Recent content by HobartStinsonian

When has anyone explained who studied the potentially hundreds, no thousands, of possible causes for Earth’s climate to change? Who has ever explained how their scientific evaluation had concluded that of those, human activity is the only culprit. NOAA once stated on their website (decades ago)...

Mega kudos to SpaceX for now and the future. But … Starship has no chance of surviving Earth reentry from lunar orbit. (More so for Mars return to Earth - no chance). Not even after they have success with the LEO entry. Lunar return reentry produces 3 to 5 times greater heat flux to the heat...

A million kudos to SpaceX and Elon. They are blazing new trails to space travel. Congratulations on flight 5. One correction to their tweet. The flap(s) obviously burned through again during the reentry. Rapid reusability will take more technology development of the heat shield where the seals...

Another big unknown is the lunar soil strength. Seismic design is founded on this. And does the soil strength change when soil is exposed to leaked fluids like hydraulic, coolant, or water. The habitats will leak.

More to the point there are no landing pads on moon or Mars. Set a large rocket on an unprepared surface and it may not stay vertical. Parking on sand is not advised. Liftoff from sand could be a disaster. They ought to build landing pads with robots first. But the accuracy of landing will not...

Quick correction about room temperature air. It is strictly a function of the average speed of the air particles, or their kinetic energy. Temperature is not an aggregate summation of energy on a volume basis. Only on the basis of the speed of particles, on the average. At constant temperature...

Methane is detected in Titan and its origin is not biological. Methane is detected in interstellar gas clouds, not biological. It was likely in the cloud of gas and dust when the solar system formed. Same with all elements inside all the planets. Interesting that helium sources are almost always...

I’ll take exception to this sentence, “On Earth, methane is primarily produced by living organisms”. On Earth a huge majority of methane comes naturally from inside Earth’s crust. Natural gas. There is every reason to believe that the crust of Mars may also contain natural gas. When methane...

There are huge problems to overcome before landing any long-term presence on Mars, or on the moon. Basic engineering: how much weight can the soil support? No idea? You can’t rely on any ship remaining level, not sinking down, until you get this figured out to high reliability. Second issue...

The plan for living on the moon is to what? Mine lunar regolith for the trace amount of water? Then discard the dry waste dirt. Strip mine the moon? When they’ve completely used up all the wet regolith, then move away and strip mine other land on the moon? How long will that last? Is that...

Or it’s the old saying, “Go west, young aliens”.

ALL rocket engines and many gas turbine engines form shock diamonds in the exhaust. It’s a normal part of underexpanded supersonic free jet flows. Nothing against the immense power of Starship booster. It’s awe inspiring.

Utopian goals are very nice. They are important to the uplifting of humankind. But let's get some engineering practicality into the discussion. First, any existence on Mars will depend on high technology to maintain life. Sustaining air, water, food, and mobility about the planet Mars can't...

Think about the engineering challenges of building on Mars. The first consideration for any structure is what? Making a foundation that can support the weight of the structure. Even in Mars’ low gravity this will be paramount. Bad foundation? Your structure sinks into the soil. Think: parking a...

Do you expect to land humans on Mars in a whisker less than 2½ years? I am a huge supporter of SpaceX, but let's consider the challenges. Navigation from Earth to Mars, life support for what, 2 years, landing site on Mars, crew exposure to sudden g-loads after long duration zero-g travel to...