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Tim Dodd
Personal blog · everydayastronaut.comsciencehardware
Tim Dodd writes Everyday Astronaut, a personal blog at everydayastronaut.com about science and hardware. Since 2018, 79 different Hacker News readers have linked it 98 times, most often “SpaceX Raptor: Methane fueled full-flow staged combustion cycle engine”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-07-30, and you can follow it by feed.
About Us - Meet the team behind Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut and dive deep into the topics of spaceflight.
Most-linked posts?
- SpaceX Raptor: Methane fueled full-flow staged combustion cycle engine18 people · 21 mentions · first linked 2019-05-25
- How much do rockets pollute?11 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2020-03-20
- SLS vs. Starship8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-05-20
- Metric vs. Imperial Units: How NASA Lost a 327M Dollar Mission to Mars7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-06-02
- Starbase Tour and Interview with Elon Musk7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2021-08-03
- Full Reusability by Stoke Space5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-02-08
- Why SpaceX Ditched Lightweight Carbon Composites for Stainless Steel5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-02-01
- How do you power a rocket engine?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-04-30
- The Entire History of Soviet Rocket Engines3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-24
- /starship-abort/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-12-27
What Hacker News says?
So in trying to answer your question I found this rather long-winded but nonetheless interesting and appropos link. https://everydayastronaut.com/sls-vs-starship/
Comment linking /sls-vs-starship/
on “NASA Astronauts in SpaceX Capsule Make First Water Landing Since 1975”Submitted Engine cooling – why rocket engines don’t melt as a story · 559 points
HN discussionhttps://everydayastronaut.com/prelaunch-previews/ will give you the countdowns to the launches. No links to previews though.
Comment linking /prelaunch-previews/
on “SpaceX Is Raising $500M at a $30.5B Valuation”Submitted Are Aerospike Engines Better Than Traditional Rocket Engines? as a story · 271 points
HN discussionAnd if you want to get a lot more detail on what makes a "full flow staged combustion engine" so special, this article from Everyday Astronaut goes into some amazing detail on this and many other engines. https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/
Comment linking /raptor-engine/
on “Starship Prototype Unveiled”Submitted The Entire History of Soviet Rocket Engines as a story · 261 points
HN discussionI probably heard that here: https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/ Otherwise it would have been in a comment on an Eric Berger Ars Technica article.
Comment linking /rocket-pollution/
on “SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]”Submitted SpaceX Raptor: Methane fueled full-flow staged combustion cycle engine as a story · 242 points
HN discussion> - the raptor engine. This was developed behind closed doors and is sort of finished. We won't see much of it, but it is the most advanced rocket engine ever made and I'm not aware of any upcoming engine that can compete with it. I believe the Raptor is the first actually working full flow staged combustion engine. It is sort of a holy-grail of engine for liquid rockets. Tim Dodd has a lot more info on it here: htt…
Comment linking /raptor-engine/
on “SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]”Submitted SLS vs. Starship as a story · 228 points
HN discussionTim Dodd explains it very well: https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ It's basically a sweet-spot between being very powerful, very efficient, cheap and easy to operate and highly reusable. To get all these, they implemented a design that never got past the basic demo stage before, which included independently working out the secret sauce of the best Russian-made engine.
Comment linking /raptor-engine/
on “SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]”Submitted How do you power a rocket engine? as a story · 192 points
HN discussionFull flow staged combustion cycle, never been flown* before, explained here: https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/ * The Russians built one in the 60s but it never got past static fire tests
Comment linking /raptor-engine/
on “SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]”Submitted How much do rockets pollute? as a story · 82 points
HN discussionIt's not just the fuel but the way it's burned. The older Merlin engines don't burn all the fuel, by design. The new Raptors do, and it's actually quite an achievement. More information than you ever wanted to know about it is here: https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/
Comment linking /raptor-engine/
on “SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]”Submitted Small Satellite Launchers – A Comparison as a story · 38 points
HN discussionStoke Space also has a pretty huge rocket nerd at the helm[1]. And of course there's Blue Origin (even though they seem to be taking forever). The industry has been flourishing lately, though (with the possible exception of Blue Origin) it'll be a long time before these younger companies produce anything capable of rivaling Falcon 9, let alone Starship. [1]: https://everydayastronaut.com/stoke-space/
Comment linking /stoke-space/
on “NASA investigation finds Boeing hindering Americans' return to moon”Submitted Starship's Belly Flop Maneuver as a story · 37 points
HN discussionYes, rockets pollute, and different rockets pollute differently. This is my favorite primer on the topic: https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/
Comment linking /rocket-pollution/
on “$365B wiped off cryptocurrency market after Tesla stops accepting Bitcoin”Submitted Starbase Tour and Interview with Elon Musk as a story · 31 points
HN discussion"So, SpaceX developed their own superalloy in house that they named SX500. According to Elon, it’s capable of over 800 bar of hot oxygen-rich gas. That may have been one of the biggest hurdles in developing the Raptor engine." almost halfway down, the article is long but so well worth the time. https://everydayastronaut.com/raptor-engine/
Comment linking /raptor-engine/
on “The SpaceX Starship is a big deal”Submitted Starship and Its Belly Flop Maneuver as a story · 5 points
HN discussionIs a reference to this famous incident of a mars lander slamming into mars due to mismatched units. https://everydayastronaut.com/mars-climate-orbiter/
Comment linking /mars-climate-orbiter/
on “NASA has a list of 10 rules for software development”Submitted Soviet Rocket Engines as a story · 4 points
HN discussionWell Everyday Astronaut did a long article and YouTube video about why starship won’t have a launch abort system. [1] I don’t believe I’ve watched the video but I remembered it exists so I thought I’d share. https://everydayastronaut.com/starship-abort/
Comment linking /starship-abort/
on “Starship / Super Heavy”Submitted How to Start a Rocket Engine as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI think the only thing reused is the engines. Granted that is a lot of the engineering. https://everydayastronaut.com/sls-vs-starship/
Comment linking /sls-vs-starship/
on “Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design”Submitted SpaceX Raptor Engine (2019) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe 5 Principles: I think it is worth watching the original Everyday Astronaut (which evannex.com cites). Here is Musk listing and explaining each: https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw?t=800 Text article: https://everydayastronaut.com/starbase-tour-and-interview-wi... Sample story told: And I asked the, the battery safety team, 'cause I was like, what are these mats for? I said are they for fire protection or something? The…
Comment linking /starbase-tour-and-interview-with-elon-musk/
on “Tesla Cybertruck deliveries halted for 7 days”Submitted Metric vs. Imperial Units: How NASA Lost a 327M Dollar Mission to Mars as a story · 2 points
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