Category Archives: industry

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

Building rockets like disposable gloves

Posted on Wed, 2014-07-09 by gravityloss

There’s two fundamental approaches to lower space launch cost: K-strategy: Building sophisticated reusable rockets that can fly quickly again after landing. r-strategy: Instead building simple expendable rockets by the mass as cheaply as possible. Firefly, looks to do just the … Continue reading →

Posted in industry, Launchers, RLV:s, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Bright Affordable Lens Survey for System Cameras

Posted on Tue, 2011-08-16 by gravityloss

A very incomplete relatively bright sub 1000 euro SLR and Mirrorless lens survey. I didn’t include Sony Alpha or NEX or Samsung NX or Pentax or Four Thirds since I’m tired. Took the prices from topshot.fi. Summary: I was assuming … Continue reading →

Posted in industry, Photography | 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

Tomorrow is theirs

Posted on Mon, 2011-05-09 by gravityloss

A fascinating BOAC (British government airline) advertisement film from the fifties. Tomorrow was not theirs, but that of plastics, the jet engine and the transistor, which made almost all of these jobs obsolete. The British mindset of bringing luxurious services … Continue reading →

Posted in airplane, Architecture, industry, Launchers, Motivation, Transportation | Leave a comment

A big manufacturer is bringing out a 192 megapixel 35 mm full frame DSLR camera

Posted on Thu, 2011-03-31 by gravityloss

Can’t disclose my source right now, but a big Japanese camera maker has been secretly working on this ever since the first small sensor interchangeable lens systems by its competitors Olympus, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony started getting some market share. … Continue reading →

Posted in Design, industry, Photography, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Fukushima status on Wednesday March 16 and what it means

Posted on Wed, 2011-03-16 by gravityloss

Here’s my estimate of the situation. I’m no nuclear engineer but I know something… We use data from JAIF: And an annotated picture of a GE boiling water reactor from UCS: Now, using the above: At least half of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Design, industry, Science Links, Thorium, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fukushima, Japan, Information

Posted on Mon, 2011-03-14 by gravityloss

Status of the reactors: JAIF, Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum: http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/ Radiation status in Japan: http://www.bousai.ne.jp/eng/speedi/pref.php?id=08 Radiation status in Finland: http://www.yle.fi/tekstitv/images/P867_02.gif Radiation units: Becquerel is counts per second (particles/photons) A 1 GW coal plant releases radioactive stuff in a year that produce … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, industry, Thorium, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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