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What If... Blood Fueled Rockets? I Am Not Joking...

Spacescifi

By Spacescifi
in Science & Spaceflight

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K^2

K^2

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Babylon 5 had "organic bio-ships", but they never got specific how they were powered or what kind of fuel they used... or if they used fuel at all for that matter.

I'm not sure it's been directly stated, but it has at least been implied that some of the most advanced civilizations have figured out how to make their drives reactionless. At that point, you're not looking at fuel so much as just a general source of energy for the ship. I don't think it was even speculated what the Vorlons, Shadows, and other "old ones" used for that, other than they all could produce absolutely immense amounts of it on demand.

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sevenperforce

sevenperforce

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, jimmymcgoochie said:
  1. [snip]
    Just why?

Because he doesn’t know the rocket equation, refuses to learn the equation, and thus fails to recognize that the only things contributing to the total deltaV of a vehicle are (a) the weight of all the crap in it that it intends to shoot out of the back, relate to its dry mass, and (b) how fast the crap gets shot out of the back.

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Nuke

Nuke

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, insert_name said:

in some of the later books there was a force powered sith ship, and jedi would use the force to guide  bombs as a stealth weapon

the words "star wars" and "literature" do not belong in the same sentance, but my sister's ex husband had a whole bookshelf full of star wars books. but there was a battletech book lost in the middle and i read that instead.

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kerbiloid

kerbiloid

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, Nuke said:

never underestimate the power of a good blood sacrifice in fiction.

Quote

in fiction.

In fiction?... O-okkay.
 

6 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

The average human adult has about 5-6 litres of blood in total,

Quote

human

So, only a human one? O-okay, made a note.
 

6 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

There are many more energy-dense biological substances you could have picked- ethanol

Rather easy to combine.
So, "an ethanol-rich human blood".
 

6 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Blood contains a lot of iron. Iron is heavy and will directly reduce ISP.

Iron can stick to magnets.
The blood can be used together with magnetic nozzles.
  

4 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

the only things contributing to the total deltaV of a vehicle are (a) the weight of all the crap in it that it intends to shoot out of the back, relate to its dry mass, and (b) how fast the crap gets shot out of the back.

Bloody crap engine? Sounds weird.... Though, probably we can use cattle manure instead.

***

This thread is full of brilliant ideas...

 

 

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RCgothic

RCgothic

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 12/9/2022 at 1:05 AM, Spacescifi said:

How well blood would be with a nuclear reactor I don't know.

Hard to overstate how BAD for a reactor - any conceivable reactor - this would be.

Reactors need cooling and protection from oxidising environments. Oxygen-carrying proteins don't like high temperatures or high radiation environments. The blood proteins would immediately denature and become useless, defeating the purpose of using blood in the first place. So it'd be useless at best.

Blood also contains lots of things that would stick to or oxidise fuel, degrading the fuel performance. Not the least of these being oxygen. These impurities would also get highly activated by the neutron flux and the blood coolant would become extremely radioactive, and make maintenance and access to machinery extremely problematic.

This is a very bad idea.

Edited by RCgothic
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Spacescifi

Spacescifi

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  • Author
Posted (edited)

Alright... I admit I goofed up here.

 

Still the concept of making your own propellabt aboard your vessel without having having to go SPEND propellant to get it sounds very attractive.

 

I suppose going growing s bunch of corn and harvesting it for ethanol could work. If far from the sun is it not possible to just use articial lighting to do photosynthesis?

 

You would still have to wait between harvests though if low on propellant.

Edited by Spacescifi
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Scotius

Scotius

Posted
Posted

Strictly speaking, you don't need corn. Any source of sugar for yeasts would suffice. Genetically engineered strain of Spirulina algae perhaps? But you still would need nutrients for algae.

Still, it's fantasy. Rocket equation says "No." to this whole idea.

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KSK

KSK

Posted
Posted

The problem is that your spacecraft is a closed system. Unless you plan to harvest resources in-situ, then any mass you expend as propellant is mass that you're carrying with you. It doesn't matter whether your propellant is a tank of hydrogen, bioethanol made from corn grown on board, or corncobs grown on board, wrapped in tinfoil and fired out of a linear accelerator.

If you're growing corn on a spacecraft then you'll be using up water, carbon dioxide and whatever other nutrients you're feeding it with. The increase in corn mass will be balanced by a decrease in water mass and carbon dioxide mass. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, if you'll excuse the corny joke.

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Shpaget

Shpaget

Posted
Posted (edited)

Laws of conservation of mass and energy are not laws in legal sense, where you can choose to break them. They are not suggestions, guidelines, proposals, nor are they optional. They are not prescriptive. They are descriptive. 

They are also ever-present. Why do you keep neglecting them?

Edited by Shpaget
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kerbiloid

kerbiloid

Posted
Posted

https://www.tumpik.com/tag/BLOOD IS FUEL

Quote

The haemotrope reactor is a one of those things (along with servitors) that reminds you just how baked in the cruelty of the Imperium is. The admech mixes the blood of martyrs into the fuel supply. I don't know if this is necessary for the function or just the admech deciding the machines needed a sacrifice to run well.

Spoiler

 

It works in WaHa, why  shouldn't for Kerbals?

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sevenperforce

sevenperforce

Posted
Posted
16 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

I suppose going growing s bunch of corn and harvesting it for ethanol could work. If far from the sun is it not possible to just use articial lighting to do photosynthesis?

You do realize that growing ANYTHING requires water, right?

And that if you have artificial light, you'd need a source of energy to produce that light, right?

And if you have water and a source of energy, you can use the energy to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, which is literally the most efficient possible chemical propellant?

I don't understand how you don't understand this. I really don't. How isn't this just incredibly obvious?

 

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MarcAbaddon

MarcAbaddon

Posted
Posted
On 12/10/2022 at 2:02 PM, Scotius said:

Strictly speaking, you don't need corn. Any source of sugar for yeasts would suffice. Genetically engineered strain of Spirulina algae perhaps? But you still would need nutrients for algae.

Still, it's fantasy. Rocket equation says "No." to this whole idea.

The reason it doesn't work is not rocket equation, which simply doesn't hold in certain situations, like if your rocket gets refueled in flight. 

The real problem is conservation of mass. Each g of mass you emit is lost to you.

Though it is worth noticing that a rocket is actually not a totally closed system. You can easily pick up some energy (mostly in the forms of photons) and less easily some mass.

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