Monthly Archives: September 2016

What are the Odds?

I wanted to expand on one thought from last night. If you have a launch vehicle that you want a reasonably good chance of reusing 1000x, it actually needs a lot better than a 1:1000 Loss of Vehicle probability for … Continue reading

Posted in Launch Vehicles | 17 Comments

SpaceX Mars Plans: Jon’s First Take

I’ve had a lot of friends ping me today about my thoughts on Elon’s Mars talk today. I was in a meeting when it happened, and literally was pinged by half a dozen people during the meeting… Now that I’ve … Continue reading

Posted in Commercial Space, ISRU, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Mars, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Settlement, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA, Venus | 60 Comments

I Think I’ve Found a Political Windmill Worth Tilting At

I usually try to keep partisan politics to a tolerable minimum on this blog, and I still intend to. But I had a crazy idea that I wanted to share somewhere other than Twitter. This year, a significant fraction of … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 28 Comments

Energy needed to get to orbit using various fuels from various planets.

EDIT: I made a big mistake on how I calculate bulk density. I’ll fix it. EDIT AGAIN: I fixed it. I think. I will pick stoichiometric mixes, oxygen as oxidizer and fuels of hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. The three … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Reverse Rocket

This is a post about an idea by Doug Plata. His idea is to put multiple propellant tanks on top with just enough structure to keep them intact and drop them in pairs as they drain. Under the tanks is … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Getting My Numbers

This is an explanation of how I get BOTE numbers for such things as the comparison between LH2 and CH4 propellants as in Jons’ last post. The focus Jon had was how much H2 do you need to carry to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Random Thoughts: Which is a Better ISRU Propellant on Venus/Mars–LOX/LH2 or LOX/CH4?

I’m not sure if someone has already run the analysis, but I’m kind of curious about which ISRU-derivable propellant combination is better for locations like Venus or Mars where there is plenty of CO2 available in the atmosphere, but limited … Continue reading

Posted in ISRU, Mars, Venus | 14 Comments