Author Archives: johnhare

In the post on the architecture that Doug Plata proposes for the Lunar development, I likely appear as a naysayer as I picked on the sections that I disagreed with or thought that there was a better way forward. Not surprisingly, … Continue reading →

Doug Plata has a new website at spacedevelopment.org with a concept for sustainable Lunar development. He sent me the link and suggested I look it over. I read it through the first time as a plan and promptly (in my … Continue reading →

I had a new experience tonight. A woman I went out with a few times a year or so back got in touch and we went out for dinner. Somewhere in the middle of the dinner she mentioned that she … Continue reading →

At some point it seems that SpaceX plans to retire the Falcon series in favor of the BFR (series?). For a fully developed and productive launch system to be retired due to improvements within the company line there must be … Continue reading →

The long anticipated Falcon Heavy should fly towards the end of this year. Many people seem to believe that this launcher is going to be the answer to the PorkLauncher, big private payloads, launch costs, reliability, and all the other … Continue reading →

This idea has been kicked around in pieces before, though I think this particular combination may be unique. Mount a Roton blade system on top of the shroud of a standard launch vehicle. Power it up before launch such that … Continue reading →

One of the growing concerns is the amount of small debris in LEO. The big stuff can be tracked and mostly avoided, but the small stuff is a more difficult proposition. A hundred gram shard at some LEO closing velocities … Continue reading →

I just read that XCOR laid off its’ remaining employees with a few core people kept on contract. This is another shot against the vision that I have blogged and commented about many times. The concept being that sub-orbital RLVs … Continue reading →

One of the incredible mentions in the Elon Mars concept was a thousand spacecraft in orbit ready for the Mars launch window to open. I’m not sure how many launch windows down the road this would be, I assume several … Continue reading →

The roll out of the Stratolaunch aircraft started a considerable amount of criticism on the sources that I read. Basically it has the same problem as the White Knight, superb aircraft with no viable rocket to mate up with. I … Continue reading →