New answers tagged design-alternative
6
votes
Accepted
Would it make sense to compress air around a bell nozzle during booster ascent?
This would just increase drag, as the compressed/redirected air stream only interacts with the exhaust after both have stopped interacting with the vehicle. It may technically delay expansion, but can ...
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3
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Can Solid Rockets (Aluminum-Ice) have an advantage when designing light space-tug for LEO?
Others have pointed out the problems with performance of the solid propellant itself, but there are also logistical issues with actually applying that propellant to the problem of accelerating your ...
- 9,244
10
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Sending a Soyuz ship interplanetary - a plausible option?
While the stock Soyuz capsule has a huge range of issues with long range use (life support, power, radiation shielding, communications etc) a clear cut issue with:
The Soyuz spacecraft itself must ...
- 19.1k
5
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Can Solid Rockets (Aluminum-Ice) have an advantage when designing light space-tug for LEO?
The answer here by Organic Marble explains the ISP math. This is a supporting answer on why the ISPs are different. High ISP comes from high exhaust velocity, and getting that is easiest with lighter ...
- 19.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Can Solid Rockets (Aluminum-Ice) have an advantage when designing light space-tug for LEO?
The rocket equation tells us that solid rocket boosters are at a great disadvantage in this sort of comparison.
$$ \Delta v = I_{sp} \ g_0 \ \ln\left(\frac{m_0}{m_f}\right) $$
Let's make up some ...
- 171k
7
votes
Accepted
Why is insulation used in spacecraft thermal control?
First. Keep in mind that temperature is a measurement of the kinetic energy of the particles in the environment. This means that despite the high temperature, the particle density in space is so low ...
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