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Real Life "Kerbalisms"


Lisias

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Oh yeah, fun fact about both the UR-700 and -900.

They were both rockets designed from the start to use hypergolic propellants. That means hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer.

I think that just the UR-700 is already of a similar size to the N-1, and then the UR-900 is even bigger still.

The reason the well-known, relatively cheap, and (when the guidance system is assembled correctly) pretty reliable Proton rocket is being phased out because it uses these extremely toxic hypergolic propellants in what we right now think is huge quantities. And then they wanted to build not one, but TWO significantly larger rockets, to potentially reach the moon, using those same extremely toxic propellants?

Yeah, I'd call that pretty dang Kerbal, and that's before you get to the fact that the UR-700 and -900 both look a lot like what would be commonly referred to as "Unititled Space Craft" tier mega-rockets.

It may not use nuclear physics in any meaningful way, but the environmental disaster that would be the failure of one of those rockets would probably make it the largest chemical disaster in known history, along with the largest non-nuclear explosion ever, at the same time.

The closest thing I can think of that the US did that competes with that on a similar scale is the relatively early attempts at using FLOX with hydrogen to get better specific impulse.
FLOX is just LOX with a large amount of Fluorine in it.
You know, Fluorine, the stuff that they put in toothpaste to make your teeth stronger. Seems harmless, right? WRONG!
Fluorine when combined with water, makes Hydrofluoric Acid. It's like hydrochloric acid, but since Fluorine is a better oxidizer than Chlorine (and Oxygen), it has more energetic reactions.
You know, like EATING THRU THE VERY GLASS VESSEL THAT YOU WERE USING TO TRY TO CONTAIN IT.
Naturally, most of the funding into research on how to use FLOX was spent figuring out how to keep the dang stuff from reacting with the sides of the propellant tanks, instead of with the hydrogen like you want it to.

As far as making an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle engine using FLOX oxidizer, I think you should just forget about it. Only thing worse than hot oxygen gas is hot Fluorine gas, and it's so much more reactive that it'll eat straight thru any of those fancy metal alloys you figured out that can pretty much handle hot oxygen gas. Heck, COLD fluorine gas will probably erode those special alloys, so hot fluorine will probably cut right thru it like you're using a (oxygen) cutting torch on plain steel.

The whole reason they tried to use FLOX with hydrogen in the first place was that it had higher performance than regular old hydrolox. Now, if you could just contain the blasted stuff...

IIRC you can in fact use this propellant combination in certain engines when playing KSP RSS/RO, provided you have the technologies unlocked. But you're probably better off researching a NTR engine that uses plain old hydrogen instead, as that has higher performance still, without all the headaches of containing the extremely reactive fluorine.

As far as research into using FLOX and something like RP-1, I'm not sure if there was any research into that, but I'm relatively certain that that particular proplellant combination is hypergolic thanks to the Fluorine component of FLOX.

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13 hours ago, SciMan said:

I think that just the UR-700 is already of a similar size to the N-1, and then the UR-900 is even bigger still.

Spoiler

r2miap.jpg

 

13 hours ago, SciMan said:

The reason the well-known, relatively cheap, and (when the guidance system is assembled correctly) pretty reliable Proton rocket is being phased out because it uses these extremely toxic hypergolic propellants in what we right now think is huge quantities. And then they wanted to build not one, but TWO significantly larger rockets, to potentially reach the moon, using those same extremely toxic propellants?

The reasons of the UR-700/900 construction were:

1. To unify it with Proton as much as possible, to use the same runnning machines for the tank production and handling.
So, when you need a lunar rocket, you just weld a longer sausage. When you don't, you weld the Proton which is required daily anyway.

2. To let it be transported by rails, without using of the river barges.

A twice heavier rocket than  Proton was UR-530, which (in its final design) consisted of central things of Proton and six first stages of UR-100N strapped around, with fuel components swapped,
Exactly for same reason, to use the mass-produced stuff as wide as possible.

13 hours ago, SciMan said:

It may not use nuclear physics in any meaningful way, but the environmental disaster that would be the failure of one of those rockets would probably make it the largest chemical disaster in known history, along with the largest non-nuclear explosion ever, at the same time.

The hydrazines explode much weaker than kerolox does, so it would be mostly a big fire rather than a kiloton explosion.

The most part of the propellants would burn in process, first together, then with oxygen of the air.

~70% of the propellant is N2O4, whose unburnt remains a day later would turn into nitric fertilizer like any other saltpeter, so next year a lot of grass would grow there.

So, several tens of tons of hydrazine could stay on ground, and this is just like if a big railway cistern was overturned without fire.

The apocaliptic aftermath of it is overestimated by rumors.

The most important reason of the UR-700 cancellation was that the developer was in conflict with the minister, and exactly after saying that UR-700 is "as reliable as Proton", the Proton failed on the launch, flied towards the commission bunker and exploded, making the government commission... impressed.

Edited by kerbiloid
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On 2/28/2022 at 11:14 PM, SciMan said:

As far as making an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle engine using FLOX oxidizer, I think you should just forget about it. Only thing worse than hot oxygen gas is hot Fluorine gas, and it's so much more reactive that it'll eat straight thru any of those fancy metal alloys you figured out that can pretty much handle hot oxygen gas.

Hence the ammonia-rich staged combustion on RD-301.

On 2/28/2022 at 11:14 PM, SciMan said:

Heck, COLD fluorine gas will probably erode those special alloys, so hot fluorine will probably cut right thru it like you're using a (oxygen) cutting torch on plain steel.

Everything would have to be passivated via fluorine exposure. That's the only way.

Same as how you store ClF3 and ClF5.

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On 2/28/2022 at 8:14 PM, SciMan said:

The reason the well-known, relatively cheap, and (when the guidance system is assembled correctly) pretty reliable Proton rocket is being phased out because it uses these extremely toxic hypergolic propellants in what we right now think is huge quantities. And then they wanted to build not one, but TWO significantly larger rockets, to potentially reach the moon, using those same extremely toxic propellants?

True Soviet engineering for you; make something great, but if it explodes, the world ends! If the UR-700/900 had really launched, the pressure on the people controlling the rocket would have actually given them a bent spine.

Edited by Second Hand Rocket Science
changed
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13 hours ago, Second Hand Rocket Science said:

True Soviet engineering for you; make something great, but if it explodes, the world ends!

A phone rings on the table of General Lominskyi, the head of the nuclear bomb design center in today's closed city of Snezhinsk.

"Georgy Pavlovich, there was a major explosion at the railway station in Chelyabinsk. Was that a car with your freight?"

"Is Chelyabinsk still around?"

"Yes."

"Then it's not one of ours."

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Texaco Doodlebug. Yep, this is a fuel tanker!!!

Someone at Texaco really loved his/her VW Bug!

Screen-Shot-2018-08-08-at-2.17.52-PM.png

Screen-Shot-2018-08-08-at-2.18.56-PM.png

Screen-Shot-2018-08-08-at-2.16.34-PM.png

Source: https://texacotankerproject.com/the-origin-of-the-streamlined-tankers-the-texaco-doodlebug/

 

Colorised version:

Texaco-Doodlebug-5.jpg

Source: https://estradao.estadao.com.br/caminhoes/texaco-criou-caminhao-futurista-doodlebug-em-1930/

Edited by Lisias
Hit "save" soo soon
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6 hours ago, Lisias said:

The OSI Silver Fox.

This thing reach 155MPH (~250 KM/h) using a 1.0 litre 4 cylinder engine. Not bad!

c7f9af5f2fef95502efab24659ac8473.jpg

902b5439087ac498e5daedb91a3f2585.jpg

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Source: https://www.carthrottle.com/post/a2m6lrj/

 

Does it moonlight as a catamaran? 
 

I guess the “wings” between the “pontoons” help with downforce; flip’em over and it might fly!

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