Recent content by sideband

Quote from article "The reaction between propellants in a rocket engine creates heat and exhaust gases that are accelerated through a nozzle, creating thrust that pushes against Earth and propels the rocket up to space." Err, nope, the thrust doesn't "push against Earth" :rolleyes: The thrust...

Yet more embarrassment for Boeing. I would imagine NASA are less than impressed with Boeing's performance....

A microwave powered drone is totally different to a microwave powered rocket. The experiment with the drone uses power from the microwave beam to generate electricity to turn propellers. So in theory a microwave powered mother aircraft could lift a rocket to some altitude but with propellers...

The delay caused by Blue Origin's lawsuit must be the final nail in the coffin of NASA's hopes to land astronauts back on the Moon by the end of 2024.

Hardly surprising that the company has picked Space X to launch its lander to the Moon; with their reusable rocket technology Space X must be providing highly competitive launch prices, the other traditional launch providers with their more costly non-reusable launchers must be getting very...

Boeing's development of their Starliner has certainly been beset with problems, this stuck valves problem is just the latest in a long list. :(

Boeing should be sending a thank you note to the Russians for delaying the planned original launch date due to the problems with the incoming Nauka module! If Starliner had launched as intended on July 30th the sticking valves may not have been detected resulting in (another) mission failure...

I hope NASA can fix the sample collection problem on Perseverance. I expect they soon will, but if they can't then they can scrub existing Mars sample return mission plans as they rely on retrieving samples taken by Perseverance!

I wonder if the delay to the planned launch of Boeing's Starliner last Friday (July 30th) due to the mishap with the unplanned thruster firings of Russia's recently arrived Nauka module on the ISS could turn out to be a blessing in disguise? If the launch had taken place as planned could the...

Yes, you beat me to it. The previous www.space.com story you refer to gave a very plausible explanation of why Curiosity detected methane but the orbiting ExoMars TGO didn't. :) So I'm surprised that this later space.com report of ExoMars finding no methane didn't refer back to the previous...

Great news! Good methodical fault finding work by the NASA engineers looks to have fixed the problem. :)

That's good news that NASA engineers have identified the probable cause of the problem. :) Fingers crossed that the fix works!

At long last it looks like NASA is finally getting serious about preparing to develop and use nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) with its obvious advantages for manned missions beyond the range of the Moon. NTP technology was successfully demonstrated back in the 1960s, but with NASA's manned...