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Unorthodox Reusable Lunar Landers Concepts
[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...
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An Updated Propellant Depot Taxonomy Part VI: Roving Depots
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...
View ArticleAn Updated Propellant Depot Taxonomy
After way too many years in the wilderness, the concept of orbital propellant depots and in-space refueling in general, are finally beginning to be taken seriously again in public circles. A couple of...
View ArticleResearch Papers I Wish I Could Con Someone Into Writing Part I: Lunar ISRU in...
One of the things I’d love to do if I were successful enough at Altius to afford it would be to sponsor graduate-level research into space technology, business, economics, and policy topics that I’m...
View ArticleComment Bumping: Venus Electrolysis and Space Settlement Norwegian Perspective
Life has been busy enough lately that I haven’t been able to do many of my own blog posts, but I wanted to bring two recent comments from old Venus threads to the top to get them a little more...
View ArticleSpaceX Mars Plans: Jon’s First Take
I’ve had a lot of friends ping me today about my thoughts on Elon’s Mars talk today. I was in a meeting when it happened, and literally was pinged by half a dozen people during the meeting… Now that...
View ArticleRandom Thoughts: Which is a Better ISRU Propellant on Venus/Mars–LOX/LH2 or...
I’m not sure if someone has already run the analysis, but I’m kind of curious about which ISRU-derivable propellant combination is better for locations like Venus or Mars where there is plenty of CO2...
View ArticleThe Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 0–An...
[Note: After getting a few posts into this series on the “how” of alternative lunar transportation concepts, I realized that some commenters were asking about why we should even be going to the Moon,...
View ArticleThe Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part...
The first advanced lunar transportation concept is the idea of intentional hard lithobraking landings of bulk raw materials. The idea was recently suggested by frequent Selenian Boondocks commenter...
View ArticleThe Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 2–The...
This observation may already be bleedingly obvious to everyone else, but I feel it is worth explicitly stating: One of the top priorities of early missions to any destination in the solar system should...
View ArticleESIL-8 Elements of Lunar Commerce Presentation
I was invited to give a talk on lunar commerce at a Emerging Space Industry Leaders workshop last week hosted by ULA at their Centennial, Colorado campus, and put on by my friends at Advanced Space LLC...
View ArticleVenus ISRU Latest Thoughts
A friend sent me this YouTube video earlier this morning: While this video really covers a lot of the same ground as previous posts in my Venus ISRU series, it still got me thinking about where we...
View ArticleWhy the Moon?
In spite of my interest in the Asteroid Redirect Mission, I’m still a firm believer that the Moon has a major role to play in space settlement. While Mars and Venus (at the cloud level) may have...
View ArticleResearch Papers I Wish I Could Con Someone Into Writing Part I: Lunar ISRU in...
One of the things I’d love to do if I were successful enough at Altius to afford it would be to sponsor graduate-level research into space technology, business, economics, and policy topics that I’m...
View ArticleComment Bumping: Venus Electrolysis and Space Settlement Norwegian Perspective
Life has been busy enough lately that I haven’t been able to do many of my own blog posts, but I wanted to bring two recent comments from old Venus threads to the top to get them a little more...
View ArticleSpaceX Mars Plans: Jon’s First Take
I’ve had a lot of friends ping me today about my thoughts on Elon’s Mars talk today. I was in a meeting when it happened, and literally was pinged by half a dozen people during the meeting… Now that...
View ArticleRandom Thoughts: Which is a Better ISRU Propellant on Venus/Mars–LOX/LH2 or...
I’m not sure if someone has already run the analysis, but I’m kind of curious about which ISRU-derivable propellant combination is better for locations like Venus or Mars where there is plenty of CO2...
View ArticleThe Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 0–An...
[Note: After getting a few posts into this series on the “how” of alternative lunar transportation concepts, I realized that some commenters were asking about why we should even be going to the Moon,...
View ArticleThe Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part...
The first advanced lunar transportation concept is the idea of intentional hard lithobraking landings of bulk raw materials. The idea was recently suggested by frequent Selenian Boondocks commenter...
View ArticleThe Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Lunar Transportation Schemes: Part 2–The...
This observation may already be bleedingly obvious to everyone else, but I feel it is worth explicitly stating: One of the top priorities of early missions to any destination in the solar system should...
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