If you are old enough, like me, to remember when riding a rocket into space was something no one had ever done, you may be joining me in some mix of amusement, mild disdain, and (let’s face it) jealousy at…
Category: human spaceflight
A New Moon Race?
When the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon between 1969 and 1972, they all landed fairly close to the lunar equator. The largest excursion north or south was that of the Apollo 15 mission. It landed 26 degrees north of…
Space Travel For Real
How difficult is interstellar travel? I’m a huge fan of space travel both real and imagined, and have followed the voyages of the Starship Enterprise since its earliest manifestations. But warp engines aren’t real, and cheating the universe’s speed limit…
Another Black Eye for Boeing
What is the problem with Starliner? Two problems showed up as the spacecraft approached the International Space Station (ISS) back in June. Five of the 28 thrusters used to maneuver in orbit malfunctioned. Four were eventually brought back to…
A Crater, a Rocket Designer, and a Sci-Fi TV Show
nealsumerlin
Posted in human spaceflight, Mars, Rocket Science, Sergei Korolev, Spacecraft
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A MARTIAN CRATER Korolev Crater on Mars is located in the far north of that planet, in the low plains that surround the northern polar regions. Its site is marked by a red star at the upper left of the…
A TALE OF THREE ROCKETS
How many rocket engines does it take to lift off on your way to the moon? Five? Thirty? Thirty-three? This is the tale of three very different booster rockets, all of them designed to send humans to the moon, and…
Mars, Humans, and Nuclear Power
Getting humans to Mars will be hard. Getting them back safely to Earth will be harder. Let’s look at what it will take. We’re going to get successively more technical as we go, so if you want to bail out…
Tagged with: Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
Where Does Space Begin?
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic flew its first commercial passengers to space today (June 29, 2023), joining Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. There are significant differences in the achievements of these three billionaire-funded ventures, however. SpaceX is by…
Tagged with: Space Tourism
A Really Big Rocket
A power lifting record more than fifty years old is soon to be broken. No, I’m not talking about barbells and grunting strong men. The mighty Saturn V is about to be dethroned as the world’s most powerful rocket ever…
China in Space
Were you aware that, in addition to the International Space Station (ISS), there is a Chinese space station orbiting Earth? If not, it’s probably a combination of Chinese opaqueness and the lack of coverage of anything beyond our borders by…
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