Category Archives: Technology

XCOR/ULA Aluminum Rocket Nozzle Announcement

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Jonathan Goff

I’ve been too busy to do much blogging lately, but I just saw this on twitter a bit over an hour ago: XCOR and ULA Demonstrate Revolutionary Rocket Engine Nozzle Technology, and wanted to make some comments. First off, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Commercial Space, Launch Vehicles, Technology | 37 Comments

Variable Gravity Research Facility (xGRF)

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

For those of you who aren’t reading our ASM Blog, I participated in a panel at the SSI Conference last week in San Jose. Dallas Bienhoff presented the paper we are working on coauthoring, Gary Hudson talked about earth-to-orbit transportation, … Continue reading →

Posted in Bigelow Aerospace, Lunar Exploration and Development, NASA, Space Development, Technology, Variable Gravity | 51 Comments

Hydrogen Based Polymers for Densified Propellant Storage?

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

I read an interesting article yesterday on Valterri Maja’s blog (Gravity Loss) about a new class of hydrogen-based materials being researched out at the University of Es sen and a few other locations. Apparently they found a method for lining … Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | 9 Comments

MHD Aerobraking and Thermal Protection Part III: Aerobraking and Aerocapture

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

While using electromagnetic effects for atmospheric reentry and thermal protection is interesting, it’s only one of several promising options that have been proposed over the years.  There is another application though, where exploiting magnet-hydrodynamic effects could be a much bigger … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunar Commerce, MHD Aerobraking and TPS, Space Transportation, Technology | 17 Comments

Recursive Algorithm for Moravec’s Mass Ratio

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Kirk Sorensen

Computing the mass ratio for a tapered tether (tether mass/tip mass) was first done (to the best of my knowledge) by Hans Moravec in an appendix to his unpublished 1978 paper, “Non-Synchronous Orbital Skyhooks for the Moon and Mars with … Continue reading →

Posted in Space Tethers, Space Transportation, Technology | 9 Comments

Momentum Exchange Tethers — Early History

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Kirk Sorensen

The history of momentum-exchange tethers goes back many, many years but is bound by a common thread that, until recently, limited the realization of this technology. That common thread is the need for high specific tensile strength. The first idea … Continue reading →

Posted in Space Tethers, Space Transportation, Technology | 5 Comments

A Tether Technology Anniversary

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Kirk Sorensen

Rotating momentum-exchange tethers are a very exciting technology, but one of my first thoughts after being exposed to the technology was the tricky rendezvous. The space industry has spent all kinds of money and time on satellite rendezvous, and these … Continue reading →

Posted in Space Tethers, Space Transportation, Technology | 8 Comments

MHD Aerobraking and Thermal Protection Part II: Atmospheric Reentry for RLVs

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

In this installment, I want to dig a lot deeper into the mechanics of how one might maximize the utility of MHD effects for orbital reentry. But first, I wanted to spend a few seconds discussing what is important for … Continue reading →

Posted in Launch Vehicles, MHD Aerobraking and TPS, Technology | 19 Comments

MHD Aerobraking and Thermal Protection Part I: Introduction

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Jonathan Goff

I’ve been meaning to write for a while about a rather fascinating, but not very well known, area of research that I think might have significant implications for several areas of space transportation. The research I am referring to is … Continue reading →

Posted in Launch Vehicles, Lunar Exploration and Development, MHD Aerobraking and TPS, Space Transportation, Technology | 31 Comments

MXER Tether Intro #1: Simple Untapered Tethers

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Kirk Sorensen

So I’ve started out telling you that momentum-exchange tethers are great. Why? you might ask. Well, because a spinning momentum-exchange tether is capable of transferring a fair fraction of the orbital energy and angular momentum in its orbit to a … Continue reading →

Posted in Space Tethers, Space Transportation, Technology | Leave a comment