Category Archives: Commercial Crew

RLV Markets VII: Four Models for Commercializing Reusable Launch

Posted on July 25, 2026 by Jonathan Goff

It’s been almost a decade since the most recent post in this series, but I’ve had a lot of different things pushing me to want to do a writeup on potential business models for RLV developers. I think that fully-reusable … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Launch Vehicles, MSS, RLV Markets, Space Development, Space Transportation, SpaceX, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Starliner Reponendum Est? (Part II): Why Boeing’s Troubled Capsule Still Needs to be Replaced

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Jonathan Goff

[Note: I started writing this almost a year ago, but got stalled out. I wanted to finish writing this while it was still potentially relevant.] I’ll be honest, I was hoping to not have to write the rest of this … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, COTS, Launch Vehicles, NASA, Space Safety, SpaceX, ULA | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Starliner Reponendum Est? Boeing’s Troubled Capsule Needs To Be Replaced

Posted on August 24, 2024 by Jonathan Goff

[Note: I started this blog post in June of 2023, and was hoping I would never have to finish it. But given the recent decision to return the CFT crew members on Dragon Crew-9 due to technical issues with its … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Crew, Commercial Space, NASA, Space Policy, SpaceX | Tagged , , , , , | 7 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: 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