Category Archives: Commercial Crew

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: 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

SpaceX Amateur Business Case Study

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Jonathan Goff

There have been several times in recent weeks that people either in person or on the internet have speculated about SpaceX’s finances and business model. In some cases the speculations have been that SpaceX is pricing their Falcon 9 below … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, COTS, Launch Vehicles, SpaceX | 45 Comments

Space Tourism Musings

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Jonathan Goff

My post on Wednesday about Passengers as an RLV market got me thinking about the old Futron Space Tourism study from 2002. Background on the Futron 2002 Space Tourism Market Study If you’re relatively new to the space scene, this … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, Space Transportation | 3 Comments

Top 10 Reasons Why Something ARM-like Is Worth Doing

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Jonathan Goff

[Up-front Disclaimer: My space startup is being paid under the Asteroid Redirect Mission BAA to do a study contract on one possible way to do the Option B mission. Even though we’re not dependent on follow-on work, I figured it … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, International Space Collaboration, ISRU, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, NEOs, Space Development, Space Exploration | 25 Comments

Random Thought: Dragon V2 as an xGRF Platform?

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Jonathan Goff

Review: How Much Gravity Do We Need, and Why Do We Care? One of my hobby horses that I’ve blogged about a few times is the question of how much gravity do humans need to be healthy? As I’ve pointed … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, NASA, Space Development, Space Settlement, Space Tethers, SpaceX, Variable Gravity | 35 Comments

Healthy Industries vs. Monocultures

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Jonathan Goff

One of the things I’ve believed for a long time is that for the NewSpace industry to be successful and healthy, that we need to see multiple providers and customers for the various goods and services in the industry. One … Continue reading →

Posted in Bigelow Aerospace, Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Space Policy, SpaceX | 17 Comments

CCtCap and Blue Origin/ULA Article on SST

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Jonathan Goff

I just did a guest post on the Sic Semper Tyrannis blog on the CCtCap and Blue Origin/ULA announcements. They’re aimed at people less familiar with space news than most Selenian Boondocks readers, but I figured I’d link to it … Continue reading →

Posted in Administrivia, Commercial Crew, SpaceX | Leave a comment

Certification and Rules-based Technology Regulations: Part of Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Jonathan Goff

Brian Wang over on Next Big Future brought up a point I’ve been thinking about for a while. In an article about why Canada is likely to beat the US to having molten salt nuclear reactors (in spite of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Space Policy, Space Safety | 6 Comments

A Modest Proposal: the COTS Approach to SLS/Orion

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jonathan Goff

I came up with an interesting new idea based on the recent press conferences about the successful completion of NASA’s COTS program, Bigelow’s report on the study they did on commercial lunar development, and the SLS/Orion developers discussion of “Removing … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, COTS, Launch Vehicles, NASA, Politics, Space Exploration, Space Policy, Space Transportation, Technology | 22 Comments