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 ‘Lunar’ Category
Xombie NOW
Posted in Homebuilt, Lunar, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, tagged LLC, Masten, RLV, VTVL on Wednesday 2009.10.07 | Leave a Comment »
Live stream just went up at http://qik.com/video/312581
they should be flying at 45 past whatever hour it is now in your time zone. Now on the pad loading propellants and helium.
EDIT:
And they did it! Congratulations! Also great accuracy.
The live cellphone video of the second flight was shot from quite close: http://qik.com/video/3126566
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 [...]
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 [...]
Lunar Bases Must Be Buried
Posted in Architecture, Colonization, ISRU, Lunar, Motivation, Science, Spacecraft, tagged excavation, lunar base, NASA, regolith, whiskers on Wednesday 2009.04.22 | 4 Comments »
Concept art of lunar bases tends to show spherical or cylindrical structures, but they suffer from one problem: radiation. (Both of the gamma / particle and heat kinds). The lunar environment has lots of solar and cosmic radiation. Nights also last for two weeks, during which a badly insulated thing will freeze.
If you bury your [...]
FLEX – Flexible Exploration Architecture
Posted in Architecture, Depot, ISRU, Lunar, Models, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Spacecraft, industry, tagged Architecture, Ares V, ESAS, exploration, FLEX, Griffin, liquid oxygen, NASA, propellant depot, VSE on Friday 2008.11.21 | 17 Comments »
I wrote this architecture proposal, FLEX, a few years ago. It analyzes NASA’s approach that the ESAS study picked and notices how most of the mass in a lunar exploration stack in LEO is actually liquid oxygen. By using a propellant depot, the LOX can be lifted with tankers and any launchers imaginable (I wouldn’t [...]
Chinese Mini Space Station
Posted in Architecture, Depot, Lunar, Spacecraft, tagged china, shenzou, space station on Thursday 2008.09.18 | 8 Comments »
From Slashdot via Hobbyspace.
There’s some confusion regarding Shenzou 7 (the upcoming mission), 8, 9 and 10 forming a space station by snapping together in orbit.
The orbital module of Shenzou can stay behind on orbit just fine, it can function as an independent spacecraft, while the crew returns with the crew module. They have done this [...]
