Steely Airship Men John and Kevin being very serious with the Ascender 36 Vee airship.

MiniCubes in action. This was the 3rd set of MiniCubes we flew. MiniCube basics: We mail the cube to the research/experimenter, they put their stuff inside and mail it back to us. We fly it, then mail it back to them. Science happens.

Sad news of the passing of the great Walter Koenig. I had the chance to have a wonderful conversation with him at a space event 20 years ago and he went out of his way for a friend of mine just because a stranger asked. He was a kind soul and class act. Safe travels navigator.

Full moon over Area 42. Away 136 was again delayed due to winds aloft putting us in a bad landing site. However, the full moon nights in the desert are worth the trip.

The team mounted and sealed electrodes in acrylic tubes for the next round of ignition test. They now need end caps a ceramic nozzle and the O2 hookup.

Last night the team installed the new CO2 scrubber mounting system and power busses. Then following it up with power up and testing. System upgrades are always great training opportunities.

The things one finds in the JP Aerospace parking lot. Our Argo balloon chase vehicle having just finished up a test drive after getting new brakes.

Space Kitten Christmas edition Mug!!! The perfect Christmas gift for the spacer in your life! (and for you too!) dark-sky-market.myshopify.co…

New Video! youtube.com/shorts/bIADTVknw… Testing helium airship valve on the edge.

We want to shift to liquid helium for both our current balloon operations as well as in flight refill that's critical for Dark Sky Station operations. The Air Force successful tested both in 1977. Notice that instead of a semi-truck load of gaseous helium it's a pickup truck.

Forgotten aircraft. The Aereon 26 Dynairship. Inflight 1971.

New Video! youtu.be/19IS1PBCoZw?si=MhX8… The see thru rocket engine. The new ignition tests for the plasma/MHD engine.

Just a late night moment at JP Aerospace. Bryan working away on the Argo, our balloon recovery vehicle.

This is the moment of ignition in slow motion from both cameras.

We're doing ignition tests for our RF induction system on our plasma rocket engine. In these we're using a small acrylic/O2 hybrid engine & trying different ignition methods. This one we used a 30,000 volt spark generator & a cotton ball. We ran the engine for 120 seconds.

Air Beams! Our carbon trusses are light but air beam are lighter at the large scales we're planning.

Making carbon fiber airship parts. Plug to mold to assemble to component.

More pics from the fan art/sim Bellavia Island.

Wow!

Testing RF components for our plasma rocket engine.