Nuclear air breathing engine

[1096bimu]

I made a thermal nuclear jet engine and it is mostly working except I don't have a good solution for the intake problem.

You see regular air breathing engines can't operate on Duna for example because there is no oxygen, but things like a nuclear jet should be able to. Currently I simply modified a stock intake to get a custom resource to feed the engine. But I wonder if there is another way because I hate adding new resources or new parts, it is just annoying on top of taking up more memory.

I know Kathane has such an engine with a built-in intake, while that's not a bad solution, My engines are high performance and are supposed to be SSTO capable, and they must have front facing intakes.

[KhaosCorp]

I am a little unclear at what your desired end result is, but maybe some info that will help =)

First thing is that the intake on the Kethane Turbine is not the stock intake module, and unless its been changed recently its not part of the open API.

Secondly the stock intake module can be made to work in any atmosphere, regardless if there is oxygen or not.

MODULE

{

name = ModuleResourceIntake

resourceName = IntakeAir

checkForOxygen = true

area = 0.004

intakeSpeed = 10

intakeTransformName = Intake

}

that's from the stock radial intake, if you change the "checkForOxygen" to false it still checks for atmosphere and 'air' density, though it would still create 'IntakeAir', no way around that without adding a new resource.

I was making custom intakes to work on other planets like eve and duna (till the idea was ripped off that is) with a resource called 'Air/Gas'.....the logic being that most systems using air intake or compressed air could be made to work with other atmospheric gases.

Hope at least something in here helps =P

Also after seeing/using your F-1 engine replica I think you should post a screenshot of this engine, Id love to see it!

[Jahulath]

Mainly just agreeing with Khaos but wanted to chip in that there have been designs for an atomic powered RamJet! I had considered utilizing LFO and fuel air from "Check for Oxygen= FALSE" but haven't gotten round to it yet, I got distracted by ComSat

EDIT: Sorry I had to go away and have a little read;

Like this apparently it was called Project Pluto but I could have sworn it was a WW2 thing first, scrapped of course but still...

Edited September 2, 2013 by Jahulath

[1096bimu]

you might be disappointed since I am a bad artist and I can't really make anything of my own design.

I know you can make intakes that work on Duna. The problem is that you have to have extra intake parts on top of the regular intakes. When in reality, there is presumably no difference in design.

Edited September 2, 2013 by 1096bimu

[KhaosCorp]

Why not make the intake part of the engine? Like the Kethane turbine is, but make it forward facing scoop that comes off the engine body. Sounds like that maybe the best solution to what your after. Would only be adding a single part for engine and intake, you still get forward facing scoop like you want, and can define the intake parameters.