Steam Rockets

"tomcat" wrote in message
oups.com

What kind of LRBs do you favor, the H2O2/LOX, the LH2/LOX, or the
Kerosine/LOX? Those old Saturn first stage boosters used kerosine/lox
and could really put out the thrust. Kerosine is very stable, cheap,
and reliable. LH2 is cyrogenic requiring glass lined tanks and
venting. H2O2 is difficult to tank and store at 97+ % pure. Both NASA
and the U.K. have backed away from H2O2 for some reason -- a little too
volatile maybe.

I still favor the clean and powerful burning likes of h2o2/c3h4o, and
you can always toss in a little Al(aluminum) if you really want to kick
serious rocket butt.

H2O2 is not all that difficult to manage, unlike o2 and h2 at least you
can see h2o2, that is unless you're a certified village idiot moron like
most everyone at NASA. Besides, if you're that dumbfounded, you'll only
get to make one such silly mistake.

H2O2 is simply more powerful per kg than h2o, exactly like nitro is more
powerful than milk.

Of course, you can literally water the h2o2 down to whatever dull roar
that suits your mindset, or dry it out to a harmless powder of 100%
h2o2, or otherwise you can simply freeze the 98% stuff into being damn
near inert. It can actually be processed from scratch, as directly
formulated within the LRB fuel tank to start with. (like charging a
battery, energy in still = energy out)

BTW; Wow! You should see all the clowns, bring in the clowns. The
Usenet has become absolutely alive and vibrant with silly clowns. I
suppose intended for putting Christ back on a stick, and for God's sake,
we obviously need more of them clowns.

Is there such a thing as a Jewish clown, or are they all borg minion MIB
clowns?
-
Brad Guth


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"tomcat" wrote in message
oups.com

Skylon with LRB RATO units could easily toss 25 tons into orbit and do
a smooth horizontal landing afterwards. It may increase it's orbital
altitude as well.

At the absolute very least 25+ tonnes into the LEO/ISS deployment realm
seems conservative.

It's simply a win-win all the way around, that which simply couldn't
have been accomplished as of 40 years or perhaps not even 25 years ago.
At best a couple of decades ago our shuttles should have converted over
to the first of such reusable LRB/RATOs, and at the absolute very least
make that application as of a decade.

As of today, there's simply no valid excuse unless we're all going back
in time.
-
Brad Guth


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"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote in
ink.net:


"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

As Max Hunter was fond of pointing out, if the Wright Brothers had
been able to make engines with the thrust/weight ratio of modern
rockets, there probably would be no runways.

And now that we have them, exactly how many VTOL craft do we have?

Quite some thousands of helicopters, possibly tens of thousands.

--Damon

"Ian Woollard" wrote in message
ups.com...
Rand Simberg wrote:
LH2 is also extremely fluffy, requiring larger, heavier wings and
tankage.

Actually, no, wings for horizontal takeoff are a roughly fixed
percentage of GLOW; and this fixed percentage is a smaller percentage
of dry mass with hydrogen than with hydrocarbon fuelled vehicles.

Add in some LH2 thermodynamic magic in the SABRe engines and you're
making orbit fairly comfortably.

The LH2 does make the vehicle significantly longer to keep the
ballistic coefficient up, and this necessitates a larger diameter to
handle bending moments, but to a first approximation that just ups your
payload and GLOW proportionately without adding any losses.


I think a flying wing might be good for an LH2 winged vehicle. The wing has
lots of volume that is needed for the low density LH2.

Danny Deger

Danny Deger wrote:

I think a flying wing might be good for an LH2 winged vehicle. The wing has
lots of volume that is needed for the low density LH2.



Rockwell's "Star-Raker" SSTO used that aproach:
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld047.htm

Pat

Henry Spencer wrote:
As Max Hunter was fond of pointing out, if the Wright Brothers had been
able to make engines with the thrust/weight ratio of modern rockets, there
probably would be no runways. (You would still want to *cruise*
horizontally on wing lift, for efficiency, but takeoffs and landings are
simpler and safer on engine lift, because you have much more complete
control of the situation.)

But if the Wright Brothers had engines with the specific impulse or
specific fuel consumption of modern rocket engines, aviation would
never have gotten anywhere because they wouldn't be able to imagine a
plane that would fly more than 50 miles.

And sadly, the high thrust to weight and the low specific impulse are
indeed directly related.

-jake

"Damon Hill" wrote in message
31...
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote in
ink.net:


"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

As Max Hunter was fond of pointing out, if the Wright Brothers had
been able to make engines with the thrust/weight ratio of modern
rockets, there probably would be no runways.

And now that we have them, exactly how many VTOL craft do we have?

Quite some thousands of helicopters, possibly tens of thousands.

That then transition to flight like a plane?

Even today with helicopters, you don't see Boeing building 300 passenger
helicopters.



--Damon

(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Sylvia Else wrote:
Vertical launch is a strange concept really, because you're accelerating
at right-angles to the intended final velocity. It's rather wasteful.

Yes and no. Any rocket which wants to reach orbit needs upward velocity
too, because it really wants to clear the atmosphere before it starts
seriously building up speed.

Even sans atmosphere, there is still a vertical component to orbital
velocity.


and adds a lot of otherwise unneeded infrastructure.

With mixed orientation, yes. An all-vertical system need not have a lot
of infrastructure, as witness DC-X.

Radio controlled model helicopters don't require much in the way of
infrastructure. For real helicopters and real boosters however it's
dangerous to extrapolate from toys.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

As Max Hunter was fond of pointing out, if the Wright Brothers had been
able to make engines with the thrust/weight ratio of modern rockets, there
probably would be no runways.

And now that we have them, exactly how many VTOL craft do we have?

There are lots of helicopters, so the technology is there. However, all
the big aircraft, the fast ones, annd most importantly the most
economical ones use HTOL. In fact, there is a pretty clear correlation
between efficiency and length of runway, in that air travel didn't
really 'take off' until runways of 6000 feet or longer became common.

There is also the technology for VTOL rockets, but the only one who has
ever made it a commercial success is this guy.

http://www.rocketman.org/

John Halpenny

"John Halpenny" wrote in message
ps.com

There is also the technology for VTOL rockets, but the only one who has
ever made it a commercial success is this guy.

http://www.rocketman.org/

That's silly, if not pathetic, isn't it.
-
Brad Guth


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