MDPI has already published two related journals, Children [...]

In this section, we examine the space launch needs of U.S. military, civil, and commercial space sectors. The potential development and operating costs for a small fleet of military TAVs are reviewed and compared with the costs associated with a small expendable launch vehicle. The potential development costs for commercial RLVs are also briefly reviewed. Next, we examine U.S. launch policy and...

Firms might not launch a next generation product as soon as a more efficient technology or a better product design is ready. We use a stylized model to analyze firms’ product launch and upgrade decisions in an incumbent-vs-entrant setting. We find that large profit margins from the next generation product alone do not provide the entrant sufficient incentives to launch the next generation produ...

Many advances in electromagnetic (EM) railgun and power supply technology have been made in recent years. Laboratory experiments with railguns have demonstrated muzzle velocities of 2–3 km/s and muzzle energies 8 MJ. The extension of this technology to the muzzle velocities ( 7500 m/s) and energies ( 10 GJ) needed for the direct launch of payloads into orbit is very challenging, but may not be ...

The main limitation of existing computational tools for continuous system reachability problems is that, due to the exponential growth of the computation with the dimension of the continuous state space, the tools can be applied effectively to relatively low dimensional problems (typically 1-4 dimensions). In this paper we adopt a two time scale approach to extend the use of continuous system r...

The absence of other viable momentum sources for collimated flows leads to the likelihood that magnetic fields play a fundamental role in jet launch and/or collimation in astrophysical jets. To best understand the physics of jets, it is useful to distinguish between the launch region where the jet is accelerated and the larger scales where the jet propagates as a collimated structure. Observati...

This document specifies an application-level protocol (i.e., payload type) for application launch tools using the Real-Time Protocol for Distributed Interactive Media (RTP/I). RTP/I defines a standardized framing for the transmission of application data and provides protocol mechanisms that are universally needed for the class of distributed interactive media. An application launch tool is used...

The NASA Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) produced a transportation architecture for returning humans to the moon affordably and safely. ESAS determined that the best lunar exploration strategy was to separate the launch of crew from the launch of cargo, thereby requiring two launches per lunar mission. An alternate concept for the cargo launch vehicle is a side mounted Shuttle-der...