Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in ESAS, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA on Jul 29th, 2009
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 [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, NASA, Propellant Depots, RLV Markets on Jul 29th, 2009
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, [...]
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 [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA on Jul 16th, 2009
Mr X over at ChairForce Engineer has one of the best Apollo retrospectives I’ve seen this week (which is only helped by linking to one of my other favorites from this week, by Reason’s Ron Bailey). Their points are well-taken. At some point, we’ll have evolved our space transportation system to the point where we [...]
Posted in Bigelow Aerospace, Commercial Space, ESAS, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, MSS, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, SpaceX on Jun 28th, 2009
Ok, two weeks ago, I mentioned that the “pre-depot” dual EELV launch concept my friend had passed to me could be adapted to do manned lunar missions. Lunar missions are a lot easier to close if you assume a depot in LEO (and even easier if there’s also a small depot at L2). But it [...]
Posted in ESAS, NASA, Space Transportation on Jun 27th, 2009
A few years ago, I asked the question of “how many crew do you really need for a lunar program?“ The conclusion was that if you could reduce the crew requirements (at least initially), it might allow for a much more capable, affordable, and flexible architecture. And you’d eventually be back up to 4 or [...]
Posted in Launch Vehicles, NASA on Jun 24th, 2009
With yet another episode of “let’s-just-quote-Jorge-Frank-because-he-puts-it-so-much-better-than-I-could”. In response to a comment about how the problem with Shuttle was that it tried to be everything to everyone, Jorge said: That was an effect, not a cause. The cause was the decision to make the shuttle an operational, rather than an experimental vehicle. This was key. An [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, ESAS, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation on Jun 17th, 2009
I noticed during the DIRECT presentation at today’s HSF public meeting, that they were asked why they would need an HLV if they had depots. Now, I didn’t hear the exact question, since I had a phone call come in just a few minutes earlier (ironically enough from one of my friends in the depot [...]
…I know there’s sometimes some confusion about names, but I’m pretty sure NASA isn’t short for Northern Alabama Space Administration. Someone ought to point that out to our Mr. Shelby.
Posted in NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Policy, Space Transportation on Jun 4th, 2009
[Ed: I'm pretty sure I've used this argument before, but didn't see it on the blog, so I figured I'd put it down in writing even if it ends up being repetitive.] One of the most common criticisms I hear of propellant depots is that we can’t “put unproven technology on the critical path to [...]