Space Forum / Space Flight / April 2004

Did anyone notice that the high altitude nozzle extension seems
to be attached when first fired but does not seem to be there
later?  The picks at scaled.com show the large black extension
at first but after burnout it is gone (2nd powered flight).  The best

Can practical rocketry be done on the venusian surface, or is it basically
out of the question.
Might things like ejector ramjets be very efficient?

Could Hubble, along with the NexGen space telescope operate as a long
baseline optical interferometer in some way?  Perhaps a reference
laser beam could be sent from one telescope to the other.
Any potential advantages in using adaptive optic methods whereby a

I'm trying to spec out a capsule-based launch system for some stories
I've been writing. One of my goals with this project is to be as
technically realistic as possible.
The main components are 3 and 10-seat capsules, loosely based on

I am going to describe something I saw on Discovery Wings and I hope you
can help identify it.  It was footage of an experiment that was not
fully described in the story on use of satellites to assist allied
soldiers in wartime.

Catching up on some unread journals, I note that the March/April 2003
issue of JBIS has a very interesting paper:  "A comparison of propulsion
concepts for SSTO reusable launchers", by Richard Varvill and Alan Bond.
While the authors have a mild case of hydrogen religion -- ...

I have a feeling that now that we have had a couple of shuttle
accidents we are moving away from the shuttle too eagerly.
If I had to go to the Moon today, I would try to work as much as
possible with the systems we have, like for example the shuttle.

The ultimate in solar collectors must be the deposition of solar
collectors onto the solar surface.  The sun puts out 3.86x10^26 watts
of power.  Distributed over a sphere whose radius is equal to the
radius of Earth's orbit this falls to a little less than 1,400 watts

So according to early reports, SpaceShipOne made its second powered
flight reaching Mach 2, only a day after Scaled was granted a
suborbital launch license by the FAA. Although the license allows the
vehicle to travel above 60 miles, this test flight went to 105,000

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/salvage-04a.html
Could this possibly be used to bring the Hubble to the ISS for repairs?

The Lunar Lander has always fascinated me.
The first (and only) manned spacecraft to
land on another world.
Not being a part of that part of history,

"Ian Stirling" <root@mauve.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4OG8c.23859$h44.3117758@stones.force9.net...

What is the maximum flux levels that can be beamed to space craft by
lasr or microwave?
The specific application would be to beam power from a SSPS (power
available: 5GW) to a space vehicle using an electric drive (e.g.

What components need to make up the lunar transport architecture?
One thing I'm not too sure of is the difference between OSP and CEV.
Is CEV just be an enhancement of OSP?
Assuming we rely on the current range of heavy launchers like Delta IV