Questions tagged [water]
Questions about research and use of water in space environment
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First water deluge system?
Does anyone know what the first use of a water deluge system was?
I've done some light googling and discovered that the Titan II ICBM rocket silos (first built in 1962) used a water deluge system, but ...
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Why not land near the poles of Mars for extracting water? [duplicate]
It is hard to find ancient life on earth that is over 3 billion years old. Rocks get reworked over time. They get melted and metamorphosed, folded and fractured. Fossil evidence is easily lost.
So in ...
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What is the minimum pressure of a purely CO₂ atmosphere on Europa that can retain enough heat for surface liquid water?
*Ignoring external factors such as Jupiter's magnetosphere blowing this new atmosphere off.
I'm not sure where to begin the maths for that
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What is the chance that there is atleast one water molecule in a given volume of space [closed]
If you imagine a single cubic meter, and place it anywhere in space, in any orientation and take any two opposite faces of the imaginary cube, and stretch them to both edges of the universe; what is ...
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If we make a Mars or moon station, how would the carbon and water cycle work if the Earth was destroyed? [duplicate]
If it costs 50k to fly 1 pound to space, how much would the machine cost? I'm a 7th grader and I need help on my project. How would the carbon and water cycle machines work? This is hypothetical.
user51001
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What will be the most cost-effective way to remove and collect the subsurface ice on Mars?
From NASA's Treasure Map for Water Ice on Mars:
"You wouldn't need a backhoe to dig up this ice. You could use a shovel," said the paper's lead author, Sylvain Piqueux from NASA's Jet ...
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Why does Scott Manley say "the gravity of Europa is low enough that it's at the high end of what is possible in scuba with highly technical gear"?
Scott Manley's January 30, 2022 video Deep Space Radiation, Black Holes And Other Questions - Episode 14 discusses radiation levels and human survivability on Jovian satellites, and after ...
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Why was it necessary to monitor the water quantity in the space shuttle?
In space shuttle's operators manual, Page(4.1-4), it is written as:
The H2O quantity is determined by a PVT calculation based on H2O tank pressure and
temperature transducer readings as well as GN2 ...
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New spin on laundry day: How will ISS cope with washing machine vibration and angular momentum?
Although the ISS currently has no laundry facilities, NASA’s Glenn Research Center sponsored a washing machine design contest to do the drudgery during spaceflight. Plans have been made for testing a ...
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Where was the water buildup on Cassini's narrow-angle camera system? Did it have to remain heated continuously?
Writing this answer led me to Wikipedia's Cassini; launch and cruise phase (1997-2003) which includes the following entries
0 May 2001 – During the coast phase between Jupiter and Saturn, it was ...
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Would it be advantageous to uncover the subsurface ice in the only two regions on Mars where water can flow downhill in summertime?
The image above is a screenshot from a part of NASA's Treasure Map for Water Ice on Mars.
Within 'the only two regions' I mean the uppermost parts of the two coloured extensions to the north into the ...
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Has Demonstrator-1 2021-006BX demonstrated a hydrogen-oxygen combustion engine fueled by electrolysis yet?
NASA's NASA CubeSat to Demonstrate Water-Fueled Moves in Space says:
A NASA CubeSat will launch into low-Earth orbit to demonstrate a new type of propulsion system. Carrying a pint of liquid water as ...
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How do they know the sub-surface radar reflections (potential underground ice or "lakes") on Mars are not natural dielectric or metallic in origin?
Gizmodo's NASA Scientists Find More Subsurface Lakes on Mars links to Characteristics of the Basal Interface of the Martian South Polar Layered Deposits (paywalled, but there is this 52nd Lunar and ...
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If an astronaut threw a cup of coffee into space, would it freeze, or boil off into gas?
If an astronaut threw a cup of coffee into space somehow, would it freeze into a block, or boil off into gas due to the zero pressure?
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Feasibility of Liquid Water at the Bottom of Valles Marineris
Last night I was looking at NASA's equations for pressure and temperature of the atmosphere of Mars.
P (in kiloPascals) = $0.699 \exp^{-0.00009 h}$
The Valles Marineris is 11 kilometers deep at it's ...
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Earth Launch System with Water Propellant
Water based thrusters have been proposed (and possibly tested by now) for use in satellites and other in-space vehicles - see this NASA article. The idea is to perform electrolysis on the water to ...
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Horseshoe lakes on Mars?
Have any horseshoe lakes been found on Mars? Or have there been other signs of rivers persisting long enough to form altered channels? For the purposes of this question, I would exclude multiple ...
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Together with an ISRU investigation, the scientific value of a local Martian weather experiment by uncovering the near surface ice in Nier crater?
From NASA's Treasure Map for Water Ice on Mars:
"You wouldn't need a backhoe to dig up this ice. You could use a shovel," said the paper's lead author, Sylvain Piqueux of NASA's Jet ...
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Pee processing in space
Do astronauts drink each their own pee or is there a common pee container where all pee get collected and processed? It's clear to me that the obtained water must be sterile, but even then, I imagine ...
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Can it be estimated when a first settlement near the equator would become more economical than one at the midlatitudes of Mars?
Choosing the right place on Mars for a settlement would be of course an important decision because once it's there it would take much time and money to move on to another, better location.
Because the ...
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How is the presence of water detected on celestial bodies?
How is the presence of water detected on celestial bodies and how is its state, solid or liquid, determined? In a related question, are the same methods used to detect the presence of subsurface water,...
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Water Deluge and Flame Trenches [duplicate]
After years of seeing a water tower so close to the launch pad, I’m now just starting to realize it has a purpose. I was a fool to think the water tower had been there for years and they just could ...
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Why is the water pumped out of the holding tank a minute before Falcon 9 liftoff?
SpaceX Falcon 9 - starlink mission on October 5. Video :
Why is the water discharged at T- 01m:30s from the holding tank far away from the launch pad?
This was also ...
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What would be the required equipment for an astronaut to dig to the centre of Bennu?
Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
The image above is part of a close-up acquired by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft of Bennu's surface.
101955 Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid that is currently ...
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Will mining water on Bennu for travelling to Mars not be more economical than mining it at the lunar south pole?
Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid that is currently accompanied by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that will take samples from it to return to Earth.
Its diameter is 490 m. and it is slightly denser than ...
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How are the Archival Samples of water on the ISS handled?
This answer includes this schematic showing the overview of the water processing system on the ISS, found on page 341 (page 375 of the pdf) of The International Space Station - Operating an Outpost in ...
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Do the Russians use a water deluge system when launching their current rockets?
After a video by What About it discussing water deluge systems I got to thinking about it. I remember hearing that the Russians don't use water deluge systems.
Not sure if these would be considered a ...
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Choosing a specific region to live on Mars, how important will the degree of dust there be, compared with the availability of water?
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
The map above shows underground water ice on Mars, it's from the article NASA's Treasure Map for Water Ice on Mars.
The blue and purple represent water ice less than 30 ...
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Water ice as dummy/filler payload to orbit
When I'm rich, and my reusable orbital launch program is well under way, I will be performing many orbital test-launches and paid satellite deployments. Once I've knocked out the bugs and optimized my ...
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Would Earth without water look like Mars? [closed]
I was watching this slideshow of 4K images of the surface of Mars, and I noticed that the surface looked mostly smooth, with the most rugged features being crater impacts (sort of resembling an Earth ...
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Where exactly are those eight steep slopes on Mars revealing structures of buried ice?
Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS
The image above is from Phys.org's article Steep slopes on Mars reveal structure of buried ice that I came upon by the link in a comment from @Mark Adler after his ...
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Titan mountains = downwelling in it's ocean?
Titan, unlike earth has a liquid (mostly) water ocean beneath it's icy crust. (I think) this prevents plate tectonics because it isn't viscous enough to drag the crust with it. The heating of said ...
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Why did Apollo 13 need to ration water?
Drinking water in the lunar module originated from four water tanks: two in the ascent stage and two in the descent stage. (Unlike the CSM, there were no fuel cells to make more water.) Section 7.2....
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Underground sea in Titan, is it water or hydrocarbons?
The truth is that I have read a lot and I have become confused, the underground sea that Titan has, is it water or hydrocarbons, is anyone certain?
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Challenges to building a human habitat on Titan (Saturn's Moon)?
I have been studying Titan for a while, reading documents from Cassini and Huygens (probes). On Titan there is an atmosphere, layer of clouds, seas of hydrocarbons (fuel and plastic for many centuries)...
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What does space have to do with providing "fresh water ... without the need for aquifers or pipes?" as Steven Kwast suggested?
In this speech, retired U.S. Air Force General Steven Kwast (ostensibly fired for promoting a U.S. Space Force over objections from the outgoing Secretary of the Air Force) suggests the U.S. space ...
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Does the polygonal pattern on the floor of this "crater" on Mars mean that there's water ice below its surface?
This presentation of the Program of the Second MSL Landing Site Workshop shows an image of a "crater" near the equator that is 2.4 km wide and 750 meters deep !
On the Mars Image explorer you can ...
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How exactly is the balance of minerals handled on ISS with the use of reclaimed (demineralised) water for human consumption?
This question and answers to it contain wealth of information regarding recycling of ISS resources, and water is one of them.
Water, recycled from water waste, atmosphere moisture and urine, is ...
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Is it possible to have a planet made entirely out of water? [closed]
Let's say we had a mechanism of adding unlimited amounts of water at a certain point in space. How much water could we add until the water molecules would turn into something else due to gravity? What ...
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Why only 100 days for VIPER to look for water in the lunar south pole region?
VIPER is a lunar rover by NASA that will be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources, especially water ice, in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region.
It is meant to support the ...
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Could not silica aerogel dramatically increase the atmospheric pressure on Mars?
In the NASA article Want to Colonize Mars ? Aerogel Could Help a study about the potential of aerogel as a building material on Mars is reviewed.
In an experiment 2-3 centimeters of silica aerogel ...
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How do you mine water on Mars?
Water is required for human explorers of Mars and it is also widely expected to be used to synthesize methane rocket fuel for the return trip (by combining the water with CO2 and energy to create ...
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How does water respond in 0g?
I'm imagining a small orb magnetically suspended inside a sphere of any paryicular size floating in 0g.
What would happen if you rotated the orb at a high/varied velocity?
And what if you change the ...
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What would happen in this cavern on the Moon?
Imagine a large cavern on the moon, around the theoretical size limit determined by Purdue university - about 1.5 kilometers high, and 5 kilometers across on the floor. This cavern is a kilometer or ...
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Can/should you swim in zero G?
Inspired by Are there types of animals that can't make the trip to space? (physiologically) and related to but not a duplicate of Can you swim in space?
Swimming on the Moon / in low gravity looks ...
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What is the difference between an astronaut in the ISS and a freediver in perfect neutral buoyancy?
For example, does the blood of the freediver accumulates in his/her head while being upside down, as it would on land, or not, as it would in microgravity environment ?
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How did the Apollo survival kit desalter work?
According to the Apollo Experience Report: Crew Provisions and Equipment Subsystem, NASA Tech Note D-6737, p. 29, the survival kit in the Apollo command module had a means to remove the salt from ...
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Could the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere of Venus be heated enough by concentrated sunlight to create water and oxygen?
The atmospheric pressure and temperature at about 50 to 60 km above the surface of Venus is nearly the same as that of the Earth, making its upper atmosphere the most Earth-like area in the Solar ...
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How radioactive might the Moon's surface water be? Could it be unsafe to drink?
NASA Chief Scientist Jim Greene asks:
Can we go (to the Moon) and drink the water?
The source of the water in this case would be ice deposits to be found in permanently shaded areas on the Moon.
...
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Are there any possible methods for keeping surface water on Mars?
I've been reading this wikipedia article on terraforming Mars. One of the major issues with terraforming Mars is essential molecules and elements escaping the planet. There have been several ...
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