Mack Crawford

A twi'lek baddie could've fixed him

For an RLV, propellant *should* be >50% of the operating cost of the vehicle (and F9 stage 1 has demonstrated this to be achievable), so this is a problem

I kinda doubt there will ever be an SSTO. The only justification they ever had was the hope that it'd be easier to develop one spacecraft than two, and be easier to refurbish one than two. Both assumptions now look wrong, and physics dictates that an SSTO will need more propellant per payload

The X-20 Dyna-Soar reentering Earth's atmosphere

Not that I've seen, but the math seems to work out for it to be possible

Crew Dragon transfers passengers to a Cygnus-derived transit habitat on Cislunar Transporter, to be delivered to a waiting lander in lunar orbit

Reminder that Northrop proposed a 7.5 segment PCM for their CLD station. To be followed by a widebody Cygnus for the second module.

The "Mission-B" Cygnus, for use on the remaining CRS2 Cygnus flights. Mostly differentiated visually by a 4th PCM segment, but there are lots of subsystem changes as well to support longer-duration flights, reduce cost, and support more complex applications beyond simple cargo

Are those landers NIMFs? Looks like it anyway

Blue Moon Mk2 being maneuvered and refueled by the Cislunar Transporter

Sadly, Dyna-Soar and MOL could have never met in orbit: X-20 was canceled the same day the MOL program began. I still think of them as siblings though

If she's a hyena, does she have... you know?

For an early crewed lunar flyby, a follow-on to Gemini-Agena was proposed where a modified Gemini would dock to a pair of Transtages, which would boost it to TLI

triangle

An operational derivative of the X-20 docked to a wet workshop built around an S-IV stage

Not much published on the station, but likely served a similar role to MOL

That second one is so handsome

By request, Orion docked directly to Blue Moon. This would be a possible scenario either if Gateway is canceled, or in event of a failure on the lander requiring Orion to retrieve the crew

Any other missions/vehicles people want to see?

Size comparison of the FLO piloted lander vs Altair, Blue Moon, and (outdated model) Starship HLS. Its not outrageously huge overall, but it is a much taller ladder than I'd want to climb down

There's a joke? I thought this was just Bobby trying something new

Dukat would do something like this, and then get angry when the Bajorans don't fall to their knees and welcome him as a benevolent oppressor because he said hi to them once. And then he'd kill like 20 of them

Once I finish my series on FLO I want to do this one, but had trouble finding reference material and I think much of the official art for it doesn't match the actual plan

Earth gets hit by about 100 tons of dust every day anyway, one Starship failing every couple months (and maybe losing 1% of its mass to vaporization) isn't impacting much

Was gonna include the bit about the name, but forgot. Comet sounds cool though

Chemical was the baseline for FLO, but there were proposals to bring nuclear forward sooner, partially for performance and partially to demonstrate it before Mars

Following separation from the J-2S-powered second stage, Comet's nuclear-thermal third stage jettisons its aerodynamic insulation panels (similar to early Centaurs prior to Atlas II) and begins a coast phase prior to translunar injection

www.spacedaily.com/news/industr...

"The sale also reinforces our strategic business aim to be horizontally - not vertically - integrated."

--Boeing, moments before obliterating their EELV's commercial viability

Uhhhh

Yeah, true

"The former USSR has a cheap booster for heavy-lift rockets"
"We'll take your whole stock"

One of the launch vehicle options for First Lunar Outpost was the Saturn V-derived base option but with up to 8 Energia strapon boosters

The First Lunar Outpost HLLV second stage compared to SLS's core stage. 2/3 as much propellant mass (its shorter, but wider and has a common bulkhead)

This guy is the one I'm doing. Scaled up Saturn V with boosters

I hadn't seen RL10-Jarvis before, just the F-1 and RS-25 versions. Neat

Beginning on the launch vehicle for First Lunar Outpost, starting with the NTR version of the Earth departure stage

There's a *lot* of variants of the FLO HLV, with NLS/ALS/Shuttle/Saturn/Energia-derived options. Any in particular you want to see?