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1500 questions
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How many astronauts have had spiritual experiences while in space?
In the video Overview 5 astronauts talk about having powerful spiritual experiences in space, and their descriptions match enlightenment experiences. This strikes me as rather more important than you'd think based on how often it is discussed.
Gene…
kim holder
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VLB interferometry in deep space - does it make sense for communication?
This is something I was thinking about right now when this beta was opened ... perfect!
In radio astronomy, there is an technique which is called very long baseline interferometry. The idea is to combine a number of telescopes to resemble a somewhat…
s-m-e
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19
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Early high-inclination crewed flights
I noticed to my surprise today that the very early Soviet flights were to a very high inclination - all the Vostok flights were between 64.9° and 65°, and the Voskhod flights were at 64.7° and 64.8°.
After this, Soyuz 1 was at 50.8°, and subsequent…
Andrew is gone
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What is so hard about making a throttleable large rocket engine?
In the old days, most rocket engines weren't throttleable. I think the first one was actually the Apollo Lunar Module descent engine.
But I'm interested in large, turbopump-fed engines using RP-1/LOX or LH2/LOX. Why is it so hard to makes these…
DrZ214
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How is it known that asteroid 2011 UW158 has so much platinum?
Today an asteroid, 2011 UW158, is passing within 2.4 million km of Earth. There are a lot of reports of this asteroid containing $5.4 trillion of platinum in its core. People seem to want to mine it, but how do they know there is so much platinum…
duzzy
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18
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What powers New Horizons?
What does New Horizons use to keep itself traveling (so far), while keeping all of its monitoring and communication systems active?
I did read that it leveraged force from a gravity sling shot from Jupiter, but what else contributes? Solar?
Ricky
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Why do space agencies invest more in flyby probes rather than orbiting satellites?
First of all, the title is just an assumption based on a very small sample size of the Voyager spacecrafts and New Horizons. We have orbiters around the moon and Mars because we had/have plans to land humans there. Is that the only reason we would…
Bobe
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How much RF transmit power does DSN need to send commands to Voyager?
I recently looked up how weak the Voyager signals are when they get to Earth from the 22 W transmitters (as of September 2013, it was roughly -245 dBm). But that got me wondering how many watts of power the Deep Space Network (DSN) needs to send…
bmhkim
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Could an Apollo crew have been killed by Solar radiation?
The Sun throws lots of high speed protons around. Especially during its sudden and short intensive "events". Much of that is blocked by Earth's magnetosphere and atmosphere. But astronauts work outside some of those natural shields. Could a Sun…
LocalFluff
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Is it possible for a human to walk on an asteroid?
"We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history"
(President Barack Obama on Space Exploration in the 21st Century".)
With a very low gravity, an asteroid is not really friendly to the walking visitor. Any…
mins
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18
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Is there any reason why American spacesuits color changed over years?
From Mercury silver suits to orange Space Shuttle ones, color of space suits have changed over years. Is there any reason for it?
user55
18
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4 answers
Why is NASA planning to deorbit the ISS instead of reusing its newer modules, like the Russians will?
I was reading about Russia's plans to detach their modules from the ISS before its deorbit and use them to begin a new space station. The version I read said Zvezda (DOS-8) and Poisk (MRM-2) are planned for inclusion in this new station, and there…
kim holder
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Could the space shuttle be permanently left in orbit as a space station?
Could the space shuttles have been left in space and used as temporarily visited space stations? One could put a modified spacehab in the cargo bay, with solar panels and with which the Soyuz/Dragon could dock. Wouldn't it have been a cheap and…
LocalFluff
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Why does NASA's Juno spacecraft only have a one year primary mission?
For many years, Juno has been touted as NASA's "low cost" mission to the Jovian system. As a New Frontiers mission, it is cost capped at only $1 billion.
From its launch in August 2011 to its arrival at Jupiter in July 2016, it spends nearly 5 years…
marked-down
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Would leaving the ecliptic plane offer any benefit to interstellar travel?
Aside from the obvious answer of being able to easily avoid the larger bodies in the Solar System. I'm primarily curious as to the mechanics of this endeavor -- would there be any benefit to attempting to leave the solar system say... perpendicular…
Anthony Neace
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