Monthly Archives: September 2016

What are the Odds?

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

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

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

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

Posted on September 17, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

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.

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Chris Stelter

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

Posted on September 10, 2016 by johnhare

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

Posted on September 10, 2016 by johnhare

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?

Posted on September 5, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

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