Category Archives: Space Development

Marburger’s Speech

Posted on March 8, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

There’s been a lot of discussion over the past few days about OSTP Director John Marburger’s speech at the recent Goddard Memorial Symposium, but there were a couple of good points that I felt deserved repetition, and I also had … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, ESAS, NASA, Space Development, Space Policy | 17 Comments

Commercial Space Netscape Moment?

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

I know that I’ve mentioned on several occasions the hope that at sometime in the next few years, we might see some commercial space company have a “Netscape Moment”. The idea being that having a major alt.space company succeed in … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Space Development | 2 Comments

Space Tugs vs. Space Ferries: A Useful Distinction?

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Something that’s been bugging me for some time is the confusion surrounding the term “space tug”. The term’s been used to describe at least two very different ideas for many years now. At NGEC-2, I tried to inject a little … Continue reading →

Posted in Launch Vehicles, Space Development, Space Transportation, Technology | 25 Comments

NGEC-2 Summary Part II: Speakers, Ideas, and Memes

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

In addition to the working groups, there were several speakers throughout the conference. While there most ideas presented at space conferences aren’t particularly new, there were a few ideas from the various speakers (and from conversations I had at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, NASA, Space Development | 4 Comments

Next Generation Exploration Conference 2 (Part I)

Posted on February 16, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

Apparently unbeknownst to most people in the space blogosphere, there was a second space related conference going on in Silicon Valley this past week (at about the same time). This conference, the second “Next Generation Exploration Conference” was an invitation-only … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, NASA, Space Development, Space Policy | 1 Comment

LM/Bigelow Atlas V Deal

Posted on February 7, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

For those who didn’t see it on Hobbyspace, I got interviewed yesterday by New Scientist about the recent LM/Bigelow announcement. All in all it was a pretty good article (though apparently we might need to update our website to reflect … Continue reading →

Posted in Bigelow Aerospace, Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Space Development, Space Policy | 7 Comments

Discussion of Dr. Griffin’s STA Comments on ESAS

Posted on January 25, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

I’ve had several people in several places ask me if I was going to do a point-by-point rebuttal of Mike Griffin’s comments to the STA this week (for reference the text of his comments is available here). While I don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in ESAS, Launch Vehicles, Lunar Commerce, NASA, Politics, Space Development, Space Law, Space Policy | 4 Comments

It’s The Journey That Matters, Not The Destination

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Jonathan Goff

The story broke yesterday that a group of scientists, astronauts, and other space enthusiasts is going to be meeting at Stanford next month to discuss an alternative to the Vision for Space Exploration. Clark and several others have already commented, … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Commerce, NASA, Space Development, Space Policy | 8 Comments

Orbital Access Cat Skinning Methodologies

Posted on November 13, 2007 by Jonathan Goff

In order to discuss the business, finance, and policy approaches for creating low cost and reliable space transportation, it helps to have an understanding of the underlying technology, in order to provide context for those discussions. It also happens to … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Economics, Launch Vehicles, Orbital Access Methodologies, Space Development, Space Policy, Space Transportation, Technology | 4 Comments

Brief Thought: Space Solar Power

Posted on November 6, 2007 by Jonathan Goff

In the spirit of trying to blog a little more, I just wanted to throw out one that I didn’t have a chance to post as a comment to a recent Transterrestrial post by Sam Dinkin. In his post Zero … Continue reading →

Posted in Space Development | 12 Comments