Collaborate Disseminate
There is a reason building a rocket engine is harder than most things you want to build. If you are building, say, a car, your goal is to not have …read more Continue reading Building a Rocket Engine from Scratch
If we asked you to design a circuit to blink a flashing turn signal, you would probably reach for a cheap micro or a 555. But old cars used bimetallic …read more Continue reading The Shuttle Engine Needed 3D Printing, But…
Rockets are conceptually rather simple: you put the pointy bit upwards and make sure that the bit that will go flamey points downwards before starting the engine(s). Yet how to …read more Continue reading The Intricacies of Starting a Rocket Engine
For decades, mankind was content to launch payloads into orbit and then watch hundreds of thousands of hours of blood sweat and tears just crash into the ocean. Then, partially …read more Continue reading Throttle Your Solid Rocket Motors With This One Simple Trick!
Let’s launch into a round-up of stories that are out of this world, as we take a look at what’s happening in the realm of space exploration. Ten Billion Dollars …read more Continue reading Spacing Out: Telescopes, Politics, and Spacecraft Design
Liquid-fuelled rocket engine design has largely followed a simple template since the development of the German V-2 rocket in the middle of World War 2. Propellant and oxidizer are mixed …read more Continue reading Japanese Rocket Engine Explodes: Continuously and On Purpose
It’s often said that getting into orbit is less about going up, and more about going sideways very fast. So in that sense, the recent launch conducted by aerospace startup …read more Continue reading So How Does a Rocket Fly Sideways, Anyway?
To hear founder Richard Branson tell it, the first operational flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has been 18 months out since at least 2008. But a series of delays, technical …read more Continue reading Virgin Galactic’s Long Road to Commercial Spaceflight
An unfortunate property of science-fiction is that it is, tragically, fiction. Instead of soaring between the stars and countless galaxies out there, we find ourselves hitherto confined to this planet …read more Continue reading Space Propulsion: Separating Fact From Science Fiction
Rocket engines are known for one thing above all else, and that’s getting hot. It’s this very property that makes them such a challenge to build and run from a …read more Continue reading 3D Printed Vortex Cooled Rocket Needs To Stop Leaking