Category Archives: Space Development

RLV Markets Part I: The Importance of High Flight Rates

Posted on October 9, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Now that I’ve wrapped up my Orbital Access Methodologies series, I wanted to share some thoughts about the business and market development side of reusable space transportation.  Some of this may be old-hat for many of you, but I figured … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, RLV Markets, Space Development, Space Transportation | 14 Comments

Congratulations to SpaceX

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

I try not to read news or surf the net on Sundays (that whole keeping the Sabbath Day holy thing, you know), so I missed being able to watch SpaceX’s fourth launch live.  But, as everyone reading this already knows, … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Space Development | 5 Comments

Partial Rocket Reuse Using Mid-Air Recovery: A Review

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

A few days ago, I mentioned that some of my friends at ULA had passed me copies of some papers they were going to present at the Space 2008 conference a few weeks ago.  The paper I want to discuss … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Space Development, Space Policy | 35 Comments

Some Interesting Ideas From the Other Side of the Pond

Posted on July 16, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

I don’t have time to go into detail at the moment, but I wanted to relay an interesting paper that Keith Cowing reported on NASAWatch today. Now, if I were someone at the ESA, I’d probably be taking NASA’s grand … Continue reading →

Posted in ESAS, International Space Collaboration, Lunar Commerce, NASA, Space Development, Space Transportation | 5 Comments

Westward Ho?

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Other than a busy schedule at work over the past several weeks, and ongoing blogger’s cramp, one of the other big reasons why I haven’t been blogging very much lately is that Tiff and I started reading together again. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Lunar Commerce, Space Development, Space Transportation | 19 Comments

Monte Davis on ISS and Microgravity Science

Posted on May 3, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

[Note: As a bit of a preface to this repost from a usenet group, I wanted to give a bit of background. I first got interested in the whole commercial space thing when I was 16, mostly through a usenet … Continue reading →

Posted in Bigelow Aerospace, Commercial Space, Space Development | 21 Comments

A Point Worth Repeating

Posted on April 19, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Over on Jeff’s SpacePolitics site, there is a discussion going on right now about a recent poll on the relevance of space. While much of the discussion was interesting as usual, I particularly liked the point made by a fellow … Continue reading →

Posted in NASA, Space Development, Space Policy | 29 Comments

Additional Thoughts on the SA’08 Propellant Depot Panel

Posted on April 4, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

It’s been long enough since I put up the presentations from the panel, that I figured it would be worth starting a new post to mention some of my thoughts on what we discussed on the panel. Some of these … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Development, Space Policy | 20 Comments

Propellant Depot Panel Questions

Posted on March 22, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

I’d like to solicit questions regarding the technical or business aspects of orbital propellant depots for the panel I’ll be chairing this coming Friday. I’ve got a great lineup of panelists (Rand Simberg of TransTerrestrial Musings, Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing, … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Propellant Depots, Space Development | 8 Comments

Sustainability

Posted on March 10, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

A statement in this post by Clark Lindsey (and a further comment by Gary Hudson) on Hobbyspace reminded me why I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the term “sustainability” as it regards space exploration. I think the danger stems from how ambiguous … Continue reading →

Posted in NASA, Space Development, Space Policy | 5 Comments