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New Rocket Fuel: A Pinch of Salt
samjam writes "'Rodney Bartlett devised a new form of solid nitrogen salt' says Ananova reporting on an article in Nature. 'Scientists at the University of Florida say it should be possible to make nitrogen with atoms linked in groups of five.' 'If their calculations are correct, the new form will have twice as much energy as the same volume of hydrazine which is the compound propelling many spacecraft today.' This new fuel could be a boon for home-brew rocket builders?" Note that by "salt", they don't mean table salt, just a compound of ions. Nitrogen compounds are important in explosives because the formation of nitrogen gas (which is very stable) can give off a lot of energy - so whatever you can do to create new and crazy nitrogen structures can potentially increase the energy density of your explosives.
The article talks about linking two (2) five-atom nitrogen molecules with opposite charges to form N5+N5-. Incidentally, the older slashdot article referenced talks about using 6 of these 10-atom molecules to form a buckminsterfullerene.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
Missiles that go longer and farther for cheaper are good. They reduce the total number of missles necessary to carry out full-scale destruction of the planet. They are certainly worth their SALT.
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