Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Bigelow Aerospace, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Technology on Jun 27th, 2009
I recently found a fun presentation on lunar excavation technologies that I thought deserved a bit wider circulation. I’ve actually been interested in lunar excavation for over a decade now (in fact, it played a role in leading me to my thesis topic, but that’s a post for another day), and I think that this [...]
Posted in Launch Vehicles, Technology on May 13th, 2009
One of the topics I like to blog about is promising new space technologies, especially those that relate to reusable launch vehicles and space transportation infrastructure. Clark Lindsey recently linked to the website for the Space Propulsion Group, where a friend and former intern (Jonny Dyer) now works. They mostly do hybrid propulsion systems, but [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, RLV Markets, Space Transportation, SpaceX, Technology on Apr 22nd, 2009
[Editor's Note: It's been too long since I wrote the first article in this series, and I wanted to write some more on this topic. My tendency to try to cram everything into one ginormous ominbus post has been almost completely preventing me from publishing anything original about space lately, so I'm going to try [...]
Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Space Transportation, Technology on Dec 11th, 2008
A while ago, on aRocket, several people were discussing the concept of the launch loop. Read the articles here and here to get caught up to speed on the details. The idea is a non-rocket way of launching payloads to orbit. The launch loop has a “stator” tube with an internal “rotor” comprised of ferromagnetic [...]
Posted in NASA, Space Policy, Technology on Nov 28th, 2008
When I was a teenager, my dad had me read a small book called “The Richest Man in Babylon”. It was a good and simple read about personal financial management, set in a fictional background of ancient Babylon. I think the concepts in the book are just as timely today as when it was first [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, ESAS, International Space Collaboration, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, MSS, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Transportation, Technology on Nov 6th, 2008
Here’s one other interesting paper, which was presented at the SPACE 2008 conference a few months ago. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was given a copy of a few of the ULA papers before the conference, but decided to wait until after the conference to write about it. The past few months [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, Launch Vehicles, Space Transportation, Technology on Sep 25th, 2008
Clark Lindsey has already commented on this paper, but I figured it was worth a little further discussion here, since I’ve already written a few articles about air-launched RLV ideas. Air launch is definitely an idea I am warming up to. The paper covers a lot of ground we’ve discussed here in previous posts. Of [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Propellant Depots, Technology on Sep 11th, 2008
There were a few interesting papers being presented at the Space 2008 conference that some of my friends at ULA sent me. I’m going to wait until after the conference is over, so I don’t steal their thunder, but they are worth a quick review when I have the time. One of the regards the [...]
Posted in Launch Vehicles, Space Transportation, Technology on Sep 6th, 2008
Ok, I asked people to put up suggestions on my Skribit account, and I figured it was about time to actually start responding to some of the suggestions. One of the topics someone asked about was if the Saturn S-IVB could be turned into an SSTO launch vehicle. While looking at the mass ratio, it [...]
Posted in Launch Vehicles, Orbital Access Methodologies, Space Transportation, Technology on Sep 6th, 2008
Back when I first gave the guest-lecture at the University of North Dakota that kicked off this series, I had only introduced four actual technological approaches to making RLVs work. The balance of the time I spent talking about the economics of reusable orbital transportation (and the development process for getting from here to there). [...]