Category Archives: Lunar Commerce

Unorthodox Reusable Lunar Landers Concepts

Posted on June 12, 2021 by Jonathan Goff

[Author’s Note: Back in summer of 2019, shortly after Mike Pence announced the goal of having NASA return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in over half a century, I had the idea of doing a blog … Continue reading →

Posted in ISRU, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Reusable Lunar Landers | 8 Comments

An Updated Propellant Depot Taxonomy Part V: Human Spaceflight Fixed Depots (Low-Orbit)

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Jonathan Goff

For this next depot taxonomy post, we’ll finally be talking about what people usually think about when they hear the term orbital propellant depot — larger, cryogenic refueling facilities, focused on enabling large-scale human spaceflight missions, performed by a diverse … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Origin, Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Mars, NEOs, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, RLV Markets, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Transportation, SpaceX, ULA, Venus | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

An Updated Propellant Depot Taxonomy

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Jonathan Goff

After way too many years in the wilderness, the concept of orbital propellant depots and in-space refueling in general, are finally beginning to be taken seriously again in public circles. A couple of examples include: Elon’s announcement that he is … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, ISRU, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Mars, NASA, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Transportation, Venus | Leave a comment

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

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

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: 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

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

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