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#651 2026-08-19 06:37:57
- tahanson43206
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- Registered: 2018-04-27
- Posts: 26,101
Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
For GW Johnson ...
Please note the arrival of a representative of the LK Cokoino company in our membership.
Tan has been generous with both time and patience in helping me deal with problems of my own making.
I misread a line in their documentation, and assembled their CKK0017 kit incorrectly. Tan and his associates have adjusted the documentation to try to prevent others from making the same mistake.
Your several initiatives are going to depend upon robot subsystems of various kinds, and I am hoping the young people (and perhaps a few older ones) who will be working on those subsystems may find useful information and perhaps even guidance in this forum.
In recent days (August 2026) you and I have been discussing assembly of a lander system on orbit. This is required because no launcher currently operating on Earth is large enough for the lander you are planning.
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#652 2026-08-25 07:32:39
- tahanson43206
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- Registered: 2018-04-27
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
For GW Johnson ...
I dropped off a note at the web site of this gent...
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 46#p241146
Just FYI ... I inquired about possible interest in assembly of your Mars Lander on orbit, and also mentioned the on-orbit refueling Provisional Patent.
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#653 2026-08-26 06:41:37
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
This post features GW Johnson in a discussion on LinkedIn about the F104.
GW appears to have correctly identified the video as an AI generated simulation of a flight that actually occurred in 1963.
What I find disappointing is that the original poster of the video did not (apparently) realize this was fake. The video was (apparently) created from a much later incident. In any case, GW commented on the airplane and the pilot, Chuck Yeager.
View Gary Johnson’s graphic
Gary Johnson
• 1st1st
Aviation & Aerospace Consultant / Author/ Teacher/ Open Innovation Product Developer/InventRight
22hThat was an NF-104, modified with a rocket engine to fly way outside the normal flight envelope of an F-104. I'm not at all sure the video is real. Such films were NOT made during flight testing back in 1963 when Yeager had his NF-104 crash and bailout.
Inertia coupling is inherently exceedingly dangerous with any high-performance jet aircraft. The F-104 was particularly dangerous because of it, when attempting hard maneuvers in thinner air at high altitude. The effect has a couple of common names: "mass coupling" or "inertia coupling". The F-104 (and some others) were infamous for that danger. In particular, the X-1A-through-E series had it, too. Yeager almost crashed one of those, and for the same inertia coupling reason, although the cause was high speed, not high altitude.
The moment applied by control surfaces gets to be small in the thin air compared to the mass moment of inertia in that direction (which is independent of altitude density), and restoring happens too slowly to be effective at all. These effects have been known since at least WW2, but got rather important with the jets in the 1950's, because of the higher service ceilings in the 50-60,000 foot range. The air is quite thin up there.
GW
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Nadim N. MALEK
• 3rd+Verified • 3rd+
R&D Team Manager
18hGary Johnson Hi, the video is certainly fake but is supposed to have represented all the steps that Mr. Yeager went through before ejecting.
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#654 2026-09-07 07:38:14
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
This post contains links to two images created by GW Johnson to illustrate fundamentals of heat shield design.
These are universal in nature and can be published independently of proprietary work Dr. Johnson may be doing.
These would become part of the Appendix of a book, if such a book were to appear at some point.
Update: Here is a pdf with revised images and explanations:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hdcynhhi … 75mq1&dl=0
Conical heat shield shapes:
Blunt capsule shapes:
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#655 2026-09-11 11:25:58
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
This post is for a link to a document created by GW Johnson to show his analysis of the SpaceX Hot Staging.
This appears to be a challenging exercise.
Pdf link here >>> https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i2kwtp74 … wl35l&dl=0
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#656 2026-09-24 17:19:38
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
This post is intended to offer links to a pair of files to help readers and members to perform aerocapture and aerobraking maneuvers at Mars.
We will ask SpaceNut to set up a new Tools forum in the Engineering Category.
In the mean time, the files may be downloaded from Dropbox:
PDF file of instructions for spreadsheet: >> https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7tr322ng … 8iknm&dl=0
Spreadsheet >> https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wmmvjko9 … g0fwq&dl=0
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#657 2026-10-02 06:10:14
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
For GW Johnson re new post about landing legs by Oldfart1939
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 59#p241859
Oldfart1939 invited your comments on a YouTube video about landing legs for Starship on the Moon.
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#658 2026-10-02 11:22:04
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
For GW Johnson!
Your mention of AI slop caught my eye, in your reply to Oldfart1939 about landing structures. I am ** very ** careful to make clear that anything I publish with an AI source is clearly indicated. The article that OF1939 found may have been generated by a human hoping to create "clickbait". If that was the case, it seems to have worked.
Regarding the blocks ... that appears to be a real concept with real on-Earth research and development.
My question for you is: Would that concept work if there were multiple layers of brick, with non-overlapping seams?
I am mindful of your Texas engineering recommendation for strong roads, but that is not an option here.
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#659 2026-10-02 15:33:21
- GW Johnson
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- From: McGregor, Texas USA
- Registered: 2011-12-04
- Posts: 6,291
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
Multiple layers of bricks with non-overlapping joints does help, but not as much as we might wish, until the bricks are glued together in some way. The load only spreads at the angle from brick to brick vertically, if not bonded together. You need a lot of layers (many dozens) to spread it enough to put concentrated loads onto soft dirt.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#660 2026-10-04 19:29:00
- tahanson43206
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Re: GW Johnson Postings and @Exrocketman1 YouTube videos
The link below is to GW Johnson's paper on Moon Lander...
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nbna7k4w … cz4vu&dl=0
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