Recent content by Wood

An interview with Alan Bond:

A heatshield you say? Will this do?

The next step? Oh my...

NASA Details Commercial Crew Strategy (Parabolic Arc)

NASA released the CCiCap solicitation today, so I suppose this deserves its own thread. Proposals are due by the 23rd of March with the winners to be announced in August. The goal is for orbital crewed demonstration flights from multiple providers by the middle of the decade. Links to synopsis...

This should be starting in about 25 minutes. Links to the webcast and the presentation.

On the topic of Launch Abort Systems for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, Launch Aborts Challenge Rocket Engineers.

A whole bunch of photos of the MMSEV analogue testing. Might be helpful.

This thread here.

A very nice presentation on Reaction Engines' progress (pdf): Progress on the SKYLON Reusable Spaceplane 7th Appleton Space Conference, 8 December 2011 Alan Bond, Managing Director

Completely unexpected, my Aunt gave me this: I haven't had chance to read it yet, but it's filled with absolutely beautiful photographs!

A couple of things: I don't think that's going to work, the James Cook doesn't have a heat shield. I'm not sure what the Mars robotic landers are, but aerocapture makes sense for them. I don't think that's a good idea at all. The payload penalty would more than cancel out any possible benefit...

Um, let me see if I can explain in a way that makes sense. You need to launch when the target's orbital plane crosses your launch site. But for a quick rendezvous you also need to launch when the target is about to pass overhead, so that after you reach orbit the target is very near. For...

Yes, if you can vary your launch location you can minimise that time to within one or two orbits.