Or what you are going to call it, an unrealized proposal from Aerojet around 1984. PDF Found on NTRS.
The idea was to have two turbopumps (like on SSME), but instead operate on the expander cycle. Two heat exchangers, two turbines, two pumps. One for each propellant.
This is a LOX-hydrogen engine. Also this means that since [...]
Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category
Jeff Greason
Posted in Architecture, Colonization, Depot, ESA, JAXA, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Spacecraft, industry, tagged Augustine, Depot, Greason, NASA on Thursday 2009.11.05 | Leave a Comment »
The Man. On Space Review. [EDIT: About a month ago, but I only just read it.] This is just excellent. So many things I agree with, that go against the stupid myths of spaceflight and space policy. If you read one space policy interview this year, this should be it!
“NASA is an organization that is [...]
NASA’s Mess
Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, industry, tagged ares i, Augustine, contractor, Danny Deger, ESAS, Federal Acquisition Regulations, ITAR, Rationality, SBU on Friday 2009.10.09 | Leave a Comment »
Danny Deger @ Nasaspaceflight.com forum on Ares I selection in ESAS (I don’t know if this is true, I have little knowledge about the matter):
The Ares data isn’t just ITAR, it is Sensitive But Unclassified as it should be to not expose criminal conduct. Yes that is right, all data that exposes any criminal [...]
Lunar Lander Challenge 2009
Posted in Architecture, Homebuilt, Lunar, Motivation, RLV:s, Suborbital, industry, tagged Armadillo, lunar lander challenge, Masten, rocket, Unreasonable on Wednesday 2009.09.16 | Leave a Comment »
Armadillo finally won L2 already.
Masten and Unreasonable are still flying for second place I think (I’m not 100% clear on the rules) today!
Spacetransportnews is the place to watch all this. (Or it has the links collected.)
It’s historical in a sense. These rockets will serve as the basis for reusable sounding rockets, possibly high altitude tourist [...]
JAXA’s HTV
Posted in Architecture, JAXA, Motivation, Spacecraft, tagged HTV, ISS, JAXA on Friday 2009.09.11 | Leave a Comment »
It’s in orbit currently. Status updates on spaceflight now and an NSF forum thread. There’s some technical material on NSF L2 about the HTV, for anyone there.
Hope all goes well. This is also exciting, if everything works, there are soon four space agencies that have docked to a space station – a few years ago [...]
Airline vs Spaceline Safety
Posted in Architecture, Homebuilt, RLV:s, Suborbital, Transportation, engines, industry, tagged Suborbital, XCOR, Lynx, Ethanol, Methane, Safety, Airline on Wednesday 2009.08.19 | 1 Comment »
62 mile club has a writeup of a beta “customer qualification program” for XCOR’s Lynx suborbital craft. This highlights the differences and current state of play. Rocketships will not be as safe as airliners in the near future, and they don’t need to be. There are millions of things that are less safe than airliners [...]
Good News Everyone
Posted in Architecture, Lunar, Motivation, NASA, tagged ares, Augustine, Death of Ares, NASA on Wednesday 2009.08.12 | Leave a Comment »
From Hobbyspace, highlighted by Transterrestrial Musings:
The program of record (i.e. Ares I/V/Orion/Altair), which exceeds the expected budget substantially, will no longer be in the options table but kept separately just as a reference.
Yes!
The historic words have been spoken. Now for a better future for NASA, for spacefaring and for humanity.
The Augustine panel has been good [...]
Reality and Future
Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, Depot, ESA, Global, ISRU, Lunar, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Spacecraft, industry, tagged NASA, Augustine, Depot, Jeff Greason, HSF on Tuesday 2009.08.11 | 4 Comments »
Jeff Greason is a rational person who simply gets it. It is mind boggling how completely opposite from someone like Mike Griffin he is.
See Jeff’s presentation with the Augustine Panel.
Paraphrasing, “we could go to Mars with Ares V but we shouldn’t – cause we couldn’t stay anyway”. Exactly. That’s the problem with NASA. (or the [...]
Heavy Lift Unnecessary
Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, Depot, ISRU, NASA, RLV:s, industry, tagged NASA, Augustine, Depot on Tuesday 2009.08.11 | 5 Comments »
There are a lot of implicit assumptions that heavy lifters of this or that throw weight must be used for future exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
These “needs” have never been logically derived from anything.
Yet space policy and exploration architectures must be based on rationality above all. There is no excuse whatsoever to do things on [...]
