An external fuel tank manufactured to propel explorers and equipment into space was tilted toward the heavens via a different mechanism Friday morning but fell one step short of mission accomplished.
Space Exploration
Jan 15, 2024
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2
Astronauts will have to wait until next year before flying to the moon and at least two years before landing on it, under the latest round of delays announced by NASA on Tuesday.
Space Exploration
Jan 9, 2024
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17
A large section of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger has been found buried in sand at the bottom of the Atlantic, more than three decades after the tragedy that killed a schoolteacher and six others.
Space Exploration
Nov 10, 2022
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162
When we think about the Arctic, most of us think of a snow-covered barren landscape and vast stretches of icy ocean. This is far from the reality of the Canadian Arctic today. With approximately 150,000 people calling it ...
Environment
May 9, 2022
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Thawing Arctic permafrost laden with billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases not only threatens the region's critical infrastructure but life across the planet, according a comprehensive scientific review.
Environment
Jan 12, 2022
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The world's largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life.
Astronomy
Dec 25, 2021
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394
Early massive galaxies—those that formed in the 3 billion years following the Big Bang—should have contained large amounts of cold hydrogen gas, the fuel required to make stars. But scientists observing the early universe ...
Astronomy
Sep 22, 2021
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347
NASA completed an engine test firing of its moon rocket Thursday, after the first attempt in January ended prematurely.
Space Exploration
Mar 19, 2021
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162
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama announced plans Tuesday to restore the world's only full-sized mockup of a space shuttle coupled with an external fuel tank and twin rocket boosters.
Space Exploration
Jan 20, 2021
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13
Liquids aren't as well behaved in space as they are on Earth. Inside a spacecraft, microgravity allows liquids to freely slosh and float about.
Space Exploration
Nov 12, 2020
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A fuel tank is safe container for flammable liquids and typically part of an engine system in which the fuel is stored and propelled (fuel pump) or released (pressurized gas) into an engine. Fuel tanks range in size and complexity from the small plastic tank of a butane lighter to the multi-chambered cryogenic Space Shuttle external tank.
Typically, a fuel tank must allow or provide the following:
Plastic (HDPE) as a fuel tank material of construction, while functionally viable in the short term there is a long term potential for the container to become staturated as fuels such as diesel and gasoline are able to permeate the HDPE material.
Considering the inertia and kinetic energy of transported fuel in a plastic tank being transported by a vehicle, stress cracking is a definite potential. Add stress cracking to the flammable nature of a fuel being transported and you have what should be an important safety consideration of a potential catostrophic failure nature. Emergencies aside HDPE plastic is suitable for short term storage of diesel and gasoline. Underwriters Laboratories approved (UL 142) tanks would be a minimum design consideration.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
