The rocket-science tag has no wiki summary.
6
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6answers
851 views
What are the most realistic ways of high speed space propulsion?
Liquid and solid chemical fuels in rockets are very expensive and inefficient. I have heard of solar sails but what are the most realistic space travel fuels that will be used in the future to get ...
13
votes
2answers
1k views
What is the possibility of a railgun assisted orbital launch?
Basic facts: The world's deepest mine is 2.4 miles deep. Railguns can acheive a muzzle velocity of a projectile on the order of 7.5 km/s. The Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s.
It seems to me ...
3
votes
1answer
156 views
Nuclear Salt Water Rockets: viability and follow-up
This is the original paper by R. Zubrin proposing the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket design.
Basically the design is that a capillar set of pipes store a uranium salt-water solution, inside a cadmium ...
3
votes
1answer
225 views
How do I calculate the time it would take for a space craft launching from earth to reach another planet?
I am making a matlab program the my final project for my programming class in college. I have chosen this problem, but I am bashing my head against the wall trying to figure out the equations and how ...
1
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2answers
497 views
Difference between deltaV and specific impulse
When reading any literature regarding space propulsion, I keep getting about these terms deltaV and ISP or specific impulse. I know specific impulse is supposed to be the velocity the propellant mass ...
4
votes
2answers
236 views
How much thrust would be needed to turn a hobbyist weather balloon into a deep space probe?
I was reading the article Weather Balloon Space Probes that says you can put your own balloon probe at 65,000 ft temporarily.
Is it even remotely possible to raise the probe high enough using ...
4
votes
4answers
410 views
Why are there more vertical takeoff than horizontal for spacecrafts?
Vertical takeoff requires disposable rockets (would it a satellite rocket), which is a money loss, and also a lot of fuel, because initial velocity is zero. Also vertical takeoff seems risky, involves ...
3
votes
2answers
371 views
At what fraction of the speed of light have people traveled?
I'm guessing that, this would be someone in a rocket or something... When they hit their top speed, at what fraction of $c$ are they traveling?
1
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2answers
147 views
Get into orbit from the Redbull jump position to a satellite position by using a cord/rope?
Its difficult to put this into the title.
I was watching the Redbull Jump and noticed that the height of this is at 39 kilometres (24 mi) the atmosphere pressure is at I believe about 0.4% of that at ...
