Henry Spencer
Henry Spencer
Henry Spenceris a Canadian computer programmer and space enthusiast. He wrote "regex", a widely used software library for regular expressions, and co-wrote C News, a Usenet server program. He also wrote The Ten Commandments for C Programmers. He is coauthor, with David Lawrence, of the book Managing Usenet. While working at the University of Toronto he ran the first active Usenet site outside the U.S., starting in 1981. His records from that period were eventually acquired by Google to provide...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionScientist
CountryCanada
Spaceflight, especially in the Mercury spacecraft, clearly wasn't going to be much like flying an airplane.
Solid-fuel rockets can't easily be shut down on command.
Since SpaceX's very beginnings, they have talked about recovering and reusing at least the first stages of their rockets.
Is manned space exploration important? Yes - not least because it simply works much better than sending robots.
In a small spacecraft, it was hard for the other two guys to sleep when the on-duty man was talking to Mission Control regularly.
If your goal is to change the world, you can't start by doing things the same old way because it sells better.
Foul-ups in testing are not uncommon, especially when the test setup is being tried for the first time.
Claiming that solid rockets are necessary for a heavy-lift launcher is obvious nonsense.
As plans for the first lunar landing started to be made, nobody had really thought about who would be out first.
Sometimes people wonder why aeroplanes are so cheap and rockets are so expensive. Even the most superficial comparison shows one obvious difference: aeroplane engines use outside air to burn their fuel, while rockets have to carry their own oxidisers along.
Rocket engines generally are simpler than jet engines, not more complicated.
Liquid oxygen is one of the cheapest manufactured substances on Earth. In large quantities, it costs pennies per kilogram - cheaper than milk or beer.
Progress requires setbacks; the only sure way to avoid failure is not to try.
Reusable rockets promise much easier testing because you should usually get them back, and you can debug as you go rather than having to get everything perfect the first time.