Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Launch Vehicles, MHD Aerobraking and TPS, Technology on Feb 14th, 2010
In this installment, I want to dig a lot deeper into the mechanics of how one might maximize the utility of MHD effects for orbital reentry. But first, I wanted to spend a few seconds discussing what is important for an RLV TPS system.
RLV Thermal Protection Systems
Protection from the harsh heating environment caused by [...]
Posted in Business, Commercial Space, Suborbital Science on Feb 13th, 2010
Last year, my family went out to the coast to spend the holiday with a good friend who does finance and project management work for a large aerospace company out there. We’ve been brainstorming various space business opportunities for some time to see if there were any interesting areas that we could both make [...]
Posted in Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, MHD Aerobraking and TPS, Space Transportation, Technology on Feb 10th, 2010
I’ve been meaning to write for a while about a rather fascinating, but not very well known, area of research that I think might have significant implications for several areas of space transportation. The research I am referring to is focused on exploiting Magneto-hydrodynamic forces to manipulate weakly-ionized plasmas caused by hypersonic flight in [...]
Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA on Feb 8th, 2010
I’ve had a few more ideas on the Lunar One-Way-To-Stay concept that I figured it would be worth posting now before I forget them. I still think this is pretty much the only way that there will be a human foot on the Moon this decade. More importantly, this is the only cost-effective way short [...]
Posted in Launch Vehicles, NASA, Space Transportation, Thrust Augmented Nozzles on Feb 8th, 2010
One of the reasons I haven’t blogged much about my reactions to the President’s NASA budget proposal is because I’ve been doing a lot of commenting over at NASASpaceflight.com. I just realized that my latest post could actually serve pretty well as a blog post too, so I’m copying it over here for discussion. One [...]
Posted in Administrivia on Feb 6th, 2010
Just wanted to mention that John Hare was in town for a visit today. Had fun trying out some proof-of-concept hardware for some of his ideas he’s blogged about over the past year or so. We also had lunch with Doug Jones over at Mike’s Roadhouse cafe. John won’t be able to [...]
Posted in NASA on Feb 1st, 2010
Holy Crap! Obama’s NASA Budget Proposal is Amazing! For once in my life, I think I’m actually speechless for now.