Clouds Of Copper, The Moon & Balloons: The Pre-History Of Communications Satellites

The first part in a series on communications satellites, starting with the early history, from early science fiction through Moon Bounce, SCORE, Project Echo and West Ford. Follow me on Twitter for more updates: Tweets by DJSnM I have a discord server where I regularly turn up: https://discord.gg/zStmKbM If you really like what I do […]

The Smallest Nuclear Explosions in History

While everyone talks about big nuclear explosions, it turns out that there are plenty of small ones, either from small weapons, failed tests that fizzled, or ‘safety tests’ that went critical. And yes, it caught my attention that the record for biggest explosion in a movie had an energy content equivalent to about 60 tons […]

How GPS Works, And How It Got Better Than The Designers Ever Imagined

Civilian GPS was originally supposed to have a precision of 100meters, nowadays it’s good within 1 meter, and some small aircraft can use this precision to land entirely on autopilot. There’s a lot of things that made this possible, on one part new technology, and on the other simply removing road blocks. Follow me on […]

Defying Atmosphere – How Rocket Engines Get Tested In A Vacuum Before Going To Space

Rocket engines make spaceflight possible, but, testing a rocket engine for spaceflight appears to represent an engineering challenge. Engines designed to operate in a vacuum may behave differently from those operating inside an atmosphere, and you might think that no vacuum pump could extract the exhaust gasses fast enough to stop the pressure building up […]

Booster Engines Vs Booster Bidet & Shouting At Voyager – Deep Space Updates August 7th

I’ve been really busy with ‘real life’ but, the rocket world hasn’t slowed down! LEGO Perseverance Rover: https://amzn.to/3qkTslI Follow me on Twitter for more updates: Tweets by DJSnM I have a discord server where I regularly turn up: https://discord.gg/zStmKbM If you really like what I do you can support me directly through Patreon https://www.patreon.com/scottmanley source

Why A 1950’s Rocket Engine Design Flies On NASA’s 21st Century Moon Rocket.

The AJ-10 Series of Engines dates to the 1950’s and an example flew last year on Artemis 1, propelling Orion into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon. It’s not a single engine design, but the common factor is pressure fed, hypergolic bipropellent engines designed and built by Aerojet. The earliest examples I can find […]

Before The First Nuke Exploded… It Imploded.

The Trinity test was something of a moment of truth for the scientists and engineers behind the Manhattan project, and while Oppenheimer is getting the movie, the person that’s most directly responsible for making the gadget work was the explosives experts who developed the implosion system. Making an implosion successfully compress the pit required an […]