65
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Is pinging the Moon with a laser as shown on "The Big Bang Theory" possible?
There is a very nice Myth Busters video about bouncing a laser off the Moon linked below.
To answer your question, current work is done with an array of corner cube reflectors on the Moon roughly 50 ...
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43
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Saturn V's external blueprints
Had a bit of a gander at what NASA Technical Report Server and Semantic Scholar had to offer and found a couple things that I reckon might be helpful.
NASA created a 1/10 scale model of the Saturn V ...
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36
votes
Is pinging the Moon with a laser as shown on "The Big Bang Theory" possible?
The University of Texas's McDonald Observatory performs laser measurements of the distance to the Moon using retroreflectors left by the Apollo astronauts.
You can read all about it in the McDonald ...
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29
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Where can I download the Soyuz Crew Operations Manual?
I can't recall where I got them from, so let me just re-host.
Crew-ops manual
Users manual
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28
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Saturn V's external blueprints
There's a more detailed profile drawing available for download at the bottom of this Heroic Relics page. Here's a representative slice:
It used to be possible to get an inexpensive print of a cleaned-...
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23
votes
Does anyone recognise this differential equation (from Gravity's Rainbow)?
Schachterle, Lance, and P. K. Aravind. "The three equations in Gravity's Rainbow." Pynchon Notes 46-49 (2000): 157-170.
Journal Link.
"In our view, Pynchon inscribes these equations into ...
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20
votes
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From which NASA publication originates/where can I find a higher resolution version of this SSME flow diagram?
It's on pdf pages 139-141 here: https://gandalfddi.z19.web.core.windows.net/Shuttle/SSME_MPS_Info/KSC-SSME_System_Eng_Handbook.pdf but you'll have to "glue" it together into one drawing. ...
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16
votes
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Delta V required to land and then ascend from the surface of every celestial body
Most search results I get for "solar system delta-v map" includes this information. I quite like this one:
To read out the ascent cost from these maps, you take the single number between ...
13
votes
Does anyone recognise this differential equation (from Gravity's Rainbow)?
Engelhardt, N. & Engelhardt, H., (2018) “The Momentum of Pynchon's Secret Formula: Gravity’s Rainbow’s Second Equation between Archival Sources and Fiction”, Orbit: A Journal of American ...
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13
votes
Accurate map of Ceres
NASA has produced a topographical features map of Ceres, with names for some craters. The map was produced in 2015.
This one has few more details,
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12
votes
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Resources for Rocket Propulsion
A good starting point would be this very site's rather comprehensive reference section, which contains many propulsion references:
Resources and references on the topic of space exploration
If you are ...
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9
votes
Earth to Mars (or reverse) Hohmann transfer orbits for the 21st Century
Graphics showing non-optimal but "close enough" launch opportunities, and their relative cost, are called porkchop plots.
The following example is from On the Nature of Earth-Mars Porkchop ...
9
votes
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How do I get the Landsat satellite's images of the Earth?
Head over to the USGS website, and find yourself their nifty Earth Explorer webapp. Figure out where & when you want to snag the imagery of (the tools they provide allow you to draw/designate an ...
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9
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Ariane 6 upper stage schematic showing integration of APU
I found a doctoral dissertation that discusses the possibility of increasing the thrust of the two nozzles (TAPUs) of the APU on Ariane 6's upper stage. The drawings in the dissertation when combined ...
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8
votes
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Returning from Space: Re-entry - from which book is this chapter taken?
Simply traveling the URL "upwards" you get this: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/cami/library/online_libraries/aerospace_medicine/tutorial/
It's an "online ...
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8
votes
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Accurate map of Ceres
The USGS Astrogeology Science Center's Astropedia is an excellent source for derived mapping data products (though only 7 Ceres products).
Here is a "Ceres Nomenclature" data product:
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8
votes
Are there any sources with high-confidence state vectors for GRAIL-A?
Partial answer too long for several comments:
tl;dr: The drift you are seeing is just as likely (if not more) to be a difference in your acceleration models as it is an "inaccuracy" (...
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7
votes
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Research paper on 'Wait calculation' for interstellar travel
@AnthonyX has found a paper that fits your description, published in JBIS. The paper's citation is:
Kennedy, Andrew. (2006). Interstellar Travel - The Wait Calculation and the Incentive Trap of ...
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7
votes
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Nickname and citation for famous, historic three-body spacecraft trajectory design "manual"; something like "DoKaRoMo"?
You are likely looking for "KoLoMaRo".
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~koon/book/KoLoMaRo_DMissionBk.pdf
Wang Sang Koon, Martin W. Lo, Jerrold E. Marsden and Shane D. Ross "Dynamical ...
6
votes
How to get started with CubeSats
Personal Suggestion - It's always best to learn by getting your hands dirty and since you are a student, do make an effort to start a Student Satellite Project in your college if it does not already ...
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6
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Technical historical books covering the Apollo-Saturn program
Chariots for Apollo NASA SP-4205 (1979) By Courtney G. Brooks, James M. Grimwood and Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. (web version) (pdf version)
Moonport NASA SP-4204 (1978) By Charles D. Benson and William ...
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6
votes
NASA design handbooks and specifications
A search on NASA NTRS for "design standards" turns up a lot...
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6
votes
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Is there an archive of the Satellite Times magazine from the mid-late 90s?
Is there an archive somewhere online? Maybe PDFs? I have tried browsing the web but with no luck.
https://worldradiohistory.com/Satellite-Times.htm
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6
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Is this a plot of Isp vs propellant mass fraction for a SSTO vehicle?
More precisely, this is a plot of the mass fraction required to achieve some target delta-v. As David Hammen points out, the curve seems to be a closer match to ~7.6 km/s, which would would be in the ...
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6
votes
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Depth to diameter ratio of impact craters
As one might expect, detailing the key geometric features of craters, including the slope angle of the walls, involves more than a few additional dimensional measurements. In real craters the walls ...
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6
votes
Did the Apollo program deliberately hire younger and less-experienced engineers and staff?
This question rests on two premises that are both questionable. First, that the early space program's engineers and functionaries were mostly young, and second that this was due to a deliberate ...
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5
votes
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A retracted paper about Chlorophyll on Mars?
Google searching for "carol stoker chlorophyll" found this Slashdot comment from April 2002 commenting on the controversy, particularly around a BBC article that described the situation in ...
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5
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Looking for a document that describes SSME test failures
2+ years later, I finally found the document. My stupidity in mistyping the document number, plus a really non-intuitive title on the document, are what kept me from finding it for so long.
The real ...
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5
votes
What kind of training did chimpanzees go through at the Chimp College?
Jerie Cobb was referring to research being performed at the Holloman Aero-Medical Center, at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
Most of the center's work was laboratory testing of ...
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5
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Suppose I wanted to compare TLEs to actual LEO satellite positions, what data is available? From which may it be easiest to extract X, Y, Z, T points?
One central distribution point for all the scientific missions and all the GNSS missions is the Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (CDDIS) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
The data are ...
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