Fart Rockets?

[Tex]

So I was really impressed when I read the 17th Developer Insights thingy when at work a day or two ago. Particularly, one thought stuck out to me that I wanted to see if anybody else made the connection on.  With our familiar previously-unnamed Liquid Fuel now being Methane, and there being a whole upcoming class of engines using Methalox fuel, did anybody else, when they read that news, think:

Methane = farts

Fart rockets? Rockets powered by liquid fart? Because I think that's something Kerbals might do, but then again, that's just me...

Other thoughts about how having multiple types of fuels will affect the learning curve for the game?? 

[The Aziz]

If you put it that way, you suggest that people were using farts for cooking, heating their homes and transportation.

Why am I even here.

[jimmymcgoochie]

If you’re producing appreciable quantities of methane out of any orifice, you should seek urgent medical assistance.

The human digestive system is not a good place for methanogens- methane-producing microbes- which are far more common in ruminants with multiple stomachs (including cows) where the food is repeatedly digested to extract as much nutrition as possible from relatively poor food (grass); in those cases it’s actually methane belches that are the biggest issue, but the concentrations are still relatively low. You’ll get a lot more bio-methane out of composters and fermenters fed with food or farm waste than a field of cows.

Methane as rocket fuel is still (as of writing) in the “almost but not yet” category of rocket propellants, with a variety of rockets from different nations all under development but none having actually flown to orbit as of yet. It’s a good choice for rocket fuel with a combination of good density, high ISP and a reasonable boiling point making it better than kerosene for efficiency and better than hydrogen for putting it into tanks and keeping it there, but most likely it’ll come from natural gas extracted from underground, similar to crude oil, and not any biological sources.

[K^2]

Yeah, farts are mostly air with some gases mixed in. Some of these are flammable, but it's a questionable mix at a questionable purity and low production.

Farming methane-producing bacteria might be an ok way to make the fuel, which is kind of related to all of this above, but even so, I'm pretty sure abiotic synthesis is going to be more efficient and reliable for any colony.

[Drakenred65]

Nitrogen, Carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide H2 and trace alcohol.

 

It’s what farts are made of.

[Ryaja]

10 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

If you’re producing appreciable quantities of methane out of any orifice, you should seek urgent medical assistance.

The human digestive system is not a good place for methanogens- methane-producing microbes- which are far more common in ruminants with multiple stomachs (including cows) where the food is repeatedly digested to extract as much nutrition as possible from relatively poor food (grass); in those cases it’s actually methane belches that are the biggest issue, but the concentrations are still relatively low. You’ll get a lot more bio-methane out of composters and fermenters fed with food or farm waste than a field of cows.

Methane as rocket fuel is still (as of writing) in the “almost but not yet” category of rocket propellants, with a variety of rockets from different nations all under development but none having actually flown to orbit as of yet. It’s a good choice for rocket fuel with a combination of good density, high ISP and a reasonable boiling point making it better than kerosene for efficiency and better than hydrogen for putting it into tanks and keeping it there, but most likely it’ll come from natural gas extracted from underground, similar to crude oil, and not any biological sources.

But what if Kerbals fart rocket fuel?

[jimmymcgoochie]

7 hours ago, Ryaja said:

But what if Kerbals fart rocket fuel?

Even if Kerbal anatomy allowed for this (which with those huge heads and tiny bodies is unlikely, there’s just not enough space to fit it in along with everything else needed to stay alive), what good would it do? Aside from the moral implications of trying to produce “rocket fuel” that way, it would require considerable refining before it was useful in a rocket as contaminants would reduce the fuel performance and could even cause blocked pipes and engines going boom, in the not-fun way.

Just dig it out the ground, it’s the only way to produce methane at the scale required for a space program to use it as their primary fuel.

[Ryaja]

Ah yes, the Kerbal forums, the only place you can get into an argument about the ethics of using farts as rocket fuel.

[t_v]

1 hour ago, Ryaja said:

Ah yes, the Kerbal forums, the only place you can get into an argument about the ethics of using farts as rocket fuel.

haha, yes

But in all seriousness, massive quantities of Methane can probably be found all over Kerbin as it is essentially a giant grassland, a large part of which could be marshes or peat bogs which have a lot of methane-producing bacteria. I don't think the Kerbals would need to use animal farts to obtain their methane.

 

[Tex]

On 12/19/2022 at 6:45 PM, Ryaja said:

But what if Kerbals fart rocket fuel?

The essence of what I wanted this thread to be all about 

[The Aziz]

Oh yeah I can smell you intention here

[whatsEJstandfor]

2 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Oh yeah I can smell you intention here

I deeply apologize for this pedantry. I am so very sorry for being a buzzkill. But

methane is odorless. The stuff you smell in farts are other, uh, volatile compounds.

Forgive me for ruining the fun.

[Jacob Kerman]

On 12/19/2022 at 10:37 AM, jimmymcgoochie said:

If you’re producing appreciable quantities of methane out of any orifice, you should seek urgent medical assistance.

The human digestive system is not a good place for methanogens- methane-producing microbes- which are far more common in ruminants with multiple stomachs (including cows) where the food is repeatedly digested to extract as much nutrition as possible from relatively poor food (grass); in those cases it’s actually methane belches that are the biggest issue, but the concentrations are still relatively low. You’ll get a lot more bio-methane out of composters and fermenters fed with food or farm waste than a field of cows.

Methane as rocket fuel is still (as of writing) in the “almost but not yet” category of rocket propellants, with a variety of rockets from different nations all under development but none having actually flown to orbit as of yet. It’s a good choice for rocket fuel with a combination of good density, high ISP and a reasonable boiling point making it better than kerosene for efficiency and better than hydrogen for putting it into tanks and keeping it there, but most likely it’ll come from natural gas extracted from underground, similar to crude oil, and not any biological sources.

Im still laughing.

14 minutes ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

I deeply apologize for this pedantry. I am so very sorry for being a buzzkill. But

methane is odorless. The stuff you smell in farts are other, uh, volatile compounds.

Forgive me for ruining the fun.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH

You Have Committed Crimes Against Kerbol And Her People! What Say You In Your Defense?

[whatsEJstandfor]

5 minutes ago, Jacob Kerman said:

You Have Committed Crimes Against Kerbol And Her People! What Say You In Your Defense?

*farts loudly*

[Jacob Kerman]

Just now, whatsEJstandfor said:

*farts loudly*

Very well, but dont do agia....OH DEAR GOD, THE VOLITILE STENCH

[Ryaja]

3 minutes ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

*farts loudly*

But... Cats usually don't fart loudly, they walk in and make the room smell like someone threw a stink bomb in.

[Jacob Kerman]

yOU WAnnA Go tHERe!?! My cat will KILL you with farts.

[shdwlrd]

1 hour ago, Ryaja said:

But... Cats usually don't fart loudly, they walk in and make the room smell like someone threw a stink bomb in.

I thought dogs only did that? Cats would put their butts in your face and let one go. Then bolt before you even realized what just happened.

[sgt_flyer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderpants ...

of course, don't take it seriously

as for your question, no.  personally, i don't equate methane to farts. as others said, methane can be part of the gases produced by digestion, but it's not "pure",
so you'll need to split the methane from the other gases.

While feasible, its might not be the most effective way to manufacture methane compared to other methods (between the infrastructure complexity / energy requirements of each step, etc) -

existing Power to Gas stations (to convert renewable electricity to storable methane) use the sabatier process

Edited December 21, 2022 by sgt_flyer

[whatsEJstandfor]

9 minutes ago, sgt_flyer said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderpants

What, and I cannot stress this enough, the h*ck

[sgt_flyer]

2 minutes ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

What, and I cannot stress this enough, the h*ck

Stumbled upon that entry once (might be from browsing tvtropes), but yeah that was my reaction too at the time ^^

Edited December 21, 2022 by sgt_flyer

[Drakenred65]

10 hours ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

I deeply apologize for this pedantry. I am so very sorry for being a buzzkill. But

methane is odorless. The stuff you smell in farts are other, uh, volatile compounds.

Forgive me for ruining the fun.

Its ok, your cat can have fresh from the display tank salmon!

[mcwaffles2003]

On 12/19/2022 at 8:34 PM, [email protected] said:

Nitrogen, Carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide H2 and trace alcohol.

 

It’s what farts are made of.

Yeah it's missing a few ingredients to being a fart, like looking at  a bag of flour and calling it cake.

 

EDI: Also, sorry for joining the pedantic nitpicking to OP, it's a funny topic, just what do you expect on a forum of nerds, engineers, wanna be rocket scientists, etc...

Edited December 22, 2022 by mcwaffles2003

[Ryaja]

2 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Also, sorry for joining the pedantic nitpicking to OP, it's a funny topic, just what do you expect on a forum of nerds, engineers, wanna be rocket scientists, etc...

All of that can be summarized under nerd, I take people calling me nerd as a compliment.

[mcwaffles2003]

3 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

All of that can be summarized under nerd, I take people calling me nerd as a compliment.

Wasn't using it derogatively,  I self identify as one too, as do most people here I imagine