Author Archives: Jonathan Goff

Jonathan Goff

About Jonathan Goff

Jonathan Goff is a space technologist, inventor, and serial space entrepreneur who created the Selenian Boondocks blog. Jon was a co-founder of Masten Space Systems, and is the founder and CEO of Altius Space Machines, a space robotics startup in Broomfield, CO. His family includes his wife, Tiffany, and five boys: Jarom (deceased), Jonathan, James, Peter, and Andrew. Jon has a BS in Manufacturing Engineering (1999) and an MS in Mechanical Engineering (2007) from Brigham Young University, and served an LDS proselytizing mission in Olongapo, Philippines from 2000-2002.

On Avoiding Some of the Mistakes of Apollo

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Jonathan Goff

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. With a blog named Selenian Boondocks, I figured it probably made sense for me to say something. Earlier this year, thanks to some good advice from several friends, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, COTS, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Policy, Space Settlement | 21 Comments

SBIR Proposaling Advice

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Jonathan Goff

A few weeks back, I asked my followers on Twitter what topics they’d like to see me blog about. One of them suggested that since I do a lot of SBIR proposals at my day job, that maybe I could … Continue reading →

Posted in Altius Space Machines, Business, Entrepreneurship, NASA | 2 Comments

FISO Telecon Lecture on LEO Propellant Depots for Interplanetary Smallsat Launch

Posted on November 28, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

Today I gave a lecture on the Future In-Space Operations Telecon Series on the idea of using LEO propellant depots for interplanetary smallsat missions. Here’s a link to the archive page, which has both the presentation itself and an .mp3 … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Lunar Commerce, Mars, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA | 6 Comments

AAS Paper Review: RAAN Agnostic 3-Burn Departure Methodology for Deep Space Missions from LEO Depots (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on September 17, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

Ok, picking up where the first part left off, we’ve reviewed the background, methodology, and some general observations on the methodology from our RAAN-agnostic 3-burn departure paper. In this part, I want to go over an interplanetary launch campaign concept … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, International Space Collaboration, International Space Competition, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, Mars, NEOs, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, Technology, ULA, Venus | 5 Comments

AAS Paper Review: RAAN Agnostic 3-Burn Departure Methodology for Deep Space Missions from LEO Depots (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

About a year ago, I wrote a review of an AAS conference paper that I coauthored with a few of my astrogator friends, Mike Loucks and John Carrico regarding an mission design tool for enabling the use of LEO depots … Continue reading →

Posted in Launch Vehicles, NEOs, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation | 9 Comments

Random Thoughts: Why Cameras Might be Critical to Venus Settlement

Posted on July 21, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

It’s been a while since I last posted on the idea of Venus settlement, but the idea came up again on Twitter recently, and it got me thinking about several of the challenges that still need to be resolved to … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Thoughts, Space Settlement, Venus | 18 Comments

Administrivia

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

Hey guys, just FYI at Chris’s request (and with some help from Mike Mealling), I updated the website to add SSL encryption and use https instead of http. Apparently, Chrome is about to start giving people warnings if they visit … Continue reading →

Posted in Administrivia | 1 Comment

Research Papers I Wish I Could Con Someone Into Writing Part I: Lunar ISRU in the Age of RLVs

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

One of the things I’d love to do if I were successful enough at Altius to afford it would be to sponsor graduate-level research into space technology, business, economics, and policy topics that I’m interested in. Not just because I … Continue reading →

Posted in BFR, ISRU, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Research Papers I'd Like to Con Others Into Writing, Space Development | 21 Comments

Random Thoughts: A Now Rather Cold Take on BFR

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

When Elon gave his update on BFR at the IAC conference in Australia, I was originally going to post some thoughts right away. But with Falcon Heavy’s maiden launch attempt coming up tomorrow, I realized I still hadn’t collected my … Continue reading →

Posted in BFR, Blue Origin, Random Thoughts, SpaceX | 49 Comments

AAS Paper Review: Practical Methodologies For Low Delta-V Penalty, On-Time Departures To Arbitrary Interplanetary Destinations From A Medium-Inclination Low-Earth Orbit Depot

Posted on February 3, 2018 by Jonathan Goff

I’d like to share a technical paper about propellant depots and interplanetary mission orbital dynamics that I helped co-author this past year, with the help of two of my astrogator friends, Mike Loucks and John Carrico of Space Exploration Engineering … Continue reading →

Posted in Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Transportation, ULA | 12 Comments