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.

Random Thoughts: RLVs and Megaconstellations

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Jonathan Goff

Last month I was out in Washington DC for a satellite industry conference (the 2017 Satellite Show). My startup has been working on a cool satellite servicing related project that I need to blog about soon, and we were out … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Origin, Business, Launch Vehicles, MSS, Random Thoughts, RLV Markets, Space Transportation, SpaceX | 12 Comments

Random Thoughts: First Pass Analysis of a White Dragon/Xeus Lunar Sortie Mission

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Jonathan Goff

After yesterday’s SpaceX announcement of having booked two customers for a Apollo-8 style mission around the Moon and back, using Falcon Heavy and Dragon V2, I got thinking about ways to take the next step in lunar tourism–surface missions. Now, … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Random Thoughts, Space Exploration, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA, YHABFT | 51 Comments

Random Thoughts: The Difference Between a Base and a Settlement (by Doug Plata)

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Jonathan Goff

There was an interesting comment by Doug Plata a few days ago that I wanted to repeat as a blog post. Background was discussing the idea of long-term stays on the Moon, similar to my old Lunar One Way to … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development | 10 Comments

Random Thoughts: Throwing the Moon a Bone

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

[Note: This blog post was originally planned to be something significantly longer, triggered by one of Eric Berger’s recent Ars Technica articles. But running a bootstrapped startup gave me the choice of waiting until this was totally irrelevant, or saying … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, COTS, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Random Thoughts | 9 Comments

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

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

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 4–Propellantless Horizontal Soft-Landing Methods

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

As mentioned previously in Part 2 of this series, one of the key elements in establishing a lunar beachhead is developing ways to safely and affordably land payloads and people on the lunar surface. In Part 3, we discussed a … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes, Space Development, Space Settlement, Space Transportation, Technology | 29 Comments

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 0–An Elevator Pitch for the Moon

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

[Note: After getting a few posts into this series on the “how” of alternative lunar transportation concepts, I realized that some commenters were asking about why we should even be going to the Moon, or what we’d be doing there. … Continue reading →

Posted in ISRU, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Settlement | 15 Comments