SpaceX Merlin Rocket Engine LiveScribe Love

I decided give you all a little hint about the next post I’m working on. This old LiveScribe, um, video(??) is narrated by Tom Mueller, SpaceX’s Vice President of Propulsion Development. What that position typically means is he’s in charge of a lot people who know how to build rocket engines and motors, how to […]

SpaceX’s Grasshopper “leaps” higher

Yesterday, The Verge posted a neat video of SpaceX’s Grasshopper flying higher than ever. According to the article, Grasshopper flew 744 meters high, hovered, then returned safely to the launch pad. If you look closely at the video, it looks like SpaceX is using a quadcopter UAV or some such thing to film the rocket […]

Pictures of the Dragon

Sorry about that last quick post. I normally don’t monitor launches. But here’s some more information about SpaceX’s Dragon from Yahoo! News. Remember, this one has the newer engines which a lot of established players (Air Force, Lockheed, etc.) were worried about. Of course SpaceX did test these as best they could, but the real […]

Everyone’s worried but SpaceX

This particular article highlights some interesting differences in philosophy about success and risk (and there is a link) between established players and SpaceX. For opinion, sadly not about space operations, but rather the future of them, read further. The scenario: SpaceX has decided to upgrade their rocket engines to more powerful ones, and update the […]

The Grasshopper keeps learning more from it’s master…

What SpaceX is doing with rockets is just too cool! And they make it look easy. Some might remember the trick of balancing a broomstick vertically from the palm of the hand. Now substitute flame and thrust for the hand, and a 100 foot or so tall metal tube for the broomstick. Then control the […]