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1500 questions
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How hard is it on the crew to go through the 14+ g's of a launchpad abort of the Soyuz, or the Falcon system?
It's only for 5 seconds, but that is an awful lot of force. The Falcon system is similar and presumably also involves very high-g forces. Could injury result from the abort itself in either case?
kim holder
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Do you need a heat shield to enter the atmosphere from non-orbital speeds?
Let's say you launched a rocket straight up, not intending to go into orbit. At its apogee, the rocket is (say) 200 km above the earth: high enough (though certainly not fast enough) for LEO.
Would this rocket need a heat shield on its descent, or…
Joe
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Is a railgun up Olympus Mons possible?
I know Earth's atmosphere is a show stopper for rail gun launch to orbit from Earth's surface.
The vacuum of the Moon is often cited by lunar enthusiasts who point out lunar mass drivers could provide a lot of delta V.
But how about a rail up…
HopDavid
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Is the technology behind the Shuttle's heat-shielding tiles used in any product today?
Many NASA inventions have had subsequent lives in the commercial marketplace. Have the Space Shuttle's heat-shielding tiles also had a second life?
Bruce James
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What is the ideal shape for a rocket?
Obviously there are many factors that go into the design of a rocket. However, to me, many rockets seem very tall and skinny.
What I mean is that an ideal rocket would have as little mass used for the tank structure, and hold the maximum amount of…
DarcyThomas
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Why will Starship's 150 ton payload capacity be sufficient to carry 100 people to other planets?
The ISS weighs 450 tons and carries 7 people for three months without resupply.
Starship is supposed to carry 14 times as many people for more than twice the duration with one third the mass.
How?
Abdullah is not an Amalekite
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How do single engine rockets control roll?
While it's obvious how a single gimbaling engine can control a rockets attitude, it is less clear how it could control roll.
Nonetheless many rockets use just a single main engine with no fins or control vanes. Some examples include Ariane 5, and…
ForgeMonkey
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How did astronauts traverse from module to module in the Apollo craft?
I was looking at some diagrams for the Apollo spacecraft, which I found to be interesting. It's clear that there's two separate enclosures that astronauts could reside in (the lunar module and command module). However, there is a massive rocket…
Ellesedil
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Would the Space Shuttle have been able to carry the Hubble Space Telescope back to Earth had it been necessary?
The development of the Space Shuttle (STS) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) were running in parallel during the 1970s and 1980s. Both plans for STS and HST were announced in the late 1960 and both used each other for justification.
HST faced…
Ludo
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What is this tube in the Space Shuttle Orbiter?
I found this picture of the left panel of the Orbiter:
What is the function of that small detachable tube?
ocirocir
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What was so hard about the washer nuts on the JWST?
In a YouTube "Short", Dr. Becky explains that a problem with ten washer nuts wound up adding 800 days and $800 million to the JWST. The problem is that they came loose in the shake test, and I assume there were cascading problems that she didn't…
Greg
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Optimal depth for underground flyby?
Planetary flybys are used to modify the orbital parameters of spacecraft.
For maximum gain, a large deflection angle is often desired. But the deflection angle is limited by the closest approach, which in turn is limited by the radius of the…
SE - stop firing the good guys
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How much of the second SLS has been built?
It took 10+ years to design and build the first SLS rocket, but Artemis 2 is scheduled for May 2024, less than 2 years from now. How much of the second rocket has been built?
qazwsx
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Why was there only a single Falcon 9 landing on ground-pad in 2021?
According to Wikipedia, there was only one Falcon 9 booster landing on ground-pad in 2021, all other 30 launches at least attempted to land on a drone-ship.
Comparatively, 2020 and (so far) 2022 both had about five times more attempts on drone-ship…
Speedphoenix
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Why are unused launch abort rockets jettisoned rather than used to augment thrust?
Launch abort rockets use powerful rockets. For a pad abort, they must have enough thrust to lift the capsule to an altitude where parachutes can function.
The Apollo launch escape rocket had a 155,000 lb thrust solid fuel rocket.
The CST-100…
Woody
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