On a Roll: One Small Step for Reusable Rockets

Updated information at the bottom regarding thrusters and fuel!! SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is on a roll. Not literally of course, that would be bad. More importantly, SpaceX noted on their Twitter feed that roll rate of the Falcon 9 first stage booster was close to zero. Why is that so important that SpaceX […]

NASA’s Hovering Mighty Eagle

I’ve been interested in SpaceX’s Grasshopper and the ability to launch, hover, and land it on the same launch pad. You can go to one of my posts, here, to see that feat. But I feel I should give NASA its due. NASA is developing a robotic lander that for now they’ve named the “Mighty Eagle.” The Mighty […]

The Slowness of Being Government and Its Space Technology

From a Softpedia news post, a writer conjectures mainly about the United States Air Force’s (USAF) X-37B space drone and what it might mean to space warfare. It’s a decent, thought-provoking article, so you may wish to read it. But there’s an assumption made within the article: the government has the best, most sophisticated space toys. […]

Why Do DoD National Security Space Launch Programs Costs Keep Rising?

On March 5, 2014, the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee held a hearing about National Security Space Launch Programs. The hearing was a session with SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Michael Gass concerning the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program and contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) and the program’s rising […]

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Gets Its Legs

“All four landing legs now mounted on Falcon 9…” Wait! What??! That was SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s tweet on 25 February, 2013. And there was a linked picture of it all, too. SpaceX is doing something NASA and the United States Air Force can’t do: adding legs to its Falcon 9 rocket. That’s right, the […]