Here is another item you won’t find anywhere online, on the belief that just as we never know where we may end up, it’s best to upload to the cloud while we can. [Click picture to Zoom] Front cover of the quad-fold NASA/Grumman pamphlet "Apollo 10 The Lunar Module in Lunar Orbit," from 1969. It’s … Continue reading Flashback Friday – “Apollo 10 The Lunar Module in Lunar Orbit,” 1969 Grumman pamphlet

Here is another item you won't find anywhere online, on the belief that just as we never know where we may end up, it's best to upload to the cloud while we can. This quad-fold pamphlet “Space Benefits – today and tomorrow” is from 1971. I am not sure who gave me this one, but … Continue reading Flashback Friday – “Space Benefits – today and tomorrow,” 1971 NASA pamphlet

“The General doesn’t like it,” he said, because “he doesn’t want to own the big, easy target that’s the first thing destroyed in the next war.” So much for what we might do together on Space Based Solar Power. This would be a short call. The idea of a massive power station floating in space … Continue reading Space based solar power and not losing sight of the plot

Saying the universe is vast is an understatement, though it sounds better than saying we have no idea about the nature or extent of everything we have no idea about. These are not your project’s unknown unknowns. This is where words fail. Recently, NASA revealed the first images from its James Webb Space Telescope. If … Continue reading Is this now?

The first Martian to visit Earth is a young boy, a twist on visiting the old country of your parents. To him, Earth is a distant place, with an odd blue sky, and sparking some anxiety. This was the premise of a short film at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex in the early 1990s, … Continue reading Of Starships and spaceplanes, and roads less traveled

Some graphs, like pictures, are also worth a thousand words. They do what a beautiful painting does while wandering in a museum, holding your stare like reading from a wall. For rockets and space travel, there is no shortage of figures and numbers and graphs, oh my. One especially telling figure came around in 2010 … Continue reading One word: Propellant

Analogies. Everyone loves a good analogy, all the better when they cut right into the heart of a matter. Our space biz is not immune to the allure of analogies, chock full of complex backstories, technology, and eccentricities just begging to be simplified. Though when it's oh so clear, it's probably oversimplified. Elsewhere, the analogies … Continue reading Breaking the speed of analogies

Once again, it was that meeting, the one with the drone of presenter, questions, or occasional speech posing as a question, set to repeat mode. On cue, add the light-hearted tangent every forty-two minutes. We would cover issues and risks and endless lists, the former already happening, the later possible. Also, as expected, the wrap … Continue reading “In the end…”

We knew the valley of death was up ahead, as we had been there many times before. Most wouldn’t make it. Well, to be truthful, we knew nearly none would make it. Wild ideas, new technology, and all those exciting, innovative projects that got anywhere from a bit of seed funding to serious dollars would … Continue reading The valley of death

Rocket launches, a possible boil water notice here in Orlando, and hospitals caring for patients with COVID are all connected. Now, it's about liquid oxygen, but finding more connections would not be surprising, like in any system. Oddly and often in projects, "it's a system" was an observation that arrived at the party early only … Continue reading It’s a system