Unanswered Questions

2,217 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
21 votes
0 answers
596 views

Does the post Apollo 13 roast mixtape still exist?

The debriefing party at the Hofbraugarten was merciless, beginning with a parody of the mission. The tape prepared by the Apollo 13 backup crew and the CapComs was not for the thin-skinned. The parody ...
18 votes
0 answers
783 views

Have there ever been any incidents where something valuable was unintentionally thrown out with the trash?

In "What do astronauts do with their trash on the ISS?", a commentator asked the title question and was encouraged to make it a new question, but apparently never did. The linked question is ...
18 votes
0 answers
435 views

How did "the kid" (John Meisenheimer) calculate that there was a wave in the jet stream and Explorer 1 would be okay to launch?

The tough but timely question NASA at sIxty years, will there be a new moonshot mandate? links to the NASA YouTube video NASA 60th: How It All Began which shows a lot of really nice, historical file ...
18 votes
1 answer
850 views

Have astronauts ever used the helmet-to-helmet technique to talk to one another in vacuum?

Science Fiction has long written about this communication technique in vacuum: Astronauts touch their helmet against another astronaut's helmet, so that sound will transmit through that physical ...
14 votes
1 answer
707 views

28V vs. 124V on the ISS

Apparently the US segment of the ISS runs on 124v DC, while the Russian segment is on 28v DC. Why the difference? I understand it is often safer to have several different voltages rather than one, but ...
13 votes
0 answers
330 views

Does the SpaceX spacesuit address any of the criticisms of ACES raised by Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report?

A brief history of what Shuttle crews wore for ascent and entry, from the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report: The shuttle was originally designed to be operated in a shirtsleeve (bare-hands) ...
13 votes
1 answer
606 views

How much does the ISS "banana" or flex under the constantly changing conditions of solar heating?

This answer to Do antennae on the ISS have to constantly move to maintain data links? discusses some of the challenges precisely pointing an antenna mounted to the ISS exterior. While the ISSs orbit ...
13 votes
1 answer
405 views

Will Soyuz spacecraft be able to visit the Lunar Gateway?

I mean launch from Earth, dock to the gateway and come back.
12 votes
0 answers
290 views

Different Earth-centered ICRF positions in GMAT and Skyfield/Spiceypy with DE421

I compared the Earth-centered positions from the Moon in the ICRF (i.e., in GCRF) using three different sources: SpiceyPy (https://pypi.org/project/spiceypy/) Skyfield (https://rhodesmill.org/...
12 votes
0 answers
304 views

Which kinds of survival equipment does Crew Dragon have, in case of an emergency landing?

Soyuz spacecraft has various survival equipment for different cases of emergency landing. The cases include water landing, desert landing, snow winter landing (crews have special winter suits). They ...
12 votes
0 answers
431 views

What would be the disadvantages in Ingenuity accompanying Perseverance at a safe distance when the flight test program has been a success?

This answer to the question "How long could the Mars helicopter Ingenuity keep up with the Perseverance rover if it wanted to?" reasons that indeed it could for years ! But according to the ...
11 votes
0 answers
235 views

Does Crew Dragon have a quick-release hatch?

After today's Crew Dragon launch was scrubbed, it took the pad ninjas at least ten minutes to open the hatch. One of the major criticisms of the Apollo Block 1 hatch design after the Apollo 1 fire ...
11 votes
0 answers
462 views

Were there any launch vehicles with so heavily pronounced Plume Induced Flow Separation (PIFS), other than Saturn V?

This answer describes a very interesting phenomenon of Plume Induced Flow Separation on Saturn V vehicle. (Apollo-6 S68-29737 photo, courtesy NASA) This is, basically, when "fire" from ...
10 votes
0 answers
215 views

How well would a supersonic aircraft perform in the Martian atmosphere?

I started getting curious about this question during my Flight Test Engineering class. My professor was talking about a part of the International Standard Atmosphere that is a similar pressure to that ...
10 votes
0 answers
346 views

What's the shiny triangular feature on this Progress vehicle?

Picture from here What's the shiny, slightly curved triangular plate with rails above it? A larger version, cropped from here, thanks to a comment by ohsin.

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