City in Orbit
An architecture firm envisions how to merge space and terrestrial construction by using an orbiting asteroid as the �foundation� for a megatall tower....
Space Truss
The International Space Station will be more than 310 ft (94 m) long when it is completed sometime in the next decade. The backbone of the structure is a hexagonal truss system that will...
GPS-Based Control for Space Vehicle Rendezvous
The recent advent of Differential Carrier Phase Global Position System (GPS) sensing has made it possible to determine relative positions of GPS receiver-equipped systems to less than...
Spacecraft Wall Design for Orbital Debris Impact
This paper describes a method for obtaining the optimal rise angle of corrugated bumpers for the design of space structures in the event of an on-orbit impact. The procedure determines...
Construction Operations on the OUTPOST Platform in Orbit
GLOBAL OUTPOST, Inc., with significant NASA assistance, proposes to place an External Tank (ET) of the space shuttle in orbit for commercial purposes. The OUTPOST Platform is designed...
Interactions Between the Space Station Freedom Attitude Control System and Space Shuttle Remote Manipulator Controller During On-Orbit Assembly Operations
This paper presents the results of dynamics and control interaction analyses involving the Space Shuttle Orbiter, the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), and the Space Station Freedom...
Microgravity Research in a Space Station Environment
A broad class of scientific experiments have evolved which utilize extreme low acceleration environments. A space station can provide such a `microgravity' environment, in conjunction...
Zero-Gravity Sports Centers
One of the uses that has been proposed for fully reusable launch vehicles is `space tourism', the making of short visits to low Earth orbit by fare-paying passengers. This seems to offer...
Update of the Implications of Recent Space Resource Discovery
Immense resources have been discovered in the space near Earth during the last decade. Last August, 1992, one of the resource objects was discovered to contain a key ingredient that might...
Potential demand for passenger travel to orbit
In recent years the possibility of `space tourism', that is individual passenger travel to space on a commercial basis, has received increasing attention. The possibility of such an activity...
Modeling of Interaction of Small Particulates in Earth Orbit
The hazards posed by small debris is an area of increasing concern for all space systems. Depending on the size and relative encounter velocity of small particulates, there are a variety...
Integrated Spacecraft Environments Model (ISEM)
Capabilities of the ISEM code are presented that can aid in the understanding of the complex interactions between a space system and the ambient environment. The development of ISEM has...
Overview of Space Environmental Effects
The natural environment for low Earth orbit subjects satellites to various forms of damage, ranging from particulate impacts, ultraviolet light, atomic oxygen erosion and charged particle...
A Comparison of Propulsion Systems for Space Exploration
There are three promising propulsion systems that might be used for space missions: chemical, direct nuclear, and nuclear electric. Selecting the best system for a mission involves comparing...
A Space Station of Mars
While we are putting stations on the moon and in orbit in this fast changing world of growing scientific knowledge we must look past the step we are currently on to the steps beyond. The...
Solar Power Satellites
Earth's fossil fuel supply is dropping quickly. A new power source must be developed to save the remaining fuel and control pollution output. Solar power satellites are large satellites...
Space Stations Past, Present, and Future
The paper discusses the evolution, present state and future of space stations. Man's interest in the stars led to many inventions and the ultimate launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik,...
A Minimum Mars Mission Approach
The purpose of this paper is to identify the mission architecture required to perform a human exploration mission to Mars using a minimum amount of resources. This mission will send three...
An Inflatable Antenna for Space-Based Low-Frequency Radio Astronomy
Antennas for a low-frequency orbiting radio telescope must have minimal problems in deployment, a directional beam, and a wide-angle scanning capability. Inflatable antennas with deposited...
Low Frequency Radio Astronomy from Earth or Lunar Orbit
Acquiring data at low frequencies is complicated by the fact that the ionosphere strongly disturbs the data, especially for high-resolution ground-based telescopes. The most viable observational...
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