes an under performing, over politicized dead [...]
I listened in a bit on yesterday’s Augustine Committee discussion. The debate at the end between Bo and the others reminded me of a point I’ve made a bunch of times on this blog–that when you’re talking about exploration missions, ascent reliability is only a small component of the overall risk.
Since I’ve been doing a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 6th, 2009
guest blogger john hare
The friends I know in the rocket industry are too busy running businesses and fulfilling contracts to work cheap or free on the unproven concepts that I find interesting. It has come to my attention that there are a lot of other groups out there doing rockets that can use even very small [...]