Space Forum / Space Flight / October 2004

I was reading yet another web site with the old saw that you can't
turn off a solid rocket motor once it has ignited, save for destroying
the motor.
Then I stopped to consider the Minuteman or MX.  Both of these

Not sure how on topic this is here, but I notice in Nature this week a
discussion about the so called force that has meant these craft are not
where they are supposed to be.
Now I don't know if the same mysterious force is acting on, say Voyagers or

I was toying with this idea for a *possible* futuristic voyage to
Alpha Centauri, with a big emphasis on water and life support resource
mining from comets and planetoids encountered along the journey:-
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/restricted/interstellar-propulsion.html

In this article on MSNBC.com:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/
"At the start of the trip, the [near-] Earth station would focus its
particle beam on the magnetic sail of a Mars-bound space taxi, pushing it to

Here's a thought - <d'oh flag on>
We know that to achieve an orbit at 100 miles altitude, the little
suborbital ships can't get up to that velocity. And traditional
launchers need lots of boosters and / or disposable stages. But what

Team ARCA (http://www.arcaspace.ro/) just posted about about a successful
test flight of thier prototype.  Of interest to me it is mentioned that they
use 60% and 68% peroxide mixed with alochol and seem to have little problems
with getting thier motor started.  Is this high a ...

Watching the second launch of Spaceship 1 and thinking on the
roll couple that begins as the rocket is fully started and
seems to get a step increase crossing the sound barrier. Ideas
range from mass swirling through the nozzle to various

I went to two of Burt Rutans presentations at the EAA Oshkosh show.
I thought people would like some technical tidbits from the
presentations. This is all from memory, so if I introduce any errors
they are probably mine and not Bert's. You should be able to contact