Inconceivable Rocket Fuels [Given Up Development]

[FreeThinker]

35 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I'm after anything that burns. Whether it be smart or not. 

Oh, in that case, if  you want to use something realy crazy that burns realy well, why not use Fluorite instead of Oxygen? it is the strongest oxidiser  and is more dence than oxygen. THe only problem is that it tends to explode and combust everything. Jeb would definatly approve

Edited February 29, 2016 by FreeThinker

[ZooNamedGames]

23 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Oh, in that case, if  you want to use something realy crazy that burns realy well, why not use Fluorite instead of Oxygen? it is the strongest oxidiser  and is more dence than oxygen. THe only problem is that it tends to explode and combust everything. Jeb would definatly approve

Good idea! I'll work on that in a later release.

 

Also expect version 0.1 by 8:30pm EST.

[FreeThinker]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Good idea! I'll work on that in a later release.

 

Also expect version 0.1 by 8:30pm EST.

Good, just make sure you use the CRP resource, because I defined it for KSPI-E

[nobodyhasthis2]

On 2/27/2016 at 9:37 PM, Sudragon said:

Has someone been watching Mythbusters? 

 

On 2/28/2016 at 2:09 AM, ZooNamedGames said:

Yeah... I saw their most recent episode... but tbh I have been wanting this for a long time.

Then perhaps you need reminded of the salami + NOX?

Edited February 29, 2016 by nobodyhasthis2

[Zhetaan]

Iron filings and LOx (hybrid rockets!).

Sawdust.

Flour.

Shredded old tyres (for long burn times!).

For monopropellant, steam.  Larry Niven and co. used steam attitude thrusters on the Michael in Footfall.

Coal or wood (and water for the boiler that's making steam).

[KaptnKiwi]

Add pentaborane as an option for a nice green toxic exhaust plume

[ZooNamedGames]

25 minutes ago, Zhetaan said:

Iron filings and LOx (hybrid rockets!).

Sawdust.

Flour.

Shredded old tyres (for long burn times!).

For monopropellant, steam.  Larry Niven and co. used steam attitude thrusters on the Michael in Footfall.

Coal or wood (and water for the boiler that's making steam).

All of these are ingenious! Consider them made!

25 minutes ago, KaptnKiwi said:

Add pentaborane as an option for a nice green toxic exhaust plume

I'll look into it.

[legoclone09]

57 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I'll look into it.

By the way, Pentaborane is already in RF, the RD-some three numbers here-P uses it.

[ZooNamedGames]

44 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

By the way, Pentaborane is already in RF, the RD-some three numbers here-P uses it.

Ah, then I'll skip that.

[FreeThinker]

Technically, Beer can also be used as rocket propulsion

 

Quote

{ Beer }

• 
  Artwork by Ed Emshwiller
• 
  Artwork by Ed Emshwiller

Beer
Thrust Power	8 × 10-8 GW
Exhaust velocity	83 m/s
Thrust	84 n
T/W >1.0	no

In The Makeshift Rocket (also known as A Bicycle Built for Brew), the old geezer cobbles together a crude rocket out of hogs-heads of pressurized beer in order to escape to an adjacent asteroid.

(ed note: I asked Rob Davidoff for an estimate of the performance of beer.)

Thrust = velocity * mass_flow

Assume we model the system as the fluid starting from stagnation (V-o = 0) under pressure P_o and accelerating to a vacuum pressure P_2 = 0 at velocity v_1. We can then employ Bernoulli's equation, which says the following once we knock out some irrelevant terms:

P_o = 0.5 * rho * (V_1)²

Solve for V_1:

V_1 = sqrt( 2 * P_o / rho)

So, what's a reasonable pressure? Sheesh, I dunno. A standard fuel-driven rocket engine operates at about 35 atm for a very low-pressure combustion, let's try that. Using the density of water (1000 kg/m³), I get...84 m/s. I_sp of 8.5 seconds or so. The thrust will be this times the mass flow, so 1 kg/s would give 84 Newtons.

Is this any use? It's pretty crappy, but maybe it's good enough. Say he needs, oh, 150 m/s. That's a mass ratio of 6, which isn't terrible. To lift off from an asteroid, you basically need a T/W of anything non-zero, so it's workable. Of course, keeping beer pressurized to 35 atmospheres was the starting assumption, any maybe that was a little high.

However, the big issue is the density of the beer. Substitute in an air-like gas with a density of 1.4 kg/m² instead of 1000, and you get to an I_sp of ~220s, instead of 8. That's a lot more like it.

 

[ZooNamedGames]

31 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Technically, Beer can also be used as rocket propulsion

 

 

Noted.

[Daeridanii]

Why don't you use ping pong balls? Their plastic is actually highly flammable!

Oh, and about gasoline. The most powerful single-chambered rocket engine ever built, the F-1, ran off of RP-1 and oxidizer. RP-1 is refined petroleum, aka gasoline! Never doubt the power of decayed carboniferous creatures!

[Kerbart]

8 minutes ago, Daeridanii said:

Oh, and about gasoline. The most powerful single-chambered rocket engine ever built, the F-1, ran off of RP-1 and oxidizer. RP-1 is refined petroleum, aka gasoline! Never doubt the power of decayed carboniferous creatures!

I think you're in a spectacular wrong place to claim that RP-1 is gasoline. It's kerosine (jet fuel). A bit heavier, less volatile and flammable than gasoline. Your car won't run very well on it (if it normally runs on regular gasoline that is)

[Gazpachian]

So this just made the rounds on reddit. While the elephants per second is way off I think they may be on to something...

 

No idea on how to implement elephants flying out the rear easily, either you'd heavily tweak the plume config or make it a part mod for a medusa/orion drive. As a simpler to implement solution I guess decomposed elephants would work fine as fuel, sort of like burning an ethanol/oxygen mix. Not fantastic specific impulse, but knowing you rid the world of 24 african elephant bulls on your first stage would be totally worth it! One fuel unit would weigh in at about 3500kg and take up plenty of space!

 

Also, ivory fuel tanks while we're at it, would be a shame to let any part of the animal go to waste.

 

Also, the fuel would of course be crazy expensive with elephants being an endangered species.

 

Also, I actually like elephants, but it would still be a fun addition to the mod!

[ZooNamedGames]

1 hour ago, Gazpachian said:

So this just made the rounds on reddit. While the elephants per second is way off I think they may be on to something...

 

No idea on how to implement elephants flying out the rear easily, either you'd heavily tweak the plume config or make it a part mod for a medusa/orion drive. As a simpler to implement solution I guess decomposed elephants would work fine as fuel, sort of like burning an ethanol/oxygen mix. Not fantastic specific impulse, but knowing you rid the world of 24 african elephant bulls on your first stage would be totally worth it! One fuel unit would weigh in at about 3500kg and take up plenty of space!

 

Also, ivory fuel tanks while we're at it, would be a shame to let any part of the animal go to waste.

 

Also, the fuel would of course be crazy expensive with elephants being an endangered species.

 

Also, I actually like elephants, but it would still be a fun addition to the mod!

It's going to be a harder idea, but it's interesting nonetheless.

In other news, I am finally attempting this mod. It is turning out to be an ungodly mess.

[ZooNamedGames]

And just as quickly as I started I give up. This just doesn't make sense to me.

[FreeThinker]

Well Elephans mainly consist out of water, so why not use water as a rocket propellant. Now add some presurised air and you got yourself a water rocket.

[Gazpachian]

8 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

And just as quickly as I started I give up. This just doesn't make sense to me.

Put your current work up on github and you may get some collaboration, there's clearly some interest in getting this show off the road!

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Well Elephans mainly consist out of water, so why not use water as a rocket propellant. Now add some presurised air and you got yourself a water rocket.

I mean, biological processes during decomposition would turn a lot of the elephant into methane and other gaseous bi-products, so assuming you let the decomposition happen in the tank you'd end up with water in a pressurized environment automatically! They are of course also viable for ISRU in certain biomes.

[ZooNamedGames]

2 hours ago, Gazpachian said:

Put your current work up on github and you may get some collaboration, there's clearly some interest in getting this show off the road!

Sadly there's not much to provide since all I have are a few short, likely broken .cfgs, and that's it.

I know there's interest and I want to make this, but I'm struggling to learn and I'm also working with a lack of proper resources, such as models.