3.35: Long Live the Argama

Show Notes

This week, we review and analyze Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (機動戦士ガンダムΖΖ) episode 37 - “Nahel Argama” (ネェル·アーガマ), discuss our first impressions, and provide commentary and research on different shuttle-launch methods.

- NASA's Space Shuttle Propulsion Trivia page and FAQ about the shuttle program.

- Article comparing the costs of different launch methods.

- Cost assessments for the different parts of the shuttle program.

- What happened to the last surviving external fuel tank from the shuttle program?

- The space shuttle by the numbers.

- NASA information page about the external fuel tank.

- Space shuttle orbiter dimensions.

- Information on the external solid rocket boosters.

- Wikipedia page on air-launch-to-orbit.

- 1998 rundown of designs for reusable launch vehicles, including some designed for air-launch-to-orbit.

- 2006 article about Kazakhstan and Russia collaborating on an air-launch-to-orbit system for satellites.

- 2007 conceptual design for a supersonic air-launch-to-orbit system.

- A brief look back on the history of Mass Driver research.

- 2019 assessment of Mass Drivers by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers:

E. Inger, "Mass Driver Design Traveling Earth to the Moon," in IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 161034-161039, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2950882. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8889556

- 2012 report on the StarTram mass driver design, by Lisa Zyga for Phys.org.

- Wikipedia article on the proof of concept mass driver built by Gerard O'Neill and team.

- 1977 newsletter for the L-5 Society (a space exploration enthusiast group) which mentions the demonstration of the O'Neill mass driver.

- A detailed explanation of the function and benefits of lunar mass drivers.

- 1980 article from the same L-5 Society newsletter with an update on progress on the Mass Driver project.

- 1994 paper proposing a mass driver-style launch system dubbed "MagLifter" by John C. Mankins.

- 2003 paper examining the proposed 'MagLifter' maglev mass driver system.

- Wikipedia page for 'rocket sled launches', a similar launching method that could be combined with a mass driver.

- Article about the US Navy's experimental mass driver-like rail gun and how might be used in space exploration.

- The Radio Free Shangri-La segment this week includes "Military march music" by humanoide9000, used pursuant to a CC BY attribution license.

Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or Delaware, people. Before European settlers forced them to move west, the Lenape lived in New York City, New Jersey, and portions of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Lenapehoking is still the homeland of the Lenape diaspora, which includes communities living in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.

You can learn more about Lenapehoking, the Lenape people, and ongoing efforts to honor the relationship between the land and indigenous peoples by visiting the websites of the Delaware Tribe and the Manhattan-based Lenape Center. Listeners in the Americas and Oceania can learn more about the indigenous people of your area at https://native-land.ca/. We would like to thank The Lenape Center for guiding us in creating this living land acknowledgment.

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The intro music is WASP by Misha Dioxin, and the outro is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio, both licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licenses. The recap music for Season 3 is New York City (instrumental) by spinningmerkaba, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.. All music used in the podcast has been edited to fit the text.

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