Remembering VentureStar

With the recent developments in new commercial suborbital spaceplanes, (e.g., XCor’s Lynx, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, Sierra Nevada/SpaceDev’s DreamChaser,) my mind is often turned back toward the premier commercial spaceplane of the late-1990s, which inspired many in my generation toward a career in space science in the first place: the venerable VentureStar. With the VentureStar came […]

MPCV: Much ado about (mostly) nothing

So, despite what the “milestone” wording in yesterday’s media alert seemed to suggest, the much-anticipated announcement from NASA did not declare a new exploration goal. Instead, a “new,” “deep space” vehicle was announced: the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, or MPCV. The thing is, it isn’t really a new vehicle. As designer/manufacturer Lockheed Martin’s own press release admits, the vehicle is simply […]

NASA exploration goal to be announced

A NASA media advisory released yesterday alerted the world to what may be a landmark announcement later this afternoon. Specifically, the advisory states that an agency decision has defined the need for a human “deep space” transportation system. What does this tell us? Well, if we visit NASA’s exploration website, the first story would have […]

Following Lockheed Martin’s “Stepping Stones” to Mars

The wake of the cancellation of NASA’s Constellation Program has been devastating to Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft plans. They had been counting on the subsequently-canceled Ares series of rockets to loft Orion to the International Space Station (ISS) as a replacement for the retiring Space Shuttle, with eventual plans as the command module for future […]

Liberating Ares in commercial rocket fray

The NewSpace rocket environment is growing from a band of determined forerunners to a healthy platoon. Salvaging what they could from NASA’s cancelled Ares I rocket, industry giant ATK (responsible for building Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters, a critical component in the Ares rocket design,) has teamed up with Eurpoean company Astrium (of Ariane 5 fame) […]

Virgin Galactic hints at Orbital Domination

At the recent dedication of the main runway at the world’s first devoted commercial spaceport, Sir Richard Branson (of Virgin Galactic fame) slid in an apparently innocuous but Hiroshima-sized comment. While Virgin Galactic has practically cornered the space tourist market with the successful suborbital space flights of SpaceShipOne and upcoming flight tests of SpaceShipTwo (the […]

Lockheed Martin’s asteroid gambit

The Obama Administration’s recent space initiative scraps former President Bush’s Orion moon program and planned moon base in favor of three basic components: Private industry, an asteroid rendezvous by 2025, and a manned Mars orbit by 2035. Not wasting any time on nostalgia, aerospace industry giant Lockheed Martin, who had been helming the all-but-cancelled Orion […]

Military powered exo-skeleton to create future SuperAstronauts?

A quick note today on emergent technology. Right now, aerospace and defense mega-contractor Lockheed Martin is working with the military to develop the HULC exoskeleton. (That’s “Human Universal Load Carrier.”) The exoskeleton, which is moving into human beta-testing now, improves the endurance and load-carrying capacity of a given person nearly an order of magnitude. My […]

New Boeing spacecraft announced!

Boeing has jumped into the lineup of new spacecraft vying to fill the Space Shuttle retirement gap with the recent announcement of the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft. Similar in design to SpaceX‘s Dragon spacecraft, larger than NASA‘s Apollo Command Module spacecraft, but smaller than NASA’s canceled Orion spacecraft, (which may or may not end […]

Space Race Ads, Society, and a Book Alert

This one hits close to home for me. I’ve been collecting space advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s for some time now, and I even have a few gems under glass hanging on my office walls. Why? Because they’re meant to inspire. Truly inspire. And not just through the now-dated imagery of flashy ships and […]