Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 26th, 2013
Due to the lasting nature of communicating on these various internet sites, I am on record in several places as saying that gravity tractors for moving asteroids are stupid. I could see no way that gravitational attraction between an asteroid of a few hundred thousand tons and a spacecraft of a few thousand pounds could [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 24th, 2013
Quite often some form of bulldozer on the moon or Mars to dig ores or cover habitats is suggested. There seems to be a meme out there that the best way to move sandy gravely material is similar to the way it is done here on Earth. It is sometimes suggested that this moondozer [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 17th, 2013
After following a discussion on ARocket for the last few weeks, I had a thought on building propellant tanks that is mostly a combination of other peoples’ ideas. John Carmack made a good case for spiral welded propellant tanks. Instead of sheets of material welded at all four edges, a roll of material [...]
Posted in NEOs on Feb 15th, 2013
With yesterday’s meteorite impact in Russia, I’ve seen several clever tweets featuring this clever picture: But to me, meteor impacts today are nature’s way of asking “Have you thought about donating to the B612 Foundation’s Sentinel Mission lately?” Most serious students of NEOs have suggested that a space-based IR telescope like Sentinel is the key [...]