Selenian Boondocks

This one is in response to an ongoing discussion about the pressurized volume in the various deep space exploration architectures. Apparently an Orion will provide  sufficient crew volume for extended missions while a Dragon will not in many peoples minds. The suggested often remedy is a Bigalow inflatable module for the extended missions. Henry Cate [...]

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With the upcoming attempts to simulate a landing over water with the Falcon IX first stage comes a possible opportunity to expedite actual re-usability.  It just might be possible to grab a stage that has reached zero velocity over the water with a helicopter and return it to a barge or dry land for inspection [...]

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Powering a rover through the two week lunar night is receiving a bit of attention. Most of the attention seems to be on better batteries and thermal control with some suggesting that nuclear is the only reasonable option for such a long time period of extreme cold and darkness. It may be possible to power [...]

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I’m flying into Phoenix at 9:00 AM on Thursday 11 April for Space Access. If anyone is leaving the airport for the conference about that time I would be glad to pay for the ride. hare.john@rocketmail.com 863-206-0794

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I finally did a kludgy  test Saturday with one of my engine concepts. Several years ago I posted some ideas here about pump impellers that were also regenerative cooled turbines running a full flow staged combustion cycle. I kinda sorta did that. I used a fire extinguisher bottle combustion chamber with nitrous from a 15 [...]

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Launching material off the moon for use in space is a problem in itself. Many methods are feasible technically. Far less are economically sound. Sending the propellant from Earth for instance is something that should only be done for the very early missions for extreme value payloads like an astronaut or a pure helium 3. [...]

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There is much discussion on the best habitat to deliver to the Moon. Dragons, inflatables, and modified propellant tanks as well as methods for renovating lava tubes are really just a start on the discussion. There have been a number of thoughts on some form of in situ construction as well primarily of the tunnel [...]

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Just a quick thought for fun. Suppose some execs got together and had a solid commercial business case for heavy launch ASAP. ATK supplies well tested Shuttle four segment SRBs to mate with current Falcon 9 equipment. Two SRBs are mated with a Falcon 9 core and two strap on stretched  tanks built with Falcon [...]

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Jason Rian at the blog Americaspace just ran a series on Newspace trolls and the damage they do to the industry. There were four posts total with Newspace hatred starting and newspace troll tactics for the next three. His theme seems to be that Newspacers hate NASA and Oldspace so much they can’t see straight [...]

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The recent impactor discussions brought up about  the comet that may hit Mars brought to mind some vaguely remembered ideas about terraforming Mars. Volatile rich bodies are directed at Mars to give it an atmosphere of the resulting gasses. If my BOTE numbers are right, the estimated 30km diameter comet would roughly double the atmospheric [...]

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