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Murphy's Mangled Math
In his blog Stranded Resources Tom Murphy argues that space resources will likely remain beyond our reach. He concludes humanity should learn to live within its means and conserve our resources. This...
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Puppets, Telerobots and James Cameron
Cameron’s movie Avatar looks at telepresence and remote interaction. The biological telerobots portrayed are well beyond our present state of the art. However telepresence and telerobots made of metal,...
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The Next Continent
Hard science fiction set in our solar system nearly died in the 1960s.The Tigers of Barsoom were slain by Mariner Probes to Mars. The Jungles of Venus were defoliated by probes to Venus. H. G. Wells’...
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Inflated Delta Vs
Parking Orbit delta VsInflated Delta Vs"What's delta V from Earth orbit to Mars orbit?" -- a common question in science fiction or space exploration forums. The usual answer given is around 6 km/s, the...
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Article 1
Mf is a MofoThe Tyranny of the Rocket Equation is an excellent article by astronaut Don Pettit written while he was aboard the I.S.S..The foundation of the article is this version of Tsiolkovsky’s...
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Beanstalks, Elevators, Clarke Towers
Planetary BeanstalksArthur C. Clarke well described a space elevator in his novel The Fountains of Paradise:In the very decade that the first satellite was launched ... one daring Russian engineer...
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Deboning the Porkchop Plot
Deboning the Porkchop PlotChanging direction causes ΔV (change in velocity), often more than a change in speed. Compare the velocity vectors below. When going the same direction, the difference is 1...
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Mini Solar Systems
Mini Solar SystemsMost pulp science fiction of yesteryear relies on fast paced story lines that take place over a short time. Not plausible in our solar system where Hohmann launch windows are years...
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The Dark Side of the Moon
The Dark Side of the Moon“I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.” Folks with a little astronomy knowledge cringe when they hear these lyrics. They will patiently explain there is no dark side of...
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Golden Tethers
Golden TethersΦ, also known as the golden ratio, is one of my favorite numbers. It is (sqrt(5) + 1) / 2, approximately 1.618. I've done many paintings and drawings using this number. Here are a...
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What the heck is Vinf?
What the heck is Vinf?The internet is a great resource for isolated students like me without access to university libraries or college classrooms. But often Google will land me on a page over my head....
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Catching an Asteroid
In Capturing Near-Earth Asteroids around Earth, Hasnain, Lamb and Ross look at two delta Vs:1) Delta V to nudge an asteroid's heliocentric orbit so the rock passes through the earth's sphere of...
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Cartoon Delta V Map
This is the second cartoon delta-v map I've drawn. Clicking on the above can give a larger version.My first cartoon map gave a lot more space to EML5 and little to L1 or L2. I knew of L4 and L5 through...
View ArticleSurgical Robots
At the Leprecon 39 science fiction I attended a talk by Dr. Bruce Davis, a general/trauma surgeon in the Phoenix area.Dr. Davis has done many laparoscopic surgeries using the da Vinci robot. Instead...
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Even MIT students can make misteaks.
Finding Delta V between various places in the solar system has been one of my hobbies. I like to learn as well as share what I know about this topic. So I occasionally Google search strings that...
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Study of Escher's Print "Gravity"
In his print Gravity, Escher placed 12 monsters on the star faces of the small stellated dodecahedron. He had thought of using turtles. I wish he had. With all their polygons, turtles are walking...
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Lunar Ice Vs NEO ice
Lunar Poles Aren't So Hard to Reach"There might be ice in the lunar cold traps," moon haters like to say, "... but if there is, it's hard to reach. It takes way, WAY more delta V to reach the poles...
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One Legged Stools
"It is NOT an issue of either or, Mars, Moon, Asteroids, each is as important to the other as the legs of a three legged stool…"— Dennis Wingo, author of Moonrush.I like Wingo's 3-legged stool...
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Give NASA's SLS money to DARPA
SLS is a dead endThe Space Launch System (SLS) is much like Apollo. Large, disposable rockets that will cost around $10 billion or more a launch. Like Apollo, it might be good for brief stays on...
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What about Mr. Oberth?
On a space forum I was singing the virtues of EML1 and 2, the earth-moon Lagrange regions closest to the moon. "What about Mr. Oberth?" asked a fellow who calls himself Rune.This is a common complaint...
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