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Date: Tue, 1 Dec 92 05:09:04
From: Space Digest maintainer <digests@isu.isunet.edu>
Reply-To: Space-request@isu.isunet.edu
Subject: Space Digest V15 #479
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk
Space Digest Tue, 1 Dec 92 Volume 15 : Issue 479
Today's Topics:
Astronaut's Experience with Soda (was re: Pop in Space)
Detonation vs Deflagration (was Re: Shuttle replacement)
Evil wicked flying bombs!
Shuttle replacement
Soyuz escape system (was: Re: Shuttle replacement)
What is the SSTO enabling technology?
Welcome to the Space Digest!! Please send your messages to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 30 Nov 92 23:07:25 GMT
From: Curtis Roelle <roelle@uars_mag.jhuapl.edu>
Subject: Astronaut's Experience with Soda (was re: Pop in Space)
Newsgroups: sci.space
jf41+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan R. Ferro) writes:
>torh@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Tor Houghton) writes:
>> If a blob of, say Coke, was floating weightlessly in space (inside a
>> spaceship - normal air pressure), would the "fizz bubbles" go from the
>> centre to all directions?
>Yes, the bubbles would have no preferred direction to escape towards in
>freefall IF they were to form in the center of the "blob", but it is
>more likely that no bubbles would form at all or only on the blob's
>surface.
One evening last spring I had dinner with Sam Durrance, payload
specialist for the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) on the ASTRO-1
shuttle mission. One of the many experiences from the flight he
related regarded consumption of a carbonated beverage in zero-g. I
shall attempt to repeat his description of the experience.
Buoyancy is the tendency something has to float when submerged in a
liquid. When one consumes a carbonated beverage at the earth's
surface, buoyancy will cause the bubbles of CO2 to rise to the
"surface" of the consumed liquid, and subsequently the gas manages to
escape. Without gravity there is no buoyancy and thus there is no
tendency for bubbles to be created, let alone to "float", and
therefore the CO2 remains trapped within the liquid. Sam described
the sensation as unusual..
Curt Roelle
roelle@sigi.jhuapl.edu
------------------------------
Date: 1 Dec 92 04:28:26 GMT
From: gawne@stsci.edu
Subject: Detonation vs Deflagration (was Re: Shuttle replacement)
Newsgroups: sci.space
In article <1992Nov30.232333.1@stsci.edu>, gawne@stsci.edu misspelled a word.
Aaakkk. That's detonation, not detovation. Sorry folks.
-Bill Gawne
------------------------------
Date: 1 Dec 92 05:16:03 GMT
From: "Simon E. Booth" <sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu>
Subject: Evil wicked flying bombs!
Newsgroups: sci.space
In article <MARTINC.92Nov28133233@hatteras.cs.unc.edu> martinc@hatteras.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin) writes:
>In article <1992Nov28.092941.14207@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>
>
> One thing that's being overlooked is that we've had fully-loaded bombers
> flying over our heads with megatons of nuclear firepower on board for years,
> and yet we worry more about the safety of the DC-series of spacecraft once
> they're in use.
>
>Just a quibble, but it's real damned hard to get a n-weapon to go off in
>a crash. This is a direct correlary of the fact that it's hard to get
>one to go off at all.
>--
Alright, I jumped the gun on that one. But I couldn't think of a better
response to the comments about the DC spacecraft crashing and blowing up
Disney World or other populated area near a spaceport.
But as I said in an earlier posting, we've lived with fully fueled jetliners
flying over large cities near airports. I don't see the safety problems of
the DC-series being any worse (this is not a flame!) Simon
------------------------------
Date: 1 Dec 92 04:55:11 GMT
From: "Michael V. Kent" <kentm@aix.rpi.edu>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space
In article <1992Nov30.223021.10237@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> rbw3q@helga9.acc.Virginia.EDU (Robert B. Whitehurst) writes:
> I'd be very surprised if the pad is "just" a support. One of
>the problems with the recent (test? use?) of an MX booster as a
>commercial launcher was severe acoustic loading due to its launch from
>an unimproved site. I think I read about it in AW&ST. At the least,
>I would expect a pad with exhaust diverters, water quenching, etc. to
>reduce similar loads on a DC (or any big rocket for that matter).
OSC's Taurus vehicle will use an MX stage as its first stage and has the
problems you describe, for its first launch. Thereafter the problems are
mitigated by using a Thiokol Castor 120 as the first stage.
Mike
--
Michael Kent kentm@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
"Interviewing during a recession is a lot like faking an orgasm. You have to
pretend you're interested all the while getting badly screwed." - Anonymous
Tute-Screwed Aero, Class of '92 Apple II Forever!
------------------------------
Date: 1 Dec 92 05:52:05 GMT
From: "Simon E. Booth" <sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu>
Subject: Soyuz escape system (was: Re: Shuttle replacement)
Newsgroups: sci.space
In article <84521@ut-emx.uucp> pam@astro.as.utexas.edu (Pawel Moskalik) writes:
>Soyuz DOES have an escape rocket. It was actually used once,
>when the rocket caught fire on the launch pad and then exploded (27 Sep 1983).
>Thanks to escape system both cosmonauts are alive today. One of them is
>right now in Houston, training for a shuttle mission next year (Vladimir Titov).
>
I read in James Oberg's book "Uncovering Soviet Disasters" that supposedly
the first manned launch abort was in 1975 involving a Soyuz launch. Apparently
the cosmonauts fired the escape rockets when the booster vehicle exploded after
lift-off. They rode to a rough landing but otherwise survived.
Simon
------------------------------
Date: 1 Dec 92 04:05:31 GMT
From: "Gregory N. Bond" <gnb@baby.bby.com.au>
Subject: What is the SSTO enabling technology?
Newsgroups: sci.space
My understanding is that an SSTO project has only just crossed the
line of possible, hence the interest in the DC-X & followon. What is
the main changing technology that makes an SSTO possible?
My rough reasoning says that fuels haven't basically changed, so the
push is to get sufficiently low dry mass to have useful payload mass
with "reasonable" mass ratios. (I.e. 100t of chemical fuel will be
enough to get (say) 1t into orbit, pretty much irrespective of the
technology. The trick is to make the machine weigh less than 1t to
give some payload.)
That implies structural material for airframe (spaceframe?) and/or
tankage is the driver. Am I right?
Other possibilities:
- lighter high-thrust engines? (I suspect most of the dry mass is
actually tankage and structurals, however.)
- New aerobraking/lifting body reentry profile? (Probably driven by
heatshield materials?)
- Avionics has improved _dramatically_, but I would think this is a
very small part of the mass.
Greg, attempting to get some _sci_ (or at least _eng_) back into sci.space!
--
Gregory Bond <gnb@bby.com.au> Burdett Buckeridge & Young Ltd Melbourne Australia
``There is Faith, Hope and Charity. But greater than these is Banking.'' - 1492
------------------------------
End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 479
------------------------------