Space X Starship firing its many Raptor engines. The raptor pioneered the new generation of methalox. (Image: Space X) Go back a generation of development, and excepting the shuttle-derived systems, all liquid rockets used RP-1 (aka kerosene) for their first stage. Now it seems everybody and their dog wants to fuel their rockets with methane. […]
The International Space Station (ISS) might not be breaking news, but this February, National Geographic released a documentary that dives into the station’s intricate engineering. It’s a solid reminder of what human ingenuity can achieve when you put a team of engineers, scientists, and astronauts together. While the ISS is no longer a new toy […]
In a recent photo essay for the New Yorker magazine, author Keith Gessen and photographer Andrew McConnell share what life is like for the residents around the launch facility and where Soyuz capsules land in Kazakhstan. Read the article for a brief history of the Baikonur spaceport and observations from the photographer’s15 visits to observe […]
In the early days of spaceflight, when only the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union had the ability to put an object into orbit, even the most fanciful of futurists would have had a hard time believing that commercial entities would one day be launching sixty satellites at a time. What once […]