Video: moon landers advance at Masten Space
Draper labs has released this video of a test flight by Masten Space Systems earlier this month in Mojave. A Draper guidance, navigation and control package on top of Masten’s XOMBIE vehicle guides it through launch, rocket-powered hover, downrange flight, and touchdown 150 feet from the launch pad. Imagine you’re standing on the moon, watching the daily cargo rocket arrive. It might...
Read MoreXCOR plans Lynx first flight in 2012
On a recent visit to Mojave Air & Spaceport, I stopped in on XCOR Aerospace for an update on the development of their new suborbital spaceship, called the Lynx. The Lynx builds on XCOR’s successful experience with reusable, restartable rocket engines and rocket propelled airplanes. The plan calls for the two-seat Lynx, powered by a quartet of XCOR-developed 2850-pound-thrust liquid...
Read MoreStratolaunch: world’s biggest airplane to launch spaceships
Last month Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Paul Allen announced that he’s started a new space project called Stratolaunch. It’s a follow-on to his SpaceShipOne project that became the first privately built craft to send people out of the atmosphere in 2004. With him at the press conference was SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan, fueling press coverage that the dream team of...
Read MoreVideo: Rebecca Geier talks marketing for engineers
In this video interview with me (9 minutes and 30 seconds), Rebecca Geier, a principal and co-founder of TREW Marketing explains the basics of marketing for the scientific and engineering fields. As I mentioned in my last post, Geier is firm believer in having a plan before starting to market your products or services. “Having that plan and having it very current to the needs of your...
Read MoreRebecca Geier: Marketing 101 for Engineers
It’s a major challenge for any technologist: attracting capital and customers. It all boils down to marketing. The best ideas and the best products just won’t move unless investors and customers know about them. Marketing presents special challenges to technical offerings; not only do you have to get the word out, but you also have to explain complex ideas to folks who may not have...
Read MoreOur Space Future at the American Museum of Natural History
Suborbital flight, moon bases, inflatable space stations, a lunar elevator, liquid telescopes, planet-shaping engineering, and ocean-going space probes: they’re all part of the newest exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I tagged along on a press preview of Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration this week, and liked what I saw, a lot. It’s...
Read More100YSS: extremely long-range R&D
One of the things government can do more effectively than private enterprise is foster development of technologies that may not be profitable in the short term, if at all. Projects like the Internet and the Moon landing couldn’t have gotten off the ground with private investment alone. But what’s the best way to fund really long-range technology development, say, something that will...
Read More100 Year Starship project lifting off
It’s perhaps DARPA’s most out-there project ever: spend the next century figuring out how to build a starship. Science fiction makes it seem easy: just engage the warp drive, do a little hand waving about Johnson rods or somesuch, and make a hyperspace jump. The reality will be vastly more difficult. Later this month, DARPA will convene scientists, engineers, big thinkers, and even...
Read MoreWhittinghill Aerospace’s family rocket business
George Whittinghill’s wife likes to joke that he and their son Ian share a defective gene, one that makes them both crazy for rockets. Together they comprise a good percentage of the 7-member Whittinghill Aerospace team. Their ambitious goal: send small payloads into orbit. Their plan calls for ganging together seven 32-foot-long, 2-foot-diameter rockets, each fueled by a hybrid nitrous...
Read MoreVideo: Michael Belfiore talks DARPA on Bloomberg TV
Yesterday I Skyped in to Bloomberg West, Bloomberg TV’s show on innovation. The show originates from San Francisco, but I didn’t have to go any farther than my office. Anchor Emily Chang asked me about Thursday’s failure of the DARPA Hypersonic Test Vehicle, how DARPA ideas take root in the mainstream, and what recent DARPA innovations I’m most excited...
Read MoreGet the Newsletter
Subscribe to the Blog
...or