Space Forum / Space Flight / January 2006

How come the commercial airlines use jet fuel rather than LOX/H2?  I
would have thought LOX/H2 would be lighter and would give the planes a
longer range.  Is petroleum just cheaper?

I was wondering if anyone could explain how the new proposed NASA moon
probe will actually work when it's using it's laser (split into five
beams) to map the surface.  Don't you need to have a known reference
point to get good measurements on the height?  

so who is working on their own rocket ship????
well?
Due to a website crash. photos of mine are not available until i pull out
the album and re-scan the images.

There's an image
(http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/141349main_06pd0094.jpg) on the Nasa
web site of the New Horizons launch, showing 4 towers surrounding the
launch site.  What are they?  I'm guessing lightning protection?

How dependent are various satellite systems like GPS and Iridium on
ground based support?
I understand that these systems, as different as they are, both require
ground based assitance to work.  The GPS satellites need to be sent

So, much of the press coverage of the New Horizons probe is breathless
about how the probe will "pass the Moon in 9 hours."  Does the probe
actually go anywhere near the Moon, or should the press really be
saying that the probe will pass beyond the Moon's orbital distance in

At http://radio.weblogs.com/0101365/2003/11/12.html 
is shown the blueness of a test-tubeful of LOx,
and its absorption spectrum.
What about a light path of several metres?

Recently there have been announcements about new and improved ion
thrusters.
One of them was the Helicon Double Layer Ion Thruster, and the latest
one is the DS4G Thruster.

Zero gee entry seat, well better described as simulated zero gee. We
simulate zero gees in a one gee environment currently using a swimming
pool. This same concept could be used to simulate zero gees at much higher
gee loads, 5 or 10 gees.

What is the age limit of traveling to space?
The multi-millionair that went up in a russian rocket was in his
60's?

Hi,
What is the best config for a space helmut?  I've seen all kinds from
google search. I like the sphere kind with a hemisphere front.  The
back of the head will be protected by a solid hemisphere. The front

For a given amount of energy input, the absolute limit on
the speed acheivable is set by dumping 100% of that energy
into the kinetic energy of a spacecraft.  In principle, a
rocket can acheive this up for speeds up to the maximum

I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.

We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was