Selenian Boondocks

I told the story of how I had gotten involved with the JSC study of an artificial-gravity/nuclear-electric propulsion (AG-NEP) Mars vehicle study. I came into the study near the end (January 2003) and right before the Columbia disaster. As near as I could tell, after Columbia happened, nobody kept working on the AG-NEP design, or [...]

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In several posts now, I have criticized the use of nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) engines. In the case of Earth departure stages, I have shown through mathematical analysis that they either do not have a performance improvement over chemical engines (for the overall system) or that the performance improvement is insufficient to merit the titanic [...]

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A few months ago, I spent some time describing some calculations of payload fraction that I derived to assist in the design of rocket vehicles. My motivation for getting into this type of work came about from my work on the X-33 rocket when I was an intern at the Skunk Works. I wondered how [...]

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guest blogger john hare The increasing tempo of VTVL development flights and the recent success of the Falcon 9 lead to possibilities for a different type of cooperative venture. Two companies have VTVLs testing  that are pretty much gas-n-go while SpaceX has vehicles that are quite difficult to get back. Using gas-n-go boosters to improve [...]

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guest blogger john hare SpaceX nailed the Falcon 9 on the first try. There is enough crow being eaten around the country now that somebody should put out a cookbook. My serving comes from the expressed belief that the opening of space will come through the incremental development with RLVs starting from suborbital through small orbital [...]

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guest blogger john hare Recent events make it easier to describe one scenario for getting orbital costs down. This specific example almost certainly won’t happen and just stands in for the dozens of possible ways that orbit could become affordable. Masten and XCOR have a joint venture for developing a methane lander. Consider the possibility of future [...]

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guest blogger john hare A few weeks ago I did a post on possible fantasies related to suborbital spaceflight. Some of the feedback applies to orbital flight. Some feedback I was really looking for though did not show up. One commenter in previous threads really hammered on the human spaceflight being a fantasy  detrimental to [...]

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guest blogger john hare I have not said much on the commercial take over of NASA orbital deliveries, so I thought I would lay out the timeline that I see happening. Commercial space will start sending up astronauts to ISS in 2016 after $16B-$20B in development costs. Commercial space will get a bit cocky by [...]

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guest blogger john hare Many of the potential spaceflight markets have been labeled fantasies along with any market that involves government money. This labeling is usually in a negative light as in, “Space tourism is a fantasy market”. The implication is that fantasies are always bad and we need to wake up and smell the [...]

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guest blogger john hare Most concepts for the opening of space seem to fall into a few scenarios, most of which invoke the major infusions of cash and risk from one source. Some seem to be so focused on one object, be it Mars, Moon, or SPS  that they are willing to risk everything (that [...]

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