A nice profile, over at Popular Mechanics.
Category Archives: Space
Is There A Structural Analyst In The House?
I thought there were some existing parametrics for the savings in mass fraction for a stage or a lander launched dry (versus wet), but apparently not. Is there anyone out there who whomp up a simple system in AutoCAD or Solidworks? Say 50,000 lbs of LOX/Hydrogen, launch acceleration 6 gees?
Lyndon Johnson’s Daily Brief
I’ve been looking forward to this. Some formerly classified documents from the Apollo era have emerged.
Gary Gygax
Thoughts on his suggested reading list:
Ideological diversity in science fiction and fantasy was a given in the seventies. We are hopelessly homogenistic in comparison to them.
The program of political correctness of the past several decades has made even writers like Ray Bradbury and C. L. Moore all but unreadable to an entire generation. The conditioning is so strong, some people have almost physical reactions to the older stories now.
All part of the reason that I don’t read anywhere near as much SF as I did as a kid.
Molly McCormick And Mark Street
Best wishes to her and congratulations to him. Ragged Point is a beautiful place to get married.
Wonder how they’ll work out the geography, though, with her in Hawthorne and him in Midland, unless he’s staying in Mojave.
More Thoughts On Mars
…from George RR Martin:
Mariner’s findings thrilled scientists around the world and gave us a detailed and accurate picture of the nature of the inner planets, but for the readers and writers of science fiction, the excitement was mingled with disillusionment and dismay. This was not the Mars we wanted. This was not the Venus of our dreams.
I never wrote that Mars story. Nor any stories on Venus, or Mercury, or any of the worlds of the “lost” solar system of my youth, the worlds that had provided the setting for so many wonderful tales during the 30s, 40s and 50s. In that I was not alone. After Mariner, our genre moved to the stars in a big way, searching for the colourful exotic settings and alien races that could no longer be found here “at home”.
I think that there’s still too much romanticism about the planet.
Shuttle/Centaur
A history, over at Ars Technica. In addition to the balloon tanks, there were concerns with the common bulkhead between the LOX and LH2 tanks (though AFAIK this has never caused a Centaur failure).
As I’ve written before, there was an alternative approach, that NASA never considered.
Jay Gibson’s Talk On XCOR
I didn’t live tweet it, but here are some tweets from Jeff Foust on Gibson’s #ISPCS comments yesterday:
Jay Gibson, XCOR: we don’t have the benefit of a wealthy backer; that makes us very feisty and innovative. #ispcs
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) October 7, 2015
Gibson: we’re building a platform that is frequent, affordable and capable; we’ll let the free market determine how to use it. #ispcs
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) October 7, 2015
Gibson: our focus right now is getting ready to fly, “and we will soon.” #ispcs
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) October 7, 2015
Commercializing The Cosmos
This looks like an interesting event tomorrow.
Increase NASA’s Budget
aA