Dyna Soar maximum seating capacity...

wrote:
Maybe. I suspect a lot could be done by simply opening a few hatches
to the vacuum of space and letting the tank air out and bake for a few
weeks.


But would all the kerosene boil off completely? Or would it leave some
sort of non-volatile residues behind?
Unlike LOX or LH2, kerosene is a fairly complex chemical compound.

Pat

On Jul 10, 4:42 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
wrote:
Maybe. I suspect a lot could be done by simply opening a few hatches
to the vacuum of space and letting the tank air out and bake for a few
weeks.

But would all the kerosene boil off completely? Or would it leave some
sort of non-volatile residues behind?

Probabably *something* would be left behind. But after a few weeks of
hard vacuum and high temepratures, it wouldn't be much.

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

Jeff Findley wrote:
Compared to an S-IVB based workshop (e.g. Skylab), that would be freaking
huge. I'd think that cleaning out the kerosene tank would be a bit
messy, but even if you didn't bother doing anything with the kerosene
tank, that LOX tank is freaking huge by itself!

The nice part about the LOX/LH2 propellants of the S-II and S-4B stages is
that the propellants would boil off cleanly after a few orbits if the
tanks were vented.

True, and you'd still have the full 33 foot diameter to play in.

I'm thinking of the S-ID stage-and-a-half first stage with F-IA engines and
stretched tanks, an S-II stage with J-2S engines and stretched tanks, and a
full 33 foot diameter payload/station/power module on top with multiple
docking ports for visiting crews, cargo delivery, and future expansion.

Something like the core module of this:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/spaebase.htm

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein