Monthly Archives: November 2006

Lunar Surface Rendezvous and Light Scout Outpost Missions

Lunar Surface RendezvousOne of the ideas I liked from the TeamVision paper (though I think it could and should be taken farther) was Lunar Surface Rendezvous. Now, this term has been used in several different ways, so I’ll define it … Continue reading

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WBC as EDS Update

I also wanted to post a quick update about that WBC as EDS idea. Ross Tierney (the guy behind the DIRECT concept) ran some simulations for me. Apparently for the specific design of the EDS, the 6-engine WBC wouldn’t quite … Continue reading

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Generic Tankers

One of the things that I keep coming back to about EELV derived lunar missions, is that while there are a lot of interesting possibilities out there, and they are likely to be a lot cheaper than the ESAS architecture, … Continue reading

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Thanks

I’d like to thank everyone who commented publically or by email to my “Readers Survey”. The support means a lot. I guess sometimes it just really helps knowing that you’re actually making a difference, even if only a modest one. … Continue reading

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Odd Bleg: RL10-C

Hey guys, I was trying to find if anyone had specific details about what ever happened to the RL10-C engine concept. Mark Wade lists it as having entered operational service, but the one stage they listed it as being used … Continue reading

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Now That Explains A Lot (ESAS Edition)

I’ve been rather enjoying some of the discussions going on at the NASASpaceflight.com forums lately. Unlike some of my usual haunts where I occasionally lurk (like sci.space.policy), most of the people there aren’t people that I’ve been arguing with for … Continue reading

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The Myth of the Low Cost HLV

I commented on this over at hobbyspace, but felt this deserved its own quick little blog post. Every now and again, people will trot out a tired argument that HLVs are proven to be much cheaper per pound than smaller … Continue reading

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Reader Survey?

Just out of curiousity, how many of you guys actually find what I have to write useful? I’m curious, because I sometimes get a decent amount of traffic on some of my articles, and I’m sure that most people reading … Continue reading

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Dry-Launch vs ESAS Loss of Mission Numbers

A couple weeks back, I brought up some fundamental flaws I saw in the logic that the Exploration Systems Architecture Study group used to come up with their preferred lunar transportation architecture. In a discussion on NASASpaceFlight.com, I started realizing … Continue reading

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Centaur Based Earth Departure Stage

A couple of days back, when I was doing some of my preliminary thinking about the TeamVision architecture, I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations trying to see what kind of lunar transportation architecture could be done with off-the-shelf (or nearly off-the-shelf) … Continue reading

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