Jeff Findley wrote on Mon, 12 Nov 2018
05:45:32 -0500:

In article ,
says...
The one thing I like about their rocket is that they replaced the turbopump
with a electric motor. It's probably only applicable to small engines (?),
but it is innovative. The turbopump is by far the most complicated part in
building a rocket engine, and they've bypassed the complexity by going
electric.


Agreed. Plus they drop battery packs when they're expended, which is a
version of staging. I thought that was pretty clever.


Even dropping the batteries I would think an electric pump would be
heavier than a turbopump. Perhaps that's not significant at this
scale but I'd think it would eat you up quick as you got bigger.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw