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Video post of the day about TransAstra's Mantis™ Capture Bag technology.
Joel C. Sercel, PhD
6,350 posts
Joel C. Sercel, PhD
@JoelSercel
Inventor; engineer; team leader; space technologist. CEO @TransAstra_Corp PhD @Caltech ME (plasma physics & space propulsion). 🇺🇸/acc Mars is a distraction.
- A senior guy in the Space Force told me that their estimates are that SpaceX has saved them $40B since they started contracting with them (which goes all the way back to when they were still part of the Air Force). This is due to better performance and lower cost then the legacySpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell on the company having $22B in government contracts: "We earned that. We bid it, we were the lowest price, best bidder, we won and we execute. It's not a bad thing to serve the U.S. government with great capability and products." (via Baron
00:00 - LOL! The MSM is equating a one day delay in Polaris Dawn to all the problems NASA and Boeing are having. What a joke!
- To understand how far superior the Chinese space industry is to all elements of the U.S. industry (except SpaceX), consider that the Zhuque-3 has been in development for 26 months. The New Glenn has been in development for more than 260 months (it’s fair to say the New Glenn has
- Replying to @growing_danielThe concept of the future as a new state of being that can be shaped is an invention of western civilization. It is a super power that is part of a world view that brought us the Roman aqueducts, the Manga Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the scientific method,
- Back in the 90s, Carl Sagan had the office down the hall from mine in Building 180 at JPL—my old office, in fact, before he got too sick. At the time, he held a distinguished scientist role at JPL. I once challenged him on his assertion that it was too soon to go to Mars in a bigNeil deGrasse Tyson. On SpaceX. He just won’t find words of reality and has become so overwhelmed with something unrelated to science or engineering. Carl Sagan gave him a chance by a letter he wrote to him—to carry a torch forward. I see no torch and this—is not forward.
00:00 - Replying to @BellikOzanLOL! That is funny. I have a PhD in space propulsion from Caltech and have fun multiple propulsion technology programs. In 2006 I had a 90 min 1-on-1 technical meeting with him, and that was before he really came up to speed on the subject. Then he was the best propulsion
- If you can't figure that one out maybe you should consider a career as a grocery bag guy.
- At its current rate of progress China will catch up to where SpaceX is today in launch capability in about 3 years. I think they will have a Starship level vehicle in use by the end of the decade, at which point they will leave the U.S. behind unless we start working bigger and🚀🇨🇳China's first REUSABLE rocket, Zhuque-3, has completed engine tests and begun final preparations before its maiden flight. 🛰️🌏The rocket will be used to accelerate the building of China's "Starlink" large-scale constellation missions at a lower cost.
00:00 - Elon's new posts about things we can do in space with fully reusable superheavy vehicles are important. I have been wondering for years when he would realize that there are much more important things to do in space before building a city on Mars. - Massive AI (and other) dataReplying to @rmcentushStarship could deliver 100GW/year to high Earth orbit within 4 to 5 years if we can solve the other parts of the equation. 100TW/year is possible from a lunar base producing solar-powered AI satellites locally and accelerating them to escape velocity with a mass driver.
- Stoke has the best heat shield and propulsion architecture in the business, and it is not close. SpaceX is the overall industry leader, but Stoke has better tech and I think will be their main competitor in five to ten years. A great operational launch company well before then. IReplying to @SR_72_Blackbird and @stoke_spacethe architecture scales beautifully as long as you don't have to drive it cross country over a road!
- Replying to @BillAckman and @60MinutesIf this is the first time you have seen that 60minutes is a propaganda outlet, you have not been paying attention or you are color blind. Purple and red are easy to see, unless you are color blind.
- Replying to @SciGuySpaceI did a series of consulting contracts for an east coast government customer in the 2011-2014 time evaluation for SpaceX for launching USG payloads. Everyone else working on the project spent the whole time badmouthing SpaceX. I felt like the only guy saying, "no, this can
- Replying to @JoelSercel@Gwynne_Shotwell When I used to teach at Caltech in the early 00's Gwynne was very kind and used to give tours of the original SpaceX facilities (that is when she was the VP of BD) to me and my students. It was enlightening to see the hands on experimental approach the engineers
