Cheap, easy to handle fuels/oxidizers

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
John [Carmack]'s latest breakthru is adding an alcohol to 50% peroxide to
make a cheap, easy to handle, easy to buy mono-propellant for his rockets.

Well, not a breakthrough exactly -- it's an old idea, used in applications
like torpedo propulsion -- but it has been largely forgotten in rocketry.

Does anyone know more about this combination or other cheap fuel
combinations?

The tricky part, really, is the oxidizer. Fuels are generally cheap and
straightforward. There are about four reasonable choices of oxidizer --
LOX, peroxide, N2O, and WFNA -- each with its own set of disadvantages.
LOX and peroxide both require meticulous cleanliness, LOX is cryogenic,
high-grade peroxide is costly and hard to get, N2O requires high pressure,
WFNA is highly corrosive.

If you are talking about a professional project,
cryogenic and cleanliness problems should be
maageable. IMO, the obvious choice is LOX.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc. and Third Millennium Aerospace, Inc.
( http://www.tour2space.com )

In article ,
Len wrote:
...There are about four reasonable choices of oxidizer --
LOX, peroxide, N2O, and WFNA -- each with its own set of disadvantages.
LOX and peroxide both require meticulous cleanliness, LOX is cryogenic,
high-grade peroxide is costly and hard to get, N2O requires high pressure,
WFNA is highly corrosive.

If you are talking about a professional project,
cryogenic and cleanliness problems should be
maageable. IMO, the obvious choice is LOX.

It depends a little bit on configuration and mission profile; storability
at room temperature *is* an advantage, and if you work at it :-), you can
make it an important advantage.

That said, as on most things, I generally agree with Len. LOX is a clear
win on performance, and for a professional project its disadvantages are
manageable nuisances unless some unusual consideration intervenes.

For an amateur project, the tradeoffs change somewhat, and careful thought
is called for. Any of those four could be the winner, depending on details.
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