January 2020
Commercialising space exploration and development
... of NASA’s Marshall Space Center, envisaged America’s first space station as the re-purposed upper stage (third stage) of a Saturn V rocket. NASA’s Johnson Space Center ruled that an upper stage could not be re-purposed once in space, so it was...
April 2020
Plasma Clipper - opening the age of sail, in space travel
... to a mass ratio of 41,000. It sounds a lot, but what does that actually mean? In real world examples, the Saturn V – the rocket developed to support the Apollo programme – launched a payload that was 1/2000 of what it weighed sitting...
May 2020
Space astronomy at the limits of technology
... chief engineer. It’s like the three legs of a stool. An intriguing artist’s concept showing a nearly invisible ring around Saturn - the largest of the giant planet’s many rings which was discovered by Spitzer. Which part of the process...
July 2020
Life in the universe – common or not?
...-generation telescopes or satellites capable of detecting the signatures of life, not only on Mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but in exoplanets beyond the solar neighbourhood. However, given that the prospect of finding life anywhere close...
March 2021
Building SLS - a contractual odyssey
... an overly aggressive schedule. The report showed how schedule pressure had influenced a major decision to refurbish a 1960s Saturn V testing facility at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to test the SLS core stage, which NASA describes...
May 2021
In-situ propellant design for Mars ascent vehicles
... conditions for human exploration. Mars is also relatively close to Earth compared to other possible planets such as Saturn and Jupiter and although Venus is close its atmospheric conditions are extremely harsh. High atmospheric temperature ...
