Sagitta Cantina

Thanks for the vote of confidence... On my way to Indiana so I might not be able to check in for a day or two. Yeah, solar electric is of limited use for deep space, particularly for propulsion of manned missions. It has its place, but manned operations probably aren't it, at least not in the "...

Yeah, GH is something else. Stuck at that "14 year old" level of humor, but he DOES know his stuff pretty well. Don't always agree with him by a longshot, but his comments DO make me think. I like someone who isn't afraid to call it like he sees it, and let the chips fall where they may. I...

In fairness it's been fairly common knowledge that the black powder Estes "E" motors have had their troubles. Remember that Estes' first foray into the "larger than D" motor territory (for black powder motors in 'recent' times anyway) was the E15, which had so many problems they ...

That's true, but won't do much good if this one sinks out from under them before it gets here.

Later! OL J R

"Passengers" might be mildly interesting. Depends on how similar it is to how "The Martian" was done. Keira and I both loved "The Martian", although we both discussed a few technical inaccuracies we noticed-- I made her calculate WHY you couldn't use a drop cloth and du...

Ask Eric Snowden... Gee, Mistuh Prez... "there's *classified* and then there's "classified". Hmmm... like our nuclear launch codes are "classified". Obviously we don't want some raghead launching our missiles... Then there's "classified" like who knows what that wa...

Oh, I forgot "fourth" above, and since I don't see an 'edit' button... Fourth, methane is fairly easily attainable for in-situ resource utilization for deep space missions. (ISRU). Robert Zubrin built a "pilot plant" for turning the commonly available CO2 of the Martian atmospher...

Personally, I'm much more interested in their work on the methane engine for the Air Force to replace the Russian-built RD-180 on the Atlas V... I can see a LOT of uses for a big methane burning engine (and getting the experience will put them in the catbird seat to develop smaller, say ORION-SM siz...

Sounds like a typical gubmint operation. I want my tax dollars back. Course it was probably some Congresscritter's BIL that did the programming and got the contract. Methinks this is probably the modern day equivalent of "$500 toilet seats". IOW, money to pay for the alien spaceport at Are...

Good luck with getting them to work with a newer computer. IIRC they used specific software that hasn't been updated or supported for a decade, which is about like a century when it comes to computers...

Later! OL J R