A fuel bringing Mars within range?

[LaurenG]

Oct 14 - A UK rocket scientist has developed a fuel made from carbon dioxide that could make a manned-mission to Mars viable. The fuel burns aluminum powder in carbon dioxide, using oxygen and leaving carbon as the waste product. Stuart McDill reports.

http://www.reuters.com/news/video/story?videoId=163860228&videoChannel=2602

[slackmaster]

1. Great. Now they're going to pollute interplanetary space.

:argh:

[Denninmi]

2. Well, maybe they can calculate how much of this it takes to reach Mars and back.

Put half that amount onto a ship, load it up with Teabaggers, and tell them it's a government-free capitalist paradise.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. Golgafrinchans tried this with telephone sanitizers

[formercia]

14. +1000

It will be a small crew, once they find out they won't be able to collect Social Security, let alone spend it.

[TransitJohn]

3. Right, because that biosphere couldn't take it.

:eyes:

[slackmaster]

4. That's exactly the attitude people had about the smoke from cars in their early days

An occasional puff of smoke dispersing itself in the vast lifeless atmosphere beats the Hell out of steaming piles of horse shit in the streets.

;-)

[Occulus]

17. I know we're being a bit tongue-in-cheek here, but to be perfectly honest

a good, strong dose of greenhouse gases is part of what Mars needs to be livable again.

I've been hearing arguments recently that Mars' atmosphere degraded so badly as a result of a loss/deterioration of its planetary magnetic field. The solar wind then stripped the atmosphere off it.

If we were to try to terraform Mars, how would we go about getting around that problem, assuming it's part of the reason for the lack of atmosphere?

[slackmaster]

20. Oh, no, not Total Recall

[laconicsax]

8. LOL wut?

[NobleCynic]

13. Gotta be trolling

10/10

[Occulus]

18. He was talking about the thread about "bombing the Moon", I think

There were several, ah, interesting characters (Omega Minimo springs to mind for some reason :rofl: ) on that epic thread complaining about "polluting outer space" or some such cracked complaint. Do yourself a favor and go look at this thread. It's utterly fantastic, almost as good as Oscar the mixed animal. Be sure you're logged out so you can see all the comments.

Be warned, though- you better have broadband. It's a huge topic.

[intaglio]

15. Please use the Sarcasm smiley

Please ...

[slackmaster]

19. I thought people who read the Science forum were sharp enough to pick up on such obvious sarcasm

Without having to rely on tags.

;-)

[Speck Tater]

5. Pure carbon is NOT contamination. Space is full of pure carbon.

Along with pure hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, etc. etc. on down the periodic chart.

Pure carbon (not to be confused with carbon dioxide) is not even a contaminant in the atmosphere. It settles to the ground as light dust that washes into the soil and enhances the ability of the soil to hold nutrients (Google terra preta).

[Peace Patriot]

6. Gas up and go...NOW! And here's why...

Not just because Multinational Corporate Looters and WAR are holding us back from human DESTINY, but also because we should be doing whatever the Corporate Rulers and War Profiteers don't want us to do. What they don't want us to do is a prescription for what we should be doing. Just reverse their agenda and we can't go wrong.

They hate public schools because public schools create educated, informed citizens and voters on a massive scale. We should be pouring money and resources into public schools including public universities with FREE tuition! We should pour the whole 'Defense' Budget into them (well, say 90% of it).

They hate regulation. We should hit 'em with REAL regulation--punitive regulation, for instance, for outsourcing jobs (as in pulling their corporate charters and seizing their assets for the common good, or, if they've moved their headquarters to Dubai or Singapore, banning them from our shores).

They hate taxes. Make 'em pay! A stiff tax on long term environmental impacts-both those that we know about and those that we don't yet know about. Pre-emptive taxes! A 90% tax rate for the super-rich, like we used to have. Dun CEO mega-salaries/perks. Tax 'em to the hilt.

They want a 'free' market free-for-all where dog eats dog. Require a FAIR market where bigness, conglomeration and monopolies are severely penalized and small business--the backbone of the country, the creators of community and the biggest job creators in the U.S.--are FAVORED.

Etc.

They have hated the space program since Nixon! DO THE OPPOSITE! Spend the money! Mobilize society and the world for the most mind-boggling human adventure ever! To Mars and beyond! INTO SPACE! Inspire! Educate! Advance! Progress! Explore! Bring the absolute wonder of it all into every home! Boldly go!

[krispos42]

7. They really pronounce "aluminum" that way in England?

Damn, I thought that was a parody.


Anyway, how does this help, exactly? Do we get more energy output per kilogram of reactants?

[laconicsax]

9. It's spelled "aluminium" in England.

The pronunciation matches the spelling.

[krispos42]

11. Yeah, I just read the Wiki on that

Well, at least Canada is on our side...

[intaglio]

16. We spell and pronounce aluminium it correctly

Aluminium and we the emphasiSe the MIN not the U

We fart in ze general direction of your Monsieur Webster, because we find him humeroUs

:sarcasm: because I just told someone else to do so

I also suspect that the specific impulse will be high

edited to add

Also CO2 is a lot cheaper and more stable than NO2 or the solid oxidants otherwise used. I think that Virgin Galactic (Spaceship 2) will be interested in this as they use a solid fuel with NO2 oxidiser in their engine.

[krispos42]

22. How long until American and British English separates into 2 languages?

200 years? ;-)



Another possible added bonus... since carbon is a little bit lighter than nitrogen, a mole of CO₂ would mass a bit less than a mole of NO₂. And with rocketry, every gram is precious, right?

CO₂'s atomic weight is 44 (12+16+16), and NO₂'s is 46 (14+16+16). A 4.4% reduction in total mass for the same mass of oxygen.

[drm604]

10. I'm confused about the chemisty of this.

How can you burn aluminum, CO2, and oxygen and end up with only carbon as the waste product? Where do the aluminum and oxygen go?

[slackmaster]

21. The aluminum and oxygen would combine to form a fine, gritty mist of aluminum oxide

Which would make things even more interesting for future space travelers who have to fly through it.

[drm604]

26. I understand that, but the article says

"leaving carbon as the waste product". It doesn't say "as one of the waste products". This would seem to imply that carbon is the only waste product, an obvious impossibility.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. 3CO2 + 4Al --> 3C + 2Al2O3 -- no gaseous products, so where's the thrust?

(This is why you can't use CO2 extinguishers on some metals, such as magnesium or lithium.)

The performance of rocket engines depends on the molecular weight of the exhaust products -- the lighter the exhaust molecules, the higher the specific impulse. So there must be some CO or other gases from partial reaction. (Ammonium perchlorate/aluminum -based solid engines use less than the stoichiometric amount of aluminum to prevent Al2O3 buildup, so this isn't without precedent.)
http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/Propulsion/3-how-you-calculate-specific-impulse.html

[eppur_se_muova]

24. Actually, it's a mixture of CO2 and N2O -- here's a text article.

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_europe/2010-10-15/214689268497.html

Once you know the details, it actually seems pretty clever.

[LaurenG]

25. Thank you for posting this link.

:)

[Phoonzang]

27. A manned mission to Mars has been viable since the 50s....

Perfect use for decommissioned nukes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29