Monthly Archives: November 2008

Light Blogging: Excuses, Excuses

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Did I mention we’ve been busy lately?

Posted in MSS | 7 Comments

Carrier Aircraft for SLV

Posted on November 12, 2008 by johnhare

guest blogger john hare My propeller concept was pretty well destroyed in comments. Several major flaws in the concept were pointed out. This one is more conventional, or at least as close as I get. A custom aircraft for air … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Performance Monoprop

Posted on November 10, 2008 by johnhare

guest blogger john hare In the other posts, I have tried somewhat to conform to accepted practice. In this one I suggest that maybe it is time to try something really new. I’m going with the monoprop again because it … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments

Airless Aerobraking

Posted on November 7, 2008 by johnhare

guest blogger john hare Aerobraking is possibly the most mass efficient means of matching velocity with a planet. The problem with aerobraking is that so many places of interest have no atmosphere to use for the purpose. The moon is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

The Best Way for Bad (Space) Policy to Triumph…

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

It’s been interesting watching the space corner of the blogosphere during the last several months. Many of my friends in the space advocacy community tend to support the Republican side of things, and it was sad to see how many … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Politics, Space Policy | 6 Comments

ULA Propellant Depot Paper (Updated)

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, ESAS, International Space Collaboration, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, MSS, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Transportation, Technology | 14 Comments

Interesting Paper on Shuttle Alternatives

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Someone was digging around the ULA publications section, and stumbled on a very interesting paper I hadn’t heard about yet discussing a shuttle alternative for resupplying the space station. While I don’t agree with everything in it, it’s worth a … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, International Space Collaboration, NASA, Space Transportation | 15 Comments

Roton Revisit

Posted on November 5, 2008 by johnhare

guest blogger john hare One of the more fascinating rocket concepts has to be the roton engine.  Liquid fueled rockets in the tips of a set of helicopter blades would power them to lift a ship off the ground or let … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Peroxide and Aerospike

Posted on November 3, 2008 by johnhare

guest blogger john hare Comments on the triprop included questions on switching to peroxide and modifying to aerospike with the basic concept. These two simple questions potentially contain the core of an engine better than  the LOX/Kero/LH that I started with. By … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Affordable Triprop Pumped Engine

Posted on November 1, 2008 by johnhare

guest blogger john hare It is interesting how many people tend to think of current rocket engines as being mature or nearly so. In this ongoing series of thought experiments and looney tune ideas, I suggest that current engines are … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments