Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 18th, 2012
john hare Watching Jonathons’ video presentation on micro depots for very small satellites even before servicing large satellites or manned vehicles, and reading a few articles on electric propulsion triggered a thought, or possibly just a memory of something suggested elsewhere. What if the micro depot had a laser or microwave mounted to not only [...]
Posted in Humor, Propellant Depots, Space Tethers, Space Transportation on Aug 14th, 2012
And ironically, it’s XKCD What-if that is wrong. Well, not wrong by commission, but wrong by omission. First off, I’m a huge fan of both XKCD (well the 98% of their comic strips that are SFJ) and XKCD-What If. If I was 1/20th as funny as Randall Munroe, I’d probably be writing witty webcomics instead [...]
Posted in NASA, Space Policy on Aug 13th, 2012
I’ve noticed a meme over the past years that NASA would be able to accomplish more if it didn’t keep getting its direction changed every time a new President comes in, or every time there is a shakeup in Congress. A strong corollary to this meme seems to be that these changes (and the accompanying [...]
Posted in Propellant Depots on Aug 13th, 2012
I didn’t realize till I saw it on NASASpaceflight.com, but apparently the panel I was on at NewSpace 2012 is now up on youtube, so I figured I would share. My piece runs from about the 8min mark till around the 14min mark, so it’s fairly brief: Not sure if what I had to say [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 11th, 2012
john hare Rand Simberg (Transterrestrial Musings)posted a few concepts for mars missions the other day involving refueling at various interplanetary depots with attendant advantages. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite grasp the advantages compared to other depot scenarios in more conventional orbits. Though I am not a Mars first advocate, a lot of people are, and [...]