Recent Posts

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June 6, 2018
SpaceX Starlink Update

The future fleet of over a thousand satellites seems to be on track.  The two prototype satellites in orbit are functioning very well. The satellites, named TinTin A and B, are able to communicate at high bandwidth with a latency of 25 ms.  That's fast enough for online video games. The satellite division has 4500 […]

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April 16, 2018
Slight Update on BFR

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell recently did a TED talk that included a slide showing three designs for the BFR.  The original from 2016 is on the far right of this image, and is the largest and oldest concept.  In 2017, the design was revised to be smaller and far easier to build.  This version can […]

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April 6, 2018
Dropping Google

A brief note.  I'm dropping Google Ads from my web site for the foreseeable future. 

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April 1, 2018
Low-Thrust Breakthrough Propulsion Round-Up

Next Big Future has produced a number of articles recently on breakthrough propulsion.  Here is a summary of the current state of the art on these speculative systems.Low-Thrust Propulsion systems are too weak to be used to launch from the surface of a planet, but have extreme efficiency and high exhaust velocities.  Basically, a space […]

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January 30, 2018
Old Space Station, NewSpace Station

There has been much said of the recent budget proposal, that zeros out funding for the International Space Station in the year 2025.  What never seems to be mentioned is that the ISS was due to be retired in 2024.  This is already a four year extension over the original retirement date of 2020.  The […]

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November 11, 2017
Site Updates - Patreon, Spacesuits, and Plans

Lots of small updates. I've added a Patreon account so that people interested in this site can help sponsor it directly.  By showing support for this work, you help offset the costs of site improvements and make it easier to focus on new content. You also get a vote in what new content will be […]

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October 17, 2017
Videos and slides added from my Mars Society talks at Irvine, CA

Video of my talks at UC Irvine for the Mars Society are now available on YouTube.  The slides are in the description and in the comments thread on those YouTube links. For a list of all videos available, see the Videos and Other Content page. Risk Reduction Missions for Space SettlementWhile the early stages of the NewSpace […]

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October 15, 2017
Elon Musk on Reddit AMA

Elon Musk recently did a Reddit Q&A with members (Ask Me Anything).   This mostly focuses on details of the Mars vehicle update.  Here are some highlights. Mars Settlement The Mars city design from the video was mostly artistic ("I wouldn't read too much into that illustration".  There are no specific plans beyond propellant production, power, […]

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October 1, 2017
Creating eBooks in Scrivener

Why an eBook?Under the category of Entrepreneurship, writing books on whatever topics you can allow a small to medium stream of secondary income.  It can also help establish your reputation in a particular field, and give you a way to communicate your ideas to a larger audience.  With the recent advent of eBooks such as […]

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September 17, 2017
Update - New Presentation PDFs Available.

I've uploaded the slides from my most recent Mars Society presentations on the Videos page of this site.  We are still waiting for the upload of the videos from the convention track talks, but the PDFs of the slides are here. Videos and Other Content  

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