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Filet mignon, please. In a squeeze tube. On the way to Mars. :thumbup:

Certainly you're entitled to whatever fantasies you like. Equally, once you share them anyone else is free to offer criticism. I apologize if it seems I have a personal beef. I don't. The proposal stuck in my craw because of my personal interest in Europa, and personal loathing of SLS. On the...

Fun? What is this fun? There's no budget for fun in space, unless it's silly media stunts. I'm not surprised someone has proposed such a launch. There's probably even a pretty .ppt for the "mission." But all you can explore with Powerpoint is the depths of human madness. I didn't take issue with...

So, in seven years, not only will SLS be flight-ready, but someone will pony up the billions of dollars necessary to launch one. In the meantime, billions more will be found someplace to fund development and construction of a largely-autonomous submarine for Europa exploration. Presumably along...

Just wait until you read his Titan. :thumbup: Can a novel be depressingly beautiful?

I love how even the CGI carrier aircraft and rocket have "A Paul G. Allen Project" emblazoned on them. If you could fuel a rocket on vanity and ego, this guy could get us to Mars next year.

If anyone is interested in a current take on how a reusable launch vehicle / orbiter could have been done with '60s tech, the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society has a recent paper on the subject. The paper includes concept illustrations of the orbiter, two-stage reusable launcher...

Currently reading Titan by Stephen Baxter. I've just made it to launch day, and it's pretty good so far. Definitely moves along more snappily than Voyage. Creepy how the novel has Columbia lost on re-entry in about the same year as the real disaster. Not the same as what actually happened, of...

Yes, indeed. ITER is to be a deuterium-tritium design. The wiki has some information comparing the processes. Given the timeline for ITER doesn't see D-T operation beginning until 2027, it seems unlikely we'll be needing industrial quantities of He-3 for decades, if ever. Any plan for an ILB is...

According to Wikipedia, the goal is for first plasma at ITER in 2019. So we're a long way away from a market for He-3. That's if, as you say, we can make the thing work at all. Regarding visibility of the ISS, I've seen it a number of times myself. It's a cool experience, watching it zoom past...

You must have been busy. In a rare show of bipartisanship, US legislators suspended selected laws of physics so a monster truck rally could be held on Mare Imbrium. Alas, there was a 14-day sunset clause... ;) Seriously, though, I would love to see an actual lunar base in operation. To look up...

I'm not much of one for calling people heroes, but it's a title Neil Armstrong earned. We are all uplifted to have shared a world with a man of such courage, accomplishment, and humility.

The LM used Aerozine 50 as fuel and N2O4 as the oxidizer. Aerozine 50 is a mix of hydrazine and UDMH. As T.Neo noted, this is toxic stuff, but storable for long periods without the worry of boiloff. Also hypergolic with N2O4.

Just make sure you don't dump the fuel if you're using one of these. Any way you exhaust that other than rocketing it into deep space at greater than solar escape velocity is sure to annoy someone. If you drain it, be very careful what you drain it into. For nuclear thermal rockets, remember...

The original thread question brings up a variety of other questions for me. If crewed missions to Mars or Venus had been attempted early on, such as the 1960s or 1970s, what would have been the impact on the crews? How would they have handled exposure to the interplanetary radiation environment...

This describes a workshop about moving asteroids. Not for planetary defense purposes, but if you can learn to move asteroids for one reason, you can do it for any other. Some pdf and video files which may be of interest are available from the linked pages.

It might also be reasonable to make their next few missions less ambitious and expensive. Simpler and cheaper missions can get into space sooner, allowing Roscosmos to rebuild their experience base on planetary missions. Not to mention improving morale, which can't be the greatest right now. If...

One possibility is the Aeroneutronic lander from sputnik's Orion 1.22. Was the Ares you tried this one or this one? In a way, the shortage of Mars landers with ascent capability is realistic. Most current Mars reference missions seem to assume a pre-deployed ascent vehicle and a separate...

Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster by Allan J. McDonald with James R. Hansen. McDonald was a Thiokol engineer and manager who opposed the Challenger launch and was a key player in exposing what went wrong in both the SRB engineering and launch decision...

Here's the standard picture of an Orion pulse unit. "Shaped charge" might be a bit of a misnomer. As I understand it (and of course I Am Not A Bomb Designer), the propellant is intended to become an expanding disc of plasma that distributes thrust somewhat evenly across the pusher plate...