Rockzip’s Inflated Dreams

Rockzip Highballoon’s mission “is to improve life on Earth by giving people a new angle from which to solve difficult problems.” How are they proposing to do give people that new angle? By simply launching a “highballoon” about 75,000 ft or a little over 14 miles high. That’s right, this isn’t about satellites, but about balloons that might do […]

McMoons: Controlling Satellites from the Drive-thru

Clearancejobs.com was kind enough to post one of my newer submissions. Proof that an operations control center can be set up pretty much anywhere, with this one controlling ISEE-3. Just click on the following link to read about it: McMoons: Controlling Satellites from the Drive-thru.

Spacecraft for the Dead

It’s quite expensive get a person up into the Earth’s orbit. For the National Aeronautics and Space administration (NASA), it’s VERY expensive. They pay the Russian space agency about $70.6 million per astronaut to ferry them to the International Space Station (ISS). That’s more than World-Hopper passes for a family of four to the Disney World […]

The Landings of Philae and Falcon

This post is about two kinds of spectacular landings: the planned landing of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Rosetta Lander, Philae, on a comet millions of miles from Earth; and the “landing” of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first stage as one of many small steps towards the goal of reusability. Planning Philae’s Landing The Rosetta satellite and mission […]

DIY Space: Copenhagen Suborbitals

For at least $20 per year, you can support a space group that’s very active. This is not a Kickstarter project, but an active group that was founded in 2008. That group is Copenhagen Suborbitals. The Danish group’s mission is the modest goal of launching a human into space and then making sure that same […]