Phenomenological analysis of K + -meson production in proton-nucleus collisions

= 0.8 and 2.9 GeV, coveringthe transition across the free nucleon-nucleon threshold at 1.58 GeV. No clear evidence for theexpected change of the dominant reaction mechanism from two-step to direct kaon productionis found. It is suggested that further data, in particular at forward angles, are taken in order toclarify the situation. It also is shown that, independent of the beam energy and emission angle,the invariant K