Rockets Just Keep Exploding During Tests – Deep Space Updates July 17th

A round up of the last couple of weeks of space news, including 3 different test failures – Vega-C, BE-4 and Epsilon-S. Europe’s Ariane 5 makes its last flight leaving Europe with only the Vega rocket ready to go. But of course all that isn’t that bad compared to the budget that NASA is likely […]

Smashing An Asteroid All The Way Through Planet Earth!

Using the power of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics let’s show that it would take an impossible set of circumstances to punch a space rock all the way through the planet Earth. The problem is that simply making an object go faster adds more energy than momentum, instead you need either an impossibly dense object, or, an […]

Europe Retires Ariane 5 Before Ariane 6 Is Ready????

This week saw the final launch of Ariane 5, a launcher with over 100 successful launches since the 1990’s, and while it’s career has been notable, its retirement before Ariane 5 is ready means that Western Europe has lost almost all its launch capability. Vega-C is still grounded and the Soyuz is no longer available. […]

The Only Spacecraft Which Flies Under 100% Human Control

Space Ship Two has taken years to get to the point where paying passengers were allowed, 20 years after its predecessor Space Ship One took flight with its eyes set on the Ansari X-Prize. And while many will dismiss it as a carnival ride which barely makes it to space, it represents something almost unique […]

Virgin Galactic – Drop & Burn

Drop the aircraft. Burn the Motor. 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

How NASA Visualized Voyager, and Helped Revolutionize Cinema

In the late 1970’s NASA & JPL were preparing for the Voyager spacecraft to fly by Jupiter, the first destination on their grand tour of the solar system, a mission which would revolutionize our understanding of the outer planets. And a small group of computer wizards had an innovative idea on how to explain to […]

What Everyone Gets Wrong About The First Nuclear Weapon Used In War

The Little Boy was the first atomic weapon used in war, and as such a lot of articles have been written about it in the last 80 years, however the vast majority of them get this fundamental feature of it’s operation wrong. Most of the diagrams have been modified from Wikipedia sources, credit goes to […]

Things Flight Instructors Taught Me Which Were Wrong!

Myths about flying which I found on the internet, explained by pilots vastly more experienced than myself. * Mixing Jet Fuel With AvGas witll make it go Clear. * Why does warm air hold more moisture than cold air? * Equal Transit Theory Just won’t Die! * Stall speeds and critical angles of attack. * […]

Why Japan’s Moon Lander Crashed Due to An Unbelievable Computer Bug

The investigation into why the Hakuto-R lander crashed into the moon last month after an otherwise perfect mission has revealed the answer: The software encountered unexpected terrain and didn’t believe what the sensors were showing, so it started ignoring them. iSpace Report ispace Announces Results of the “HAKUTO-R” Mission 1 Lunar Landing LROC images of […]