Gyroscopic Emergency Power

[ping111]

Salutations.

I was attempting to orbit a rocket wider than it was tall, when it ran out of fuel.

I imagined their systems were failing, and spun the rocket for no reason.

This gave me a real-life idea:

Have powerful spin boosters on the side of rockets.

This section would be slightly separated, so it can roll.

The boosters would turn a turbine, giving a little emergency power to the crew.

Discuss...

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

Sounds interesting, never thought about that! And I never seen a spaceship (at least in real-life) with no fuel in it just yet. If something like that happens, our best decision would be to build some memorial stones...

[Iskierka]

If you wanted to use spare fuel for power, you\'d just burn it and blow it through a small turbine, like an aircraft\'s APU or an adaptation of the turbopump mechanism in rocket motors. Spinning some large external part would be horribly inefficient and pointless.

[ping111]

If you wanted to use spare fuel for power, you\'d just burn it and blow it through a small turbine, like an aircraft\'s APU or an adaptation of the turbopump mechanism in rocket motors. Spinning some large external part would be horribly inefficient and pointless.

No. It\'s basically a separate-able ring of metal that has spin boosters for it. When they burn, it turns a turbine with a moderate gear ratio, so fair amounts of emergency electricity is created.

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

How to make profit: Spin a ring in space, put a generator inside of it, ? ? ? ? ? - PROFIT!!!

[Kryten]

How to make profit: Spin a ring in space, put a generator inside of it, ? ? ? ? ? - PROFIT!!!

If you take any energy from the ring to actually power something, it\'ll slow down, in space or not. If you don\'t, it\'ll still slow down and stop because of friction at the bearing.

[socket7]

What is to hold the generator part of your space craft still while the flywheel has energy put into it or pulled from it.

Newtons law is a pain. If you put X amount of energy into spinning up your flywheel, you\'d also put X amount of energy into spinning your habitation module the other direction. (equal, opposite reactions)

When you tried to extract energy from the flywheel, it would want to spin up your whole habitation module rather then just spin a dynamo.

I\'m not saying it\'s impossible. I\'m not enough of a physicist to say that, but the science I do know says there are some significant problems with the idea. unless you have some way of counteracting newtons laws. (like RCS on the habitation module to counteract its desire to spin when interacting with the flywheel.)

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

What is to hold the generator part of your space craft still while the flywheel has energy put into it or pulled from it.

Newtons law is a pain. If you put X amount of energy into spinning up your flywheel, you\'d also put X amount of energy into spinning your habitation module the other direction. (equal, opposite reactions)

When you tried to extract energy from the flywheel, it would want to spin up your whole habitation module rather then just spin a dynamo.

I\'m not saying it\'s impossible. I\'m not enough of a physicist to say that, but the science I do know says there are some significant problems with the idea. unless you have some way of counteracting newtons laws. (like RCS on the habitation module to counteract its desire to spin when interacting with the flywheel.)

It was a reference to troll physics.

[Technical Ben]

If you have 'rocket fuel' you can just divert the fuel to a 'generator'. This can be easily done if your fuel is say... I don\'t know, Hydrogen!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

If it\'s something more exotic, then a normal turbine will probably do.

[SteevyT]

The only use I can think of for this would be to recover some wasted energy from a dampener of sorts if you used solid boosters to spin up a habitation module. Kind of like regenerative braking on hybrid cars. The outside spins up quickly, but to prevent too much of a shock to the habitation module, it is allowed to spin up slowly, using the torque from the generator to slowly catch it up to the outer portion.

[socket7]

It was a reference to troll physics.

OP said discuss. I discussed the problems I saw with his idea. I suppose he could now say 'LOL I TROLL YOU!' but it wouldn\'t be much of a troll. From his forum profile I\'m going to say it was a legitimate question.

[socket7]

If you take any energy from the ring to actually power something, it\'ll slow down, in space or not. If you don\'t, it\'ll still slow down and stop because of friction at the bearing.

This is exactly why I power my lights forever off a solar panel. There is no friction. The light from the bulb hits the solar panel and lights up the bulb. You can only power one light per panel this way though, so I guess thats why it hasn\'t caught on.

Now that\'s troll physics.

[Kryten]

The problem with that is that neither your light or your solar panel can be 100% efficient-they\'ll both lose energy as heat.

[Iskierka]

No. It\'s basically a separate-able ring of metal that has spin boosters for it. When they burn, it turns a turbine with a moderate gear ratio, so fair amounts of emergency electricity is created.

And what I was saying is that this design will be horribly inefficient compared with just sticking a turbine behind a rocket combustion chamber. Which will also be lighter, simpler, and more reliable.

[ping111]

And what I was saying is that this design will be horribly inefficient compared with just sticking a turbine behind a rocket combustion chamber. Which will also be lighter, simpler, and more reliable.

OK, thanks. That makes sense.

Hey, I was never the imaginative type, so this game lets me get my wildest thoughts out.

[Polecat Industries]

Spinning some large external part would be horribly inefficient and pointless.

But kerbal!