List of new propulsion systems

[KeranoKerman]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

ClF3 WILL kill of every kerbal that breathes in its vicinity, or stand in its vicinity.

It will also corrode every building in its sight.

No. Please don't add it as a stock fuel.

But I am totally fine with it as a mod.

Cough, Orion Drive, COUGH.

 

You got the facts right, though.

The main reason I like ClF3 is that it can give great efficiency while still being hypergolic. With everything. Great for reliability and classic KSP rocketing (turning engines on and off repeatedly).

P.S. : If they add terraforming, we could even use this to burn sand and rocks! Think of all the applications!

Edited September 2, 2019 by KeranoKerman
Better facts

[pschlik]

I’m of the thought that KSP LFO was always meant to represent RP1 KeralOx. (Sure it doesn’t perfectly match any fuel, but it’s pretty close to Kerosene and Oxygen) However, I have not heard the devs talking about any fuels outside of MethalOx and Metallic Hydrogen.

Im all for rebalancing the fuels to represent something real (with real names too) but Methane fuel has only gained traction recently which doesn’t fit in the style and performance of many of the KSP 1 engines. Also it’s not used as jet fuel. So...we’ll see, I guess.

[mcwaffles2003]

 

13 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I haven't done the actual maths, but it seems very unlikely metallic hydrogen engines provide enough delta v to mine metallic hydrogen from gas giants.

Once you're down at metallic hydrogen depths, you need something better than that to get out again. Ignoring the issues with developing pressure vessels to withstand the environment. Ifff it's metastable that's fine eventually, but the gas giant cores aren't relying on that.

So, you need a propulsion system more capable than mythical metallic hydrogen drives to get out again, simply because your energy source is the compression that caused it, and you'd be experiencing it.

The distances and gravity make a pipe or line unworkable for the same reasons space elevators are hard to build, but this would be much much worse. Trips for even sensor dones to gas giant cores are one way without some super science or magic.

 

 

would mining it out with a space elevator be unreasonable?

Edited September 2, 2019 by mcwaffles2003

[magnemoe]

14 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I haven't done the actual maths, but it seems very unlikely metallic hydrogen engines provide enough delta v to mine metallic hydrogen from gas giants.

Once you're down at metallic hydrogen depths, you need something better than that to get out again. Ignoring the issues with developing pressure vessels to withstand the environment. Ifff it's metastable that's fine eventually, but the gas giant cores aren't relying on that.

So, you need a propulsion system more capable than mythical metallic hydrogen drives to get out again, simply because your energy source is the compression that caused it, and you'd be experiencing it.

The distances and gravity make a pipe or line unworkable for the same reasons space elevators are hard to build, but this would be much much worse. Trips for even sensor dones to gas giant cores are one way without some super science or magic.

 

As I understand we manufacture metallic hydrogen. This adds an game play mechanic You can get in on Kerbin once technology is developed but while an base can mine and create fuel an oxidizer pretty easy, metallic hydrogen and the bombs for orion probably require an fully developed colony 

[magnemoe]

OK two types of metallic hydrogen engines, one uses reaction mass to cool engine, the other uses magnetic nozzles for higher ISP, I assume first is the high trust , second is high ISP low trust.
3 sizes of Orion drives, that one is new for me, we guessed two sizes from video.

 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

16 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

 

 

would mining it out with a space elevator be unreasonable?

Considering the absolute limits of materials we can theorise (but haven't made yet) are required for an earth elevator that does nothing except support itself, it's a non starter on planets that are larger. Especially when they are as much larger as saturn and jupiter.

Even if we assume a super material bound with something stronger than carbon-carbon chemical bonds, it would need to be orders of magnitude greater. And then it would need to contend with the atmosphere all the way down to the core. Including temperatures in the many thousands of kelvin ranges.

There's just so many ways for it to be torn apart, all working in scales that are hard to even imagine. Remember jupiter has a storm larger than the earth, with wind speeds above Mach 1(on earth, I'm not calculating the speed of sound in a hot, high pressure hydrogen and helium mix).  And then, presumably wrapping the metallic core would be many km of liquid hydrogen, at almost enough pressure to be metallic.

Gas giants just aren't messing around. They're very inhospitable. Mainly because all the numbers are massively bigger. A good example is orbital reentry speeds. Even though the upper atmosphere is thin and just hydrogen, hitting that at speeds like 30km/s is very destructive.

Anyway, to end this ted talk, if it's metastable, you manufacture it and store it. Naturally occurring stuff isn't accessible.

[Xd the great]

5 hours ago, magnemoe said:

OK two types of metallic hydrogen engines, one uses reaction mass to cool engine, the other uses magnetic nozzles for higher ISP, I assume first is the high trust , second is high ISP low trust.
3 sizes of Orion drives, that one is new for me, we guessed two sizes from video.

 

Magnetic confinemrnt sounds more plausible than metastable metallic hydrogen. Metallic hydrogen is just a bunch of protons and electrons clumped up together.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

2 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Magnetic confinemrnt sounds more plausible than metastable metallic hydrogen. Metallic hydrogen is just a bunch of protons and electrons clumped up together.

While you're correct in your description of the proton and electron soup that is metallic hydrogen, I think the star theory person meant the nozzle was magnetically confined, not the tankage.

[Xd the great]

3 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

While you're correct in your description of the proton and electron soup that is metallic hydrogen, I think the star theory person meant the nozzle was magnetically confined, not the tankage.

They should also make the tankage magnetically confined. Guess this would be downside of magnetic hydrogen.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Xd the great

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 minute ago, Xd the great said:

They should also make the tankage magnetically confined. Guess this would be downside of magnetic hydrogen.

While I'm skeptical that metallic hydrogen is generally going to keep being metallic once the pressure drops, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of electromagnetic field arrangement that could keep it without applying pressure physically. Whether you end up with more or less tank mass is another question, but for super conducting magnetic confinement there's a chance that it all makes sense. Throw in a macguffin or two, and I'm sold.

[DStaal]

48 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

While I'm skeptical that metallic hydrogen is generally going to keep being metallic once the pressure drops, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of electromagnetic field arrangement that could keep it without applying pressure physically. Whether you end up with more or less tank mass is another question, but for super conducting magnetic confinement there's a chance that it all makes sense. Throw in a macguffin or two, and I'm sold.

Far more realistic would be physical tanks that need to be kept cryogenic.  (Hmm.  The screenshot of the one one confirmed metallic hydrogen engine has quite a few radiators on the tank...)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

9 hours ago, DStaal said:

Far more realistic would be physical tanks that need to be kept cryogenic.  (Hmm.  The screenshot of the one one confirmed metallic hydrogen engine has quite a few radiators on the tank...)

Well, you need the low temperatures as well, so you only need the base 3.9 million atmospheres. But cryo alone will only get you regular liquid, and eventually solid, hydrogen. There needs to be some trick to keeping it metallic unless you aim for nano scale tankage. The good news is you can definitely count the tanks as pressure feed and not requiring ullage. But any copv issues would be earth shattering.

[DStaal]

26 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Well, you need the low temperatures as well, so you only need the base 3.9 million atmospheres. But cryo alone will only get you regular liquid, and eventually solid, hydrogen. There needs to be some trick to keeping it metallic unless you aim for nano scale tankage. The good news is you can definitely count the tanks as pressure feed and not requiring ullage. But any copv issues would be earth shattering.

Yeah, but I could easily see it being you can only keep it metastable at some reasonable pressure up to say 100 degrees K, and if you let it get past that you're going to have a very short bad day.

[kerbiloid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen#Lithium_alloying_reduces_requisite_pressure

Quote

In 2009, Zurek et al. predicted that the alloy LiH6
would be a stable metal at only one quarter of the pressure required to metallize hydrogen, and that similar effects should hold for alloys of type LiH_n and possibly "other alkali high-hydride systems", i.e. alloys of type XH_nwhere X is an alkali metal.^[16] This was later verified in AcH₈ and LaH₁₀ with Tc approaching 270K ^[17] leading to speculation that other compounds may even be stable at mere MPa pressures with room temperature superconductivity.

Upd.
So, the ISRU is anyway doomed to mine Lithium. Either to use together with D, or to produce Tritium and thus Helium-3, and here it's a must have for metallyc hydrogen storage.
And how to store Tritium if not as a LiT.
Batteries also need it.

Lanthanum is nice, too.

Edited September 5, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Superfluous J]

12 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

So, the ISRU is anyway doomed to mine Lithium.

Dilithium, most likely.

Warp drives confirmed ™

[GoldForest]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Dilithium, most likely.

Warp drives confirmed ™

I wish. I want at least warp 1 drives. But we'll have to leave it to modders because, "Magic tech" or "too far into the future."

One thing I would like to see that is actually being worked on right now and is theoretically possible: Impulse Engines. 

It's basically an array of fusion reactors hooked up to a magnetic nozzle which directs the energy. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/star-trek-fusion-impulse-engine-in-the-works/

[KerikBalm]

So you want to take specific fusion engine designs, and replace them with some generic, unspecified fusion engine design, named after a technobabble show?

Im not sure about that, but "impulse" engines operating on the principle of fusion is not magic tech on the face of it, so I don't object, unless t gets Epstein drive like qualities

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

So you want to take specific fusion engine designs, and replace them with some generic, unspecified fusion engine design, named after a technobabble show?

Im not sure about that, but "impulse" engines operating on the principle of fusion is not magic tech on the face of it, so I don't object, unless t gets Epstein drive like qualities

Impulse engines have a high thrust to weight ratio and their speed is fast. In Star Trek they are limited to 5% of C, but I feel that in KSP if the Daedalus drive is 12% of C than impulse engines should do around 20% of C, way faster too. Daedalus 4 years to reach max speed, impulse would be a few weeks to months.

[KerikBalm]

Speed limit isn't a real thing at these low C fractions. The difference between 20, 12, or 5% of C is just in fuel fraction/mass ratio.

*Edit* also sounds like you just want to handwave science to get a drive with the desired properties... Im not a fan of that

Edited September 6, 2019 by KerikBalm

[GoldForest]

3 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Speed limit isn't a real thing at these low C fractions. The difference between 20, 12, or 5% of C is just in fuel fraction/mass ratio.

*Edit* also sounds like you just want to handwave science to get a drive with the desired properties... Im not a fan of that

No,  I just feel like impulse engines should be in the game, and I also feel that it should be faster at acceleration than Daedalus or most engines. And I do know there's not a speed limit, the speed limits I mentioned are just for frame of reference. 

[nsgallup]

Save warp drives for mods

[GoldForest]

11 hours ago, nsgallup said:

Save warp drives for mods

We're not talking about warp drive.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

On 9/6/2019 at 1:43 PM, GoldForest said:

I wish. I want at least warp 1 drives. But we'll have to leave it to modders because, "Magic tech" or "too far into the future."

One thing I would like to see that is actually being worked on right now and is theoretically possible: Impulse Engines. 

It's basically an array of fusion reactors hooked up to a magnetic nozzle which directs the energy. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/star-trek-fusion-impulse-engine-in-the-works/

That's a z pinch fusion drive using deuterium, it's not a star trek impulse drive. The concept is basically the same as other pulsed fusion systems, except the z pinch system may allow smaller devices. It has all the same limits, plus the "we don't know if it works" features common to all fusion drives.

The expectation, if it works, is about twice the delta v as compared to a nerva based system. But with a lowish twr (not as low as ion, but lower than nerva).

[KerikBalm]

This is why I hate popular science writing. They can't even put in 2 words to clarify.

"Similar to" or "reminiscent of" would greatly improve the article. Heck, I'd accept putting a "like" in there.

[Jebster (Cog Counter)]

On 8/24/2019 at 12:07 AM, bartekkru99 said:

Inertial confinement fusion drive

Would that be some sort of hyper drive?