I am not going to use the numbers you gave me because it is
my preference to do a problem in general; you can stick the numbers in. The speed of the space ship as seen by the
space station I will take as ,
the speed of the laser in both frames is c, the speed of the rocket in
the space ship frame I will take as
(Note that I assume that the space ship is
moving toward the space station; if it were moving away you would have
to replace β by
−β everywhere.)
The speed of the rocket in the space station frame is obtained from the
velocity addition formula:
.
In the space station frame, the distance which must be traveled I will take to be L (the distance to the ship when it fires. So it is now straightforward to calculate the times t (the time for the laser) and tR (the time for the rocket):
and
.
Next we find the times and
as seen by the space ship. Two things have to be taken into
consideration: the distance between the two is length-contracted,
,
and in the time
(or
) the space station moves up a distance
(or
) to “meet” the laser (or rocket). So, now,
;
and
.