🧵 What are some (not entirely sci-fiish) paths to more efficient rocket fuel are there?
Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jun 2024 23:08:21 UTC No. 16225720
I bet we can agree that fuel is the most annoying part of even the most advanced of the modern space vehicles.
You blow the fuel up controllably making a huge mess, but worst of all, the ratio of fuel per kilo lifted is so bad, that the whole thing is not just inelegant, but stupidly expensive.
Is there hope?
Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jun 2024 23:11:22 UTC No. 16225730
>>16225720
Nope. The rocket equation admits no exceptions.
SkyHook just fucked your mom, you're welcome at Sun, 9 Jun 2024 23:13:37 UTC No. 16225735
>>16225720
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyho
Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jun 2024 23:13:41 UTC No. 16225736
Anonymous at Sun, 9 Jun 2024 23:21:10 UTC No. 16225753
>>16225735
Doomed to obscurity because the idea is not viscerally cool and only nerds understand how it works
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:25:17 UTC No. 16225858
>>16225720
hydrolox is clean. methalox is pretty clean too. You're not going to get any cleaner, more elegant or more efficient than these. if you want to do better you need to look past chemical rockets into the realm of sci-fi, e.g. space elevators.
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 06:42:30 UTC No. 16226315
>>16225720
>Is there hope?
We can do some sci-fi, purely for fun:
Giant stratospheric airships, the size of small cities, could hover at great height at the edge of the stratosphere, like floating ultra-high altitude platforms, where cranes mounted at their edges, or on the edges of holes designed through the airship structure, would slowly and efficiently hoist parts and materials up to the top of the said airships.
We would there assemble rockets that would avoid climbing all that altitude and spare quite a bit of their fuel payload already.
Needless to say, all of this would require fantastical engineering and materials that do not yet exist.
Again, this isn't science, it's sci-fi, so this blurs the lines between /sci/ and /lit/, but since you asked, play with that idea.
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 06:46:12 UTC No. 16226317
>>16226315
me again
>cranes mounted at their edges
or float the airships lower and fly parts there with ultra-high capacity airplanes. One gathered, we could raise the airships further up for launch events..
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 06:47:13 UTC No. 16226318
>>16226317
>Once gathered
typo
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 09:37:16 UTC No. 16226515
>>16225730
beam propulsions chads escapes the tyranny of rocket equation
B00T at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 09:39:42 UTC No. 16226518
>>16226515
It's only been 7 hours, homos.
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Jun 2024 19:59:29 UTC No. 16227312
>>16225720
>>16225735
>maglev to 550 knots
>laser ablation of block of hydrogen ice in tail to Mach 20
>final acceleration and circularization done by skyhook
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Jun 2024 03:28:51 UTC No. 16227879
>>16226315
a space fountain would make more sense
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Jun 2024 03:29:52 UTC No. 16227882
>>16225720
Yeah maybe a closed cycle gas core ntp
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Jun 2024 06:12:25 UTC No. 16228031
>>16225720
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz5
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Jun 2024 06:14:44 UTC No. 16228032
>>16225720
We already have them. They're just incredibly toxic
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Jun 2024 06:37:29 UTC No. 16228044
>>16225720
solve rapid reusability and rocket fuel will be much less of an issue.