Category Archives: engines

SpaceX Did It – What It Should Do Next

Posted on Wed, 2015-12-23 by gravityloss

Congratulations to SpaceX who landed the first stage intact. Assuming cost is roughly related to stage mass and engine count, reusing the first stage saves 9/10 of the whole rocket cost. If they can run the stage ten times, that … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Depot, Design, engines, industry, Launchers, Lunar, RLV:s, Spacecraft, SpaceX, Transportation | Leave a comment

“Space Is Hard” Is The Wrong Answer

Posted on Mon, 2014-11-03 by gravityloss

They say “Space is hard” Orbital Sciences crashed a rocket equipped with two 40 year old engines. Physically that old. They were an interim solution and they were working towards new engines. We don’t know at this point if the … Continue reading →

Posted in Design, engines, Homebuilt, industry, Journalism, RLV:s, Suborbital | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Three kinds of hybrids

Posted on Tue, 2011-05-24 by gravityloss

The next fifteen years. Pure Electric – will be marginal Battery energy density will probably be lousy and they will be expensive so that pure electric cars can’t fill that many needs in the next fifteen years. What kind of … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Design, Energy, engines, industry, Motivation, Thorium, Transportation, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

21st Century Jet – Making The Boeing 777

Posted on Wed, 2011-03-09 by gravityloss

The movie’s available on Google Video, embedded above. Enjoy!

Posted in airplane, Architecture, Art, Design, engines, industry, RLV:s, Transportation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Why precool but not liquify – Skylon and SABRE

Posted on Fri, 2010-10-29 by gravityloss

Well, I thought maybe I could add some content. Everybody’s heard about the British Hotol follower Skylon and its airbreathing SABRE engines. What’s special about them? My understandin’s based on this excellent document from Reaction Engines explaining why the system … Continue reading →

Posted in airplane, Architecture, Design, Energy, engines, ESA, industry, Launchers, RLV:s, Suborbital, Transportation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Random video blogging

Posted on Sat, 2010-10-16 by gravityloss

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA0Vwausybg] Modern manufacturing technologies enable strange shapes and could produce unconventional pumps. What is good for small scale rockets if turbines and centrifugal pumps have too much tip losses? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdBr-dkLf4s] Rotary engines have vastly better power to weight ratios and … Continue reading →

Posted in airplane, engines, Motivation, RLV:s, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Turn-Boost-Glide-Back approach for first stages

Posted on Sun, 2010-09-26 by gravityloss

In a patent by the famous Barnaby Wainfan. EDIT: corrected the link. This patent was filed in 2006 and granted in 2008.

Posted in airplane, Architecture, Art, Design, engines, industry, Launchers, RLV:s, Suborbital | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Automotive X-Prize Winners

Posted on Sat, 2010-09-18 by gravityloss

Huh, it always takes a long time to find anything on web pages that are so cluttered up. Here. No idea what the MPGe or miles per gallon equivalent is. EDIT: Here’s ERA’s video (they didn’t win, although they were … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art, Climate, Design, Energy, engines, Homebuilt, industry, RLV:s | Leave a comment

On Pressure Fed Rockets and Scaling

Posted on Sat, 2010-09-18 by gravityloss

Well, scaling seems to be my pet issue. I recently wrote something not entirely well reasoned in a comment at Paul Breed’s. (For some reason Chrome complains about blogrolling.com malware there so continue if you’re sure you’re safe.) So let’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Design, engines, Launchers, RLV:s, Spacecraft, Suborbital, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Humans Fast, Machines Slow

Posted on Thu, 2010-09-09 by gravityloss

Detach a small capsule with the humans that goes directly to the surface (with only days of life support) and leave the untended craft to do multi-pass aerobraking Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Colonization, Depot, engines, ESA, Global, industry, ISRU, JAXA, Lunar, Models, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Science Links, Spacecraft, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment