Advanced Earth-to-orbit propulsion technology program overview: Impact of civil space technology initiative

The NASA Earth-to-Orbit (ETO) Propulsion Technology Program is dedicated to advancing rocket engine technologies for the development of fully reusable engine systems that will enable space transportation systems to achieve low cost, routine access to space. The program addresses technology advancements in the areas of engine life extension/prediction, performance enhancements, reduced ground operations costs, and in-flight fault tolerant engine operations. The primary objective is to acquire increased knowledge and understanding of rocket engine chemical and physical processes in order to evolve more realistic analytical simulations of engine internal environments, to derive more accurate predictions of steady and unsteady loads, and using improved structural analyses, to more accurately predict component life and performance, and finally to identify and verify more durable advanced design concepts. In addition, efforts were focused on engine diagnostic needs and advances that would allow integrated health monitoring systems to be developed for enhanced maintainability, automated servicing, inspection, and checkout, and ultimately, in-flight fault tolerant engine operations

A Possible Solution to the Tritium Endpoint Problem

Scalar or right-chiral interaction currents may be expected to produce a neutrino coupled to the electron which is different from, and perhaps even orthogonal to, that coupled to the electron by the standard model weak interaction. We show that, using reasonable parameter values for such additional interactions, it is possible to generate a spectrum which, if analyzed in the manner commonly employed by experimental groups, produces a negative neutrino mass-squared.Comment: LaTeX, 7 pages, 1 Postscript figure, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Quark Model Calculations Of Symmetry Breaking in Parton Distributions

Using a quark model, we calculate symmetry breaking effects in the valence quark distributions of the nucleon. In particular, we examine the breaking of the quark model SU(4) symmetry by color magnetic effects, and find that color magnetism provides an explanation for deviation of the ratio $d_V(x)/u_V(x)$ from $1/2$. Additionally, we calculate the effect of charge symmetry breaking in the valence quark distributions of the proton and neutron and find, in contrast to other authors, that the effect is too small to be seen experimentally.Comment: 6 Pages, 3 postscript figures compressed using uufile