Category Archives: Lunar Exploration and Development

Lunar Space Elevator Design

Posted on April 23, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen

The previous posts in this series described what the lunar space elevator can do. This one works through the structural mechanics that determine how much ribbon material you actually need to build it. The central engineering question for any space … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Space Development, Space Tethers, Space Transportation | 3 Comments

Revisiting LUNOX and an ISRU critique

Posted on April 21, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen

There’s a particular NASA mission concept from 1993 that deserves more attention than it gets, and a 2007 critique of lunar in-situ resource utilization that deserves to be read alongside it. Taken together, they map out why lunar ISRU has … Continue reading →

Posted in ESAS, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Space Transportation | 5 Comments

Queqiao, first use of the powered lunar swingby

Posted on April 19, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen

In 2006, no one had flown the powered lunar swingby to EML2. In 2018, the Chinese did it, and they cited Farquhar while they were doing it. For 20 years I’ve been entranced by the astrodynamic advantages of the Earth-Moon … Continue reading →

Posted in ESAS, Lunar Exploration and Development, Orbital Dynamics | Leave a comment

Gateway is gone, do we need a lunar station?

Posted on April 15, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen

NASA just canceled the Lunar Gateway — the first space station ever planned for EML2. That’s worth reflecting on, because the case for a station at that location has never been stronger. In my previous post I laid out the … Continue reading →

Posted in ESAS, Lunar Commerce, Lunar Exploration and Development, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Reusable Lunar Landers, Space Development | Leave a comment

2006, a lunar architecture

Posted on April 13, 2026 by Kirk Sorensen

The astrodynamic case for Earth-Moon L2 rendezvous was made in 1972 and again in 2006. The math hasn’t changed. Neither has the conclusion. Back in January 2006, I opened a thread on the NASASpaceFlight forum with a bit of a … Continue reading →

Posted in ESAS, Lunar Exploration and Development, Space Development, Space Exploration | 3 Comments

A City on Mars: A Quick Review

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Jonathan Goff

After sitting on my shelf for over a year, I finally had a chance to read through Zack and Kelly Weinersmith’s book on space settlement, A City on Mars, and I wanted to share a few of my thoughts. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Exploration and Development, Space Development, Space Law, Space Policy, Space Settlement | 11 Comments

NASA’s Selection of the Blue Moon Lander for Artemis V

Posted on May 25, 2023 by Jonathan Goff

Last week, when NASA announced that they were picking Blue Origin’s National Team to develop a sustainable human lander for the Artemis V mission, what surprised me wasn’t the selection, but the fact that I’ve come around to really liking the decision. Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Origin, Commercial Space, Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Reusable Lunar Landers, Space Transportation, SpaceX | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

Independent Perspectives on Cislunar Depotization

Posted on August 26, 2022 by Jonathan Goff

I was invited to participate in a workshop this week in Chantilly, VA focused on cislunar propellant depots. As part of the preparation for the workshop, they asked for stakeholder to provide their perspectives on depot architectures, the benefits of … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Exploration and Development, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Transportation | Leave a comment

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 VI: Roving Depots

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Jonathan Goff

In the last post in this series, I discussed the idea of large-scale depots for human spaceflight applications, which operate in fixed, low-orbits. While the final post in this series will investigate human spaceflight depots that operate in fixed higher … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, ISRU, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, Mars, NASA, NEOs, Orbital Dynamics, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Exploration, Space Transportation, ULA, Venus | 10 Comments