Steel

Not at any temperature below a few trillion Kelvin, because of something called "colour confinement". Basically, because of the interesting (read very complex) way quarks interact, when you try to pull them apart it is more energetically favourable to form a new quark-antiquark pair than for a free quark to exist.

You'd just have a very large maser essentially

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser "Modern masers can be designed to generate electromagnetic waves at not only microwave frequencies but also radio and infrared frequencies"

You mean like this thing that we can already do with current technology? http://www.physics.uu.se/research/astronomy-and-space-physics/research/planets/exoplanet-atmospheres/

Sometimes you just have to marvel at how amazing technology is these days. Here we are, people from all over the world talking on an online forum about the facts that the live coverage of a rocket landing on a remote controlled ship in the middle of the Atlantic was a little patchy

Long story short: turbofans will only go up to about Mach 1. Velocity is much more important than height for a rocket and so the jets are not really worth the extra weight and (more importantly) complexity

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/164529-jet-powered-stage/&

So little is known about its design that it's very difficult even to guess.

With fuel you essentially just connect a pipe into the fuel system/truck and pump it into the plane. With a battery pack you have to transport them to and from where they're being charged (baring in mind they will probably mass about 50% of the total plane mass), ensure that they are being charged properly, inspect them for damage and deterioration e.t.c. That's before you get to the logistical headache of making sure you have charged batteries ready to go and in the correct place when required.

Contra-rotating props are nothing new, they've been around for a century or so by now. Also, there is nothing inherently special that allows electric propulsion to have contra-rotating props, you can just as easily do it with ICEs.

I mean... It might be 'possible', but considering the X-37 is unmanned the only internal space you have available is the payload bay with no life support systems (or windows for that matter). You'd basically ride to the moon in a large space coffin

I said weather patterns more from the point of view that, if there are regular formations, there is probably some specific weather pattern that happens regularly in the area that causes it.

Short answer: I'm sure there is, but I'm also sure it would be incredibly complicated. We're probably talking a PhD's worth of work to do it, since you're looking at weather patterns, fluid dynamics, hill geometry e.t.c

Welcome to the forums! That's a really nice summary, echoing what some of us have been saying earlier in the thread. Your project sounds really interesting (I wish there had been something like this at mine when I was there) do you mind if I ask what university you are a part of?

Yeah sorry, one of your quotes snuck it's way in some how!

My question, how do you persuade so many people to go? Obviously the whole pioneer thing appeals to some, but for that many people to go there has to be a tangible benefit

Yeah fair point. So assuming the engine was designed by a sane person in the first place such that it is sonic in the throat region, reducing the throat area will decrease mass flow rate.

It is not that toxic, but it is potentially highly explosive when concentrated. It decomposes exothermically (releases a lot of heat), so if it's not treated with care it can suddenly explode without much of a warning

My point was that, keeping all the rest of it the same (i.e exit area, chamber size e.t.c) reducing the size of the throat of an engine would decrease mass flow rate.

You could try, but as you say, you start running into material problems because increasing chamber pressure usually necessitates an increase in temperature too. My guess would be that any mass savings in the nozzle would be at the very least cancelled out by the increase in mass of the chamber, if not exceeded by it.

Reducing the throat area reduces mass flow rate and thus thrust.

Roughly, but there are a lot of other factors that go into it, so a linear scale will not always be true. For example, the Merlin 1D vacuum nozzle is the same size as the entire standard Merlin 1D engine and nozzle put together, but the M1D and M1DVac have almost identical mass flow rates. Thickness is down to aerodynamics and cooling requirements. So an ablatively cooled vacuum nozzle will be very thin, while a regeneratively cooled sea level nozzle will be much appreciated thicker

So, basically for any engine you will have a target area ratio (area of the throat Vs area of the nozzle exit) which will be decided based on how much ISP you require and how heavy can allow the nozzle to be. The area ratio then determines the length and radius of the nozzle, since the exit radius is related to the length.

Are we talking about the nozzle specifically or about the general dimensions of the rocket as a whole (one chamber size, throat area, e.t.c)