July 2019
Lessons from our first race to the Moon
Two programmes to place humans on the Moon were underway during the 1960s. The US Apollo programme was spectacularly successful, while the Soviet Union’s effort failed, and information about it was suppressed by the Soviet authorities. Looking at ...
February 2020
Climate change and spaceports – a difficult balance
... often due to the burning of solid rocket fuels, as on the US Space Shuttle and upcoming Space Launch System (SLS). The engines of the SpaceX Falcon F9 (pictured) use RP-1 and liquid oxygen, whereas the cleanest are those...
July 2020
Lego’s replica space programme
... Skylab space station (32). The closest example of real space technology to the 10,000-vote target appeared to be the SLS/Artemis set (at 2678), but one should not underestimate the competition from science fiction (Red Dwarf...
October 2020
Connecting the global space community
... of several new launch vehicles are planned for 2021, including Ariane 6 and the Space Launch System (SLS). And many activities in low Earth orbit will make 2021 memorable, including exciting experiments onboard the...
May 2022
Design architecture for 3D printing a lunar habitat
... mid-to-late 1980s, other AM approaches were being developed with Carl Deckard inventing Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology which fuses powders rather than a liquid by laser, and Scott Crump who first developed Fused...
January 2023
Private space stations and NASA’s effort to re-invent itself
... capsule - might have benefited from a better sense of scale and smaller size. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard at Launch Pad 39B in November 2022. Lessons learned The NASA...
