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Before the Columbia accident, were there shuttle manifests/plans for after ISS assembly complete?
Before the loss of Columbia during the STS-107 mission on February 1 2003, the International Space Station was scheduled to reach "Core Complete" status in February 2004. (Although this was increasingly unlikely at the time, and the Columbia…
Organic Marble
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How did astronauts navigate the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) over the surface of the Moon?
The Lunar Roving Vechicle (LRV), also known as Moon Buggy, was used as a form of transportation on the surface of the Moon during the Apollo program.
What system did the astronauts use for navigation purposes whilst in the LRV?
I assume the…
spk578
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How would an astronaut's hand react to a hard vacuum?
What would happen if an astronaut took his/her glove off in space but had the rest of their body completely sealed off?
My guess is that the hand would start to boil or freeze depending on location.
John Riselvato
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Does the Perseid peak affect mission launches?
Tonight (Aug 12 2013) is the annual peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
Since meteors are chunks of rock flying through the atmosphere at crazy high speeds, I'm wondering if there are any considerations for the launching of space flights on and…
user12
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Reason for different "cone angles" of different space capsules?
Here is the Cargo Dragon:
And here is the Orion:
The "cone" that orion makes has a large opening angle - perhaps about 70 degrees. Meanwhile, the Dragon is almost cylindrical - the opening angle is about 20 degrees I would say.
What is the reason…
space_voyager
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What types of sustainable energy are available beyond Mars?
Most of the energy we use on Earth in our daily activities is a derivative of solar; wind, hydroelectric, coal, gas (oil), wood fire, solar cells. While we might not think about it, all of these are directly dependent on the Sun and Earth's relative…
James Jenkins
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Why have there been no new New Horizons images in the last few weeks?
As I write this, the latest image in the NASA's New Horizon's image gallery is this spectacular photo showing Pluto's atmosphere:
The full web page for the image is here.
That image was posted several weeks ago. Why have there been no new ones…
Keith Thompson
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What does burnt Aerozine-50/N2O4 smell like?
The lunar astronauts universally described the smell of moon dust as similar to spent gunpowder.
The exhaust gases from the LM's descent propulsion system (which combusts Aerozine-50 with N2O4) didn't instantly vanish from the landing site; it's…
Russell Borogove
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Was Valentina Tereshkova pregnant while in space?
Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. I have been reading the book called "The Astronaut Wives club". In it, they discuss women flying in space, and mention that Valentina was the first woman in space. They also state her being…
PearsonArtPhoto
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If the space shuttle computers all output contradictory commands, how is it chosen?
The space shuttle computers use triple-redundancy, and if one computer contradicted the other two, it would be ignored. I read that if all three gave contradictory output, one computer would be randomly chosen.
How would it be randomly chosen?…
user3201068
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Why do Soyuz landings seem to be overshot?
Soyuz descent module re-entry flight is piloted (one of two modes AUS/computer or RUS/manual), using 8 thrusters, toward the Kazakhstan landing site. The ballistic re-entry occurs only when the other modes are inoperative (e.g. TMA-11) or in case of…
mins
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Why are rockets cylindrical?
What are the drag coefficients for a cylinder, a wedge, etc?
I know there are other reasons for a rocket to be cylindrical that aren't related to aerodynamics such as efficiency when mixing the propellants etc… or is that the exclusive reason why…
Jose Luis
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Can it be said that Venus is covered by an ocean rather than atmosphere?
At Venusian temperatures and pressures, CO2 becomes supercritical. This means it behaves as a dense liquid yet has no clear upper bound and continuously becomes gas with height.
Can we thus say that Venus is covered with a global ocean of liquid CO2…
Anixx
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Why can't we launch from space?
So this may be a stupid question but I was wondering why we couldn't launch from space. I know that most of the fuel that we spend is for escaping Earth gravity. Yet, if we have already done this with the International Space Station, couldn't we…
bobthebuilder
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What language is most commonly spoken on the ISS?
It is clear from the answer to this question that all astro- or cosmonauts need to study English or Russian, whichever is not their native tongue. But as a practical matter, what language prevails for daily operations when two people on the ISS have…
joseph_morris
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