Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Propellant Depots on Jan 12th, 2010
I’ve mentioned, here and in my propellant depot paper, the post-flight cryogenic fluid management experiments ULA carried out on the AV-017 flight this past fall. I don’t have time this morning to comment on it, but I just found out that they have now published some information about the tests carried out and the preliminary [...]
Posted in Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, Technology, Tuggery on Nov 18th, 2009
Earlier this summer, I stumbled on a fascinating paper while trying to find some quotes for my Space 2009 Propellant Depot paper. The paper I found, Boom Rendezvous Alternative Docking Approach, written by Joseph Bonnometti of MSFC, discussed an interesting alternative to the standard method of bringing spacecraft together. It also provided an interesting insight [...]
Posted in Administrivia, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, Technology on Nov 3rd, 2009
Ok, between the trip to DC for the awards ceremony on Thursday, and taking all of next week off for a long-needed vacation, I’m not quite out of the woods yet. But after that I want to get back into blogging. And I have a few topics I’d like to write about, but [...]
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 MSS, Propellant Depots, Technology on Sep 19th, 2009
I only have a few minutes tonight, but part of what’s been keeping me busy lately has been two Space 2009 papers I’ve been involved with (one as the primary author, and another as a very minor coauthor).
First, the propellant depot paper I keep talking about: AIAA 2009-6756 Near-Term Propellant Depots: Implementation of a Critical [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, RLV Markets, Space Transportation on Jul 30th, 2009
In light of how well today went at the Augustine Committee, I felt that it would be worthwhile to post the propellant depot white paper that a group of us submitted last week. I was originally planning a much longer paper, trying to make the case that depots were technologically mature enough to be [...]
Posted in COTS, Commercial Space, ESAS, International Space Collaboration, International Space Competition, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Policy, Space Transportation, Technology on Jul 30th, 2009
Or at least that’s how Stephen Flemming put it on Twitter regarding Jeff Greason’s presentation at the Augustine Committee meeting today in Florida. To be fair, the rest of the subgroup also did an amazing job, especially Chris Chyba’s wrapup near the the end, where he made the case forcefully that becoming a spacefaring [...]
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 Administrivia, Propellant Depots on Jul 11th, 2009
I just wanted to mention that I’ll be chairing a propellant depot panel at the NewSpace 2009 conference this next week. This year, due to time constraints, I’m going to go for a slightly different format than I did last time. Basically my plan is to give a short 10 minute intro to the topic [...]
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 [...]