Well, you could've fooled me with a name like that ...
On the other hand, I guess Messerschmitt became part of MBB, which eventually merged (?) into Daimler/DASA, which became (?) part of EADS, or did I miss something somewhere along the way in the merger shell game?
If it's EADS, then it's...
So is the light pressure effect really 1000 times greater than momentum? I assume you meant "photon momentum exchange". It's hard to get a real feel for the physical processes involved. The popular press almost always gets solar sails wrong, saying they work off the solar wind, rather than...
When I wrote, "it's crazy to think we're going to put folks on the first nuclear rocket and send them off to Mars" I meant from Earth orbit. I don't know of anyone who has ever advocated launching men to Mars directly from the Earth's surface.
I've been tracking commercial space since the mid...
Everything is difficult the first time you do it, that's what's prototyping is all about. I don't think it's even occurred to most of the public that the Space Shuttle is actually a prototype vehicle. It should have been called the X-__. At least Dyna-Soar was designated the X-20!
Of course...
Well, you can't use this "make mistakes" approach on a manned program!
On the other hand, I suspect there would be a lot less contention between the manned and unmanned folks if we had an aggressive space technology program. One mission opportunity that particularly stands out was the prospect...
The key is managing (and thereby reducing) risk. People always get hung up on costs, but without effectively managing risks, both technical and program (or market) risks, reducing costs is impossible.
Of course, the key to controlling technical risks is to get control of the learning curve...
aeroeng212, glad you like AeroGo. It's interesting to see the Ares rendering. My wife used to work for John Frassanito, a long time ago.
It's good that Ares 1, to carry the CEV, will use a shuttle-derived SRB. Michael Griffin seemed to like that concept. I think intelligent use of legacy...
That's a good question, and I've written about it several times on my blog AeroGo [http://www.xanga.com/AeroGo].
In principle, by taking a more modular approach that emphasizes heavy lift, NASA has set out in the right direction
http://www.xanga.com/AeroGo/352041143/item.html
Nevertheless...
Maybe we're not the only ones thinking about astronomy from the Moon just now - Lunar Enterprise Daily [http://www.spaceagepub.com/] just reported today that both NASA and the Italians are looking into it
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Griffin_Vows_To_Send_Shuttle_Mission_To_Hubble.html [at...
Perhaps the definitive book on Lunar rocks from the Apollo and Luna data is the Lunar Sourcebook, if you can find it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521334446/qid=1137879432/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6721553-9695309?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
I jumped and bought the first edition back in 1991...
Probably the best way to "accelerate Lunar mining" would be to simply bring back regolith and loose rocks and sell them on eBay.
As far as Lunar astronomy goes, among the main advantages of radio astronomy from the Moon are the low-noise environment found on the far side and the stable surface...
Hi folks, I just joined. It was interesting to read this post that has gone on so long. Back in the 1980s I was a volunteer with the World Space Foundation that was trying to launch a solar sail spacecraft, and helped build one of the sail prototypes.
Neither they nor their neighbor in...
