Space Forum / Space Flight / March 2005

I understand that the basic structure of the Shuttle is aluminum,
rather like a Boeing 747.   A titanium structure would weigh less.
Further a titanium structured craft could have a less
massive thermal protection system, since things like the wings and tail

Would it be reasonable to suggest that a VL RLV
would be able to stay within a 100 meter diameter
path from mach 1 to touchdown?
John Hare

I posted this in rec.arts.sf.tech a while ago and only got 1 reply.  I
was reading a thread in this group about star-power and thought that it
might get more replies here.
---------------------

I am wondering how to find the pull of Mar's gravity at the Martian
Moon's orbits. The pull of Phobos' own gravity varies between 8.4-1.9
mm/s² (http://www.answers.com/topic/phobos-moon) - but what effect
does Mars exert at 9200km altitude?

Has anyone tested the idea, for an SSTO, of running the engines at a
low level at re-entry, thus using the engine exhaust as a heat-shield?
As a related question, do bench tests exist that simulate the
environment a ship (or a part thereof) would see on re-entry, perhaps

Okay shoot me down if you have to but I think that "Ahad" guy had a
neat idea and was on the right track with his "Celestial Titanic" ship:
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/restricted/earth-ring.html
Just look at all these squillions of $$$ benefits:

Regarding a manned Mars mission:   What size of order has a qualified
guess on the costs?
(I am aware that it can be calculated in many ways)
Best regards,

Please read: http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=18043
What is going on here?  I thought copper could not serve to decompose
peroxide fast enough to be useful, and iron only worked as good catalyst in
it's oxide form which is not mechanically strong enough and break apart and

Tonight, an Atlas 5 is going to launch an Inmarsat satellite. The launch
window opens at 2142 UTC and closes 15 minutes later.
-why? Why is there a launch window when launching to GEO? Couldn't a
satellite destined for GEO be launched at any time?

For decades now, companies have been using jets of water under
extremely high pressure to cut through various material, including
steel. The water jet can emerge from a tiny 1mm nozzle at speeds of
3,000 feet per second, using something like 50,000 PSI of pressure.

I remember seeing on TV a black and white clip of a scientist making
this small wood frame float using some kind of ion propulsion.  But
that was when I was a kid, but now I saw a commerical for one of those
air puriafiers that does the same thing.  They called it the Zenion

How much is needed and of what type?
It seems obvious to me that the earth has enough radiation  shielding
at sea level or even at say 12,000 feet above sea level to protect
people from pretty much the worst that we can expect.  That implys

The following image of Saturn was taken by Hubble telescope.
http://139.134.5.123/tiddler2/c22508/storm.jpg
By a software it was sharpened as,
http://139.134.5.123/tiddler2/c22508/storm2-7.jpg

    Saw this on NEOs:
        http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=15720
    Now I might be a bit stupid in my reading, but it sounded
    a lot like "how do we cope with an impact".

I realize that all spacecraft require some degree of radiation hardening,
but within reasonable limits, what are the altitude ranges that might be
recommended for earth satellites for equatorial orbit? I understand that
there are two particularly intense belts of radiation; at what ...