ApolloHoax.net
Off Topic => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kiwi on November 13, 2012, 04:57:24 AM
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It's pretty pink stuff, and looks good enough to eat.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Kiwi-rocket-trials-new-form-of-propulsion/tabid/1160/articleID/276537/Default.aspx
“We have come up with something that is completely new. It’s not a solid. It’s not a liquid. But it has all the advantages of a solid and all the advantages of a liquid.”
In fact, it's a thixotrope – something that’s safe and solid while inert, but turns into a liquid when force is applied.
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There was something very similar in the local news a few years ago:
https://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009a/090121HeisterGelled.html
The claim then was that thixotropic fuels would be safer because they wouldn't leak for some reason. Except that pumping them requires applying pressure that could make them leak, and they'd then form persistent, flammable, corrosive blobs filling up equipment spaces or coating the pad instead of draining away or evaporating. Never mind the toxicity issues of whatever you'd use for gelled hypergolic fuel and oxidizer...
Now, the big advantage is that it's...denser than liquid hydrogen? So is everything else. Why are they pretending liquid hydrogen is the only liquid fuel around? RP-1 is far denser than LH2. They also equate power with thrust and imply that's all that matters, when solid rockets are actually notably poor in performance compared to liquids, and adding gelling agents is likely to similarly reduce the performance of liquid fuels, particularly the oxidizer.
So, they've got a liquid fuel that's somewhat denser than common liquid fuels and might provide somewhat higher thrust at a cost in specific impulse, making it a good replacement for solid boosters (with the advantage of being able to cleanly shut down, before the vehicle leaves the pad if necessary) but a poor choice for the core. And while hyping the density and "power", they overlook some real advantages. For example, the semisolid nature would make it useful for things like orbit circularization: liquids slosh around and blob up in freefall in ways that can be hard to manage, and there'd be an advantage in flexibility over solids for this purpose, as you can easily adjust the propellant load to the payload.
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So it's an extremely non-Newtonian fluid?
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Finally someone from good ole NZ im a kiwi too and im proud of it.
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But you still haven't filled me in on the fate of the Lost Planet Airmen.
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But you still haven't filled me in on the fate of the Lost Planet Airmen.
Doh! Never mind. :-[
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I am beginning to think Cody, as a young man, may not have taken his name from the source I am referencing.
For those who have three minutes to spare and like rockabilly, here is Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen playing Hot Rod Lincoln