CEV to be made commercially available

On 18 Oct 2005 07:59:02 -0700, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

And there's no way that CEV will be cheap even if flown a thousand
times a year, if it flies on top of an expendable.

Agreed. That's why you should fly it on the Stick rather than the
EELVs. EELVs are fully expendable. Stick is fully reusable.

Really?

Henry Spencer wrote:

The fundamental cost of
putting mass into orbit with LOX/kerosene is under $1.50/kg.

Wait a minute; leaving the LOX out of the equation, I can accelerate 1
kg of mass to 18,000 mph and 100 miles altitude with the energy in
around 2/3rds of a gallon of Kerosene? It's running around $2.75 at the
moment.
Price of LOX in 2001 was about $.67 per gallon.

Pat

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 18:18:38 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Wait a minute; leaving the LOX out of the equation, I can accelerate 1
kg of mass to 18,000 mph and 100 miles altitude with the energy in
around 2/3rds of a gallon of Kerosene? It's running around $2.75 at the
moment.

Price of LOX in 2001 was about $.67 per gallon.

....And here Dubya wants us to move to a H-cell economy!

OM

--

"Try Andre Dead Duck Canadian Champagne! | http://www.io.com/~o_m
Rated the lamest of the cheapest deported | Sergeant-At-Arms
brands by the Condemned in Killfile Hell!" | Human O-Ring Society

Pat Flannery wrote:

Henry Spencer wrote:

The fundamental cost of
putting mass into orbit with LOX/kerosene is under $1.50/kg.

Wait a minute; leaving the LOX out of the equation, I can accelerate 1
kg of mass to 18,000 mph and 100 miles altitude with the energy in
around 2/3rds of a gallon of Kerosene? It's running around $2.75 at the
moment.
Price of LOX in 2001 was about $.67 per gallon.

Surprising, no? Do the math. Kinetic energy of 1 kg at orbital
velocity is only about 75 megajoules. Burning a gallon of kerosene
yields nearly twice that.

I remember reading years ago that a beer can's worth of rocket fuel has
enough energy to put the beer can into orbit. That was a neat concept.

OM wrote:

Price of LOX in 2001 was about $.67 per gallon.



...And here Dubya wants us to move to a H-cell economy!



Somebody should look into vehicles powered by compressed gas boiled off
of liquid air.
If LOX is that cheap, simple liquefied air should be dirt cheap, and the
emissions would be non-polluting.
In fact, you'd have a fuel that is basically inexhaustible, as what
comes out the tailpipe is ready to be recooled and condensed back into
liquid- it would even make up for some of the heat generated in its
manufacture in the coolness of the exhaust.
It would be funny to see a car where the radiator was used to heat stuff
up rather than cool it down.
Would a ascending piston in the Flannery's Fabulous Fliver Cryo-Engine
create enough heat via the diesel effect to cause the liquid air to
convert into gas?
Don't anyone _dare_ mention this idea to William Mook! :-)

Pat

Alan Anderson wrote:

Surprising, no? Do the math. Kinetic energy of 1 kg at orbital
velocity is only about 75 megajoules. Burning a gallon of kerosene
yields nearly twice that.



We've got to add the cost of the LOX into the equation.
Since LOX is far less dense than kerosene, we're going to need more of
it than kerosene by volume to get this to work; so we take our $1.75
per gallon for the kerosene, divide that by two to end up with around
$.85 for the kerosene, add around a gallon of LOX at $.67 to end up
with around $1.50 for propellents.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Alan Anderson wrote:

Surprising, no? Do the math. Kinetic energy of 1 kg at orbital
velocity is only about 75 megajoules. Burning a gallon of kerosene
yields nearly twice that.



We've got to add the cost of the LOX into the equation.
Since LOX is far less dense than kerosene,

Huh? LOX specific gravity (NBP, 1 atm) is a bit over 1.1, kerosene is
a bit under 0.8.

we're going to need more of
it than kerosene by volume to get this to work; so we take our $1.75
per gallon for the kerosene, divide that by two to end up with around
$.85 for the kerosene, add around a gallon of LOX at $.67 to end up
with around $1.50 for propellents.

Most commercial transportation seems to come out somewhere in the
neighborhood of 7 times fuel costs. Or at least airlines and trucking
companies do. So perhaps $10 per pound is not unreasonable, or maybe
$100 per pound if you can get payload up to 10% of dry mass.

-jake

Pat Flannery wrote in
:



OM wrote:

Price of LOX in 2001 was about $.67 per gallon.



...And here Dubya wants us to move to a H-cell economy!



Somebody should look into vehicles powered by compressed gas boiled
off of liquid air.
If LOX is that cheap, simple liquefied air should be dirt cheap, and
the emissions would be non-polluting.
In fact, you'd have a fuel that is basically inexhaustible, as what
comes out the tailpipe is ready to be recooled and condensed back into
liquid- it would even make up for some of the heat generated in its
manufacture in the coolness of the exhaust.
It would be funny to see a car where the radiator was used to heat
stuff up rather than cool it down.
Would a ascending piston in the Flannery's Fabulous Fliver Cryo-Engine
create enough heat via the diesel effect to cause the liquid air to
convert into gas?
Don't anyone _dare_ mention this idea to William Mook! :-)

It's already been done; the thermal efficiency is terrible. It'd
have niche applications and should work pretty well in hot climates,
having it's own AC built-in. Wouldn't want to fool with it in a
typical North Dakota winter, though.

Having a bunch of such cars on the road would have a bit of an exhaust
problem: imagine the stream of condensed water they'd leave on a hot,
humid day. The low efficiency means the heat exchanger would have to
pull a lot of ambient air, and that moisture can't be allowed to
freeze on the heat exhanger.

It has possibilities, but the motor efficiency needs a lot
of improvement and the thermodynamics are inherantly lousy.

--Damon

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:17:26 -0500, Damon Hill
wrote:

Don't anyone _dare_ mention this idea to William Mook! :-)

It's already been done; the thermal efficiency is terrible.

....What? The energy transfer, or Mook himself? :-P

OM

--

"Try Andre Dead Duck Canadian Champagne! | http://www.io.com/~o_m
Rated the lamest of the cheapest deported | Sergeant-At-Arms
brands by the Condemned in Killfile Hell!" | Human O-Ring Society

There's a South Park episode lurking in there somewhere.
(Cut to image of Kenny impaled on a solar array.) :-D

Pat

There is an episode were the children are standing at the bus stop before
school and MIR falls on Kenny.

"Oh, my God, MIR killed Kenny! You *******s!"