shynung

@JebKeb That would mean you're taking energy from the garbage, not the air. Essentially, you're taking a source of carbon (garbage), a source of water, and processing them into syngas, then into liquid hydrocarbons, which is then run through a standard hydrocarbon refinery processes to get fuels and chemicals usually produced by the petrochemical industry. Waste-to-Fuel system, if you will. The same tech as coal liquefaction, just with different feedstock (garbage rather than coal). Other than gasification, CO2 can be captured using scrubbers, which essentially absorbs CO2 that passed through it. This CO2 can later be extracted by running hot air through the scrubber. Also, if you insist to get the the CO2 from the air (to save the environment, say), it's generally a good idea to tap them at the sources: the exhaust flue gas from coal power stations, industrial furnaces, and the like.

It would also be a vulnerable weak spot. If the radiator is shot off, the wearer probably hasn't much time until they overheat.

If the air is dry, it's much more efficient to look for places where the air is more humid, rather than injecting water into the intake air. Also, what are the inputs and outputs? Only ambient atmosphere, or can it use other resources available nearby? What are the expected products?

@Nertea Very nice models, well done! How do you plan to release these parts? Piecemeal like NFT, or all at once?

I meant manned missions. The boots-and-flags kind.

Is building a fusion-powered rocket possible using late 1970s-early 1980s technology? I'm thinking of an alternate timeline where the US/USSR space race didn't end at the moon, but goes all the way to Saturn.

Any way to produce the new fuels (Deuterium, Tritium, Nuclear Salt Water) from anywhere other than the launch pad. Even if it's just an MM config to make the stock ISRU converter or the NFE nuclear fuel processor able to make them out of ore, that would be great. Though, antimatter particles are another story. IRL, we need a particle accelerator to make it. Even then, it takes a lot of power, and is horribly inefficient. On the other hand, antimatter particles are known to be trapped in the radiation belts of planets, due to the planetary magnetic field. A magnetic scoop could be used to gather these particles. So, maybe 2 specific parts for antimatter production: a particle-accelerator part that takes in a large amount of EC to make minuscule amounts of antimatter, and maybe a scoop part that takes in EC and produces antimatter when it is at a specific altitude above certain planets, most likely Eve, Kerbin, Jool, and Laythe. Those planets have atmosphere, which suggests that they have magnetic fields, without which their atmospheres would have been stripped off by Kerbol's solar wind. Karbonite and Karbonite+ mods made by RoverDude have implemented space scoops that collect fuel in this manner, so you may have to study their implementation. Well, that was a mouthful. If you prefer the easier route, just put an MM config that makes the stock lab part the antimatter factory; it makes sense if a high-tech space lab has a mini particle accelerator built in, and the ISRU converter looks more like an oil refinery rather than a particle accelerator.

@Nertea Nice work on the engines. I like it. Also, don't forget the ISRU aspect.

To be fair, TWR isn't much of an issue once orbit is achieved. As long as there's enough propellant, even using RCS thrusters to do the maneuver burns are feasible.

That would. But it can also reduce complexity, by allowing the main engines to remain fixed/gimbal-less.

What I was trying to say was: why not use these small engines to aid the larger main engine, maybe as verniers? They'll at least accelerate their own mass to avoid burdening the main engine.

And then having to carry what is essentially dead weight during launch? Much more efficient to use all engines during ascent, and only use the small ones for landing.

Diborane is nearly useless as far as rocket propellants go. Not only it doesn't release much energy on combustion, it deposits boron trioxide (B2O3) on pretty much any cool surface.

It should be okay if the boron doesn't encounter oxygen. Diborane is a gas at room temperature

John D. Clark, author of Ignition, once tested boron-based fuels, specifically diborane and pentaborane, and concluded that those are more trouble than they are worth. So much so that he wrote an entire chapter describing it. Long story short, combustion performance wasn't encouraging. Solid glassy deposits (B2O3) appeared on motor nozzles and throats.

Inside the mod ZIP file, there's the GameData folder (the mod folder) and the Extras folder. Inside the latter, there are 2 folders containing MM patches: NearFutureElectricalNTRs make the nuclear engines behave like NFE's reactors (in that you can turn it on and off, and its ISP depends on core temperature), while NTRsUseLF changes the nuclear engine propellants back to LiquidFuel (obviously.) Drag either folders into KSP's GameData folder to use the patches.

I don't expect this to be done overnight, so take your time. Also, maybe you can release them bit by bit. Start from the ones that takes the least headache to put together first, and kajigger the rest later.

I wouldn't expect Nertea to churn this sort of stuff by the hour. It's more of a long-term project. I'd definitely count on it being released, though, since the guy appears determined to make it into the pages of the Atomic Rockets. I'd say 'Far Future Technologies' would make a good pack name. Rhymes well for the current crop's 'Near Future Technologies'.

Is it possible to create a device able to project a blob of plasma carrying lethal amounts of energy in a controllable fashion? Or, in other words, is it possible to build a plasma gun?

With a good reason. NSWR is practically the closest design we have to a torch drive. Awfully simple one, too; there's no reactor of any sort, just a reaction chamber, injectors, and a nozzle. It works almost like a hypergolic chemical rocket, in that (nuclear) fuel and propellant is basically the same thing, and power output is adjusted by merely adjusting propellant throttle valve. In terms of game balance, yes, it's very far off the AWSM mark. I'd suggest giving it a quirk or two, like massive cooling requirements. Alternatively, a NSWR's propellant tank is basically a bundle of pipes coated with neutron absorbers, to keep the nuclear salt water from going off in the tank. This would mean the tanks have terrible full/empty mass ratio, because of the construction. Also, I'd say this would fit into a new pack filled with absolutely overpowered engines, filled with things like fission-fragment engines, magneto inertial fusion engines, antimatter engines, and the like. KSP Interstellar, basically, but with better models.

Somebody call Zubrin here. He'd be really proud.

I'll finish it when I have some time. Finals week right now. That, or somebody else would go in and solve it. Also, for anyone willing to pitch their brains in, the puzzle is finding out the energy requirements of an electric induction thermal rocket, using tungsten rods as induction-heated core, with ISP between 600-900 sec, and outputs 110 kN of thrust.

Depends on the propellant mix. In an LH2/LOX rocket, sometimes making the O/F ratio a little too rich, the net result is greater specific impulse. This is because there are unburned hydrogen gas in the exhaust, which are lighter than water. Given the same temperature and pressure, a lighter gas gives greater specific impulse. This is also the reason why some kerosene/LOX rockets run a little oxigen-rich; oxygen gas is lighter than CO2 or water. Actually, just before the nozzle throat is a component called the combustion chamber, where, as you guessed, the (chemical) propellant is injected and reacted. The dangerous part is when the fuel injected into the chamber doesn't ignite immediately, but collects in a puddle inside the chamber. When this puddle inevitably reacts, it doesn't make a clean burn, but rather an explosion that, if not disassemble the engine outright, would damage the engine. This is called a 'hard start'.

That depends on how much power you're able to pump into the induction heater, and the melting point of the fuel conduits. Math below. If my numbers look off, feel free to correct me. For an example, suppose I'm building an induction thermal rocket using the principles above, using fuel conduits made out of tungsten (melting point 3695 K) and liquid hydrogen as propellant. To keep the fuel conduits from actually melting, I'll set the thermostat at 3600 K. Let's suppose that I wanted the thrust to be comparable to an RL10, which produces 110 kN. Now what we have is an electrical thermal rocket that needs to raise the temperature of liquid hydrogen from 20 K to 3600 K, plus boiling it. This requires (28.55*3400) = 97070 J/g, or 97.07 kJ per gram, plus 0.895 kJ per gram needed to boil it, which works out to 97.965 kJ per gram of propellant. Now, we have hydrogen gas at 3600 K. I'll have to calculate internal kinetic energy from gas temperature, assume that the result is the exhaust velocity (100% nozzle efficiency, which is unreasonable, but gives us a theoretical maximum specific impulse), and calculate mass flow from desired thrust. Either I'll do it later, or the resident physicists at this forum can continue it.

I contacted Nertea via PM on that matter. Says it's part of a pack called 'Far Future' of something, going to bundle it up with things like NSWR. He's kinda busy right now, though, so it'll probably take some time before we see it up and about. EDIT: Didn't see Streetwind's response. Consider me ninja'd. EDIT 2: Didn't want to double post, so here we are. For close destinations like Venus or Mars, chemical rockets work just fine. The transfer vehicles are going to be bulky, sure, but not impossible to build.