Concept Spacecraft
“We should become a multi-planetary civilisation” – Elon Musk
An update from Elon Musk on SpaceX’s vision for the future.
Concept Spacecraft
The Future of Private Sector Space Travel
President John F Kennedy’s speech to the United States’ Congress on the 25th of May 1961 encapsulates the romanticism that has adorned the endeavour of space exploration to this day. A President asking the representatives of his people to fund a daring, groundbreaking mission to, “before this decade [was] out, [land] Read more…
Other Galaxies
Star Wars: A look at the Science
Star Wars, the very name brings up images of childhoods spent in front of a TV or cinema screen, absorbing up stories of a galaxy far, far away. For many, it was the thing to ignite their passion for storytelling, and for others it was the thing that ignited their Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
NASA’s Space Drive Experiments: The Plot Thickens
A research group called the Eagleworks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas is tasked with investigating novel space propulsion techniques. These include both warp drive concepts to enable faster than light travel and reactionless drive schemes where electric power is converted directly into thrust. If proven, these concepts would Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
XS-1: Spaceplane of the Future?
The good news first: a major aerospace contractor is researching how to build a reusable spaceplane that could dramatically cut the cost of accessing low Earth orbit. Now the bad news: it is purely for military users and cannot carry people. Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman has won a Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
No, NASA has not verified an impossible space drive!
June 2014 saw excited reports that NASA was working on a faster than light warp drive starship. Astonishingly, weeks later we are being told that NASA has also successfully tested a device which could push along a space vehicle without consuming any propellant. If true, this would be an astonishing Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
No, NASA is not building a warp drive starship!
There has been a lot of excitement over reports that NASA is developing a faster than light starship propelled by a warp drive capable of making journeys to nearby stars in mere weeks. There are even very pretty artist’s impressions of the hypothetical craft. Is a wonderful space operatic future Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Whatever Happened to Photon Rockets?
Could humanity ever travel to the stars? Today this is an unattainable dream but world-wide researchers are studying the possibilities of starships. One concept for an interstellar craft is the photon rocket, an idea once popular but less prominent today. What happened to this appealing idea for voyaging into deepest Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Astronauts Boarding Orion Spacecraft: Image of the Month
Our image this month shows a pair of NASA astronauts boarding a brand new spacecraft (at last). On 13 June 2013, Cady Coleman and Ricky Arnold stepped through a hatch into an Orion crew module for a series of spacesuit check tests at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
How NASA Will Catch an Asteroid
NASA wants to find an asteroid, capture it, bring it towards us and send it into an orbit around our Moon. This isn’t a plot for a new Hollywood Blockbuster starring Bruce Willis, this is an idea that NASA is seeking funding for. It is hoped that this venture will Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Dennis Tito’s Mars Mission: Possible but Pointless
Imagine taking two human beings and sealing them in a box for 500 days. The pair must survive on only the boxes of food and water crammed around them. Throughout their confinement they are at risk of being sprayed with a lethal dose of radiation. This is not the cruel Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Spacesuits of the Future
As we further consider spacesuits we may find a question arising in many of our minds: Why build any new spacesuits at all? Why not just reuse previous designs, especially when the expense of space technology manufacture is considered? The answer is that with man’s space exploration program being in Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Flying Saucers From NASA
Spacecraft with a lenticular design (that is, shaped like a biconvex lens) were actively studied by NASA and US industry in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. A craft of such a shape would experience lower heating on re-entry than a winged layout as the heat would be spread over Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Nazis in Space: The Truth about Hitler’s Space Program
Has lurid fiction like the movie Iron Sky any basis in fact? Everyone knows that WW2 Germany developed rockets far in advance of the Allies, but some argue that in 1945 the Third Reich was on the verge of developing a space program! Ever since Adolf Hitler’s ‘Thousand Year’ Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
10 Space Shuttles which never flew
NASA’s Space Shuttles have become a familar sight in their thirty years of service, but there have been other shuttle designs which never left the ground.Some were ingenious alternative concepts to the vehicle which is shortly to be retired, some were potential replacements and there was even a couple of Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Clipperships of the Cosmos: Solar Sails Move from Theory to Fact
One day vast solar sails pushed along by rays of sunlight may carry payloads between the planets. Tracy McConnell explains how this romantic vision is slowly becoming a fact. The concept of sailing gracefully through the stars is a provocative one that has been around for longer than you may Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Could we visit an asteroid in the next ten years?
It is 14 November 2019 and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, when humans first walked on another world, has been and gone but today a new and exciting voyage begins. A massive booster stage pushes a spacecraft out of Earth orbit. This vehicle comprises two Orion Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Project Orion: the incredible nuclear spacecraft
NASA’s next manned spacecraft will be the Orion, a capsule which will be carried into space by a rocket. Weighing 25 tonnes, each Orion will carry up to six people. Accommodation on board is cosy at best, cramped at worst. Orion was intended to take astronauts to the Moon and Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Mars by ’85? NASA’s alternative history
In the early 1960s, the sky had no limits for NASA . Planners for the agency foresaw an ever-expanding future of exploration through the Solar System. Some amazing missions were planned. Alas in August 1967, the US Congress refused to support NASA’s plans for the 1970s. Ever since then NASA’s Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
Rods from god: a terrifying space weapon?
“Rods from God” is the nick-name given to a hypothetical orbital weapon for bombarding targets on the Earth from space. Just how feasible is this concept? There are undeniable links between the spaceflight and military communities but apart from a few tests of anti-satellite weapons, the odd armed space Read more…
Concept Spacecraft
The amazing Aldebaran spacecraft
The late ’50s and ’60s were a different time from the anxious era that is today. Nuclear power and space travel were both cool and wonderful new technologies. The only thing that could be cooler and more wonderful would be to combine the two. One suggestion was the US Read more…