Monthly Archives: September 2015

Anti-radiation Biological Countermeasures: Amifostine

Whenever human spaceflight comes up, inevitably someone mentions radiation. Personally, I think the radiation risk is WAY overblown. “Compound conservatism” is rampant, I believe, and gets worse as time goes on and people keep recycling the same sources, adding some … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Simple SPS ??

Reading about the drawbacks of conventional Solar Power Satellites and the comments in response to Chris eventually triggered an idea, or perhaps a memory of something hinted at in something I read once. I’m somewhat less certain of complete originality … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments

2H15 A Good Time for Geeking Out

I have to say the last half of this year is a great time to be a space/sci-fi/RPG nerd: July: New Horizons successfully completes Pluto Flyby August: Shadowrun HongKong by HareBrained Schemes comes out September: HareBrained Schemes planning to launch … Continue reading

Posted in Administrivia | 7 Comments

Mars surface shielding from radiation

I want a short little aside here to talk about a little pet peeve of mine: People talk as if Mars’ atmosphere does basically nothing to reduce the radiation dose as compared to free space. This is definitely not true, … Continue reading

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Summary of Some ULA Papers from AIAA SPACE 2015

ULA has often used the AIAA SPACE conferences as a venue for discussing technical ideas they were working on. In fact, I’ve written several blog posts over the years summarizing or commenting on previous versions of their papers. This year’s … Continue reading

Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, Orbital Access Methodologies, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA | 19 Comments

Minimum viable microwave-based space-based solar power system

The Solomon Islands pay almost $1/kWh for electricity. You could provide beamed solar power to them on a demonstration basis for a fraction of that price. Unfortunately, being in the ocean is one of the worst places for beamed power, … Continue reading

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Power beaming

Power beaming is clearly central to space-based solar power concepts. Here I will provide a quick overview of my understanding of power beaming, the various equations involved, typical example calculations. If power beaming were efficient and cheap, I believe space-based … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments