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NASA Announces Enviromentally Friendly Jet Fuel
drama writes "From the Press Release: 'Two years of collaboration between Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., and NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., have led to the development of a non-toxic, easily handled fuel made from a substance similar to what is used in common candles. The by-products of combustion of the new fuel are carbon dioxide and water; unlike conventional rocket fuel that produces aluminum oxide and acidic gasses, such as hydrogen chloride.' Or for pictures and more info, visit the site."
Just like petroleum! How environmentally friendly! (sarcasm aside, this is a step forward from existing fuels, but ecotopia it ain't)
The by-products of combustion of the new fuel are carbon dioxide and water
Isn't that the whole global warming thing? That we're releasing too much carbon dioxide and its causing a global warm up?
The Anti-Blog
Then again, can anyone say 'metal fatigue in 2 seconds'?
/.'s 10 Millionth
Granted, a rocket launch probably belches out a LOT of these chemicals, but there is a launch how often? Not very often, last I recall. The polution they produce is negligable compared to the total polution cars produce.
NASA should be spending this money on more important endeavors, such as the ISS or perhaps even another moon trip. Blowing money to produce environmentally safe rocket fuel is stupid and inefficient.
Actually, paraffins are a broad class of hydrocarbons not just the familiar candle wax. Paraffins are characterized by having unsaturated C=C bonds, whereas olefins are all saturated C-C bonds. Not sure what kinds of paraffins would have the kind of energy density they would need for rocketry level thrust, maybe aromatics?
As a ChE, this is cool. But the really interesting part is the oxidizer (which they give no details on) and the nozzle. Vapourizing and mixing must be amazingly fast.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
First of all, NASA has a LONG way to go before it has a launch frequency high enough for any pollution from their launch vehicles to be significant.
Second, there are plenty of rocket designs for liquid rockets that already produce only water or water and CO2; so an "environmentally friendly rocket" is not a new thing. The Saturn V, for example used Kerosene for fuel.
What is significant news for nerds is that this is work on a hybrid rocket design. Hybrid rocket motors are interesting because they combine some of the benifits of solid and liquid designs... but that probably wouldn't be considered newsworthy to mainstream media outlets. So, my guess is that this NASA center wrote up a press release and stuck in the magic words "environmentally friendly" to get the news to give them some coverage. The fact that we don't need eco-rockets yet, or that other minimally polluting rocket designs have been around for over half a century are irrelevent because the people they are selling themselves to don't have a background in rocketry, don't bother to check their facts, and many of them feel happy inside when they think they are helping to fund something that protects Mother Earth. And meanwhile the pros and cons of hybrid rocket designs (and probably the things that the test program was really supposed to find out) don't get any attention at all.
Call me when they are testing cubane fuels.
Only problem is, we need to find new supplies of Unobtanium to be able to build it. Oh, and the "force of the earth spinning around" part is wrong, too... read Niven and Barnes' "Dream Park" series, or Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series, which has a pretty accurate model of what happens when there's an "oops" somewhere along your 36,000+ km cable and it decides to wrap itself around your planet a few times.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
As for liquid fuel, the upper stages of the Saturn V and the main Space Shuttle engines burn H2 and O2, producing nothing but pure water. OTOH, most liquid fuel rockets on unmanned boosters burn nasty chemicals like N2O4 and UDMH (because they were often derived from ICBMs, which you want to keep fueled all the time, so no cryogenic fuels.)
At any rate, if it can burn, some rocket has used it as a fuel. Find out more here and here.
And for every person who thinks NASA produces nothing useful, two words: Compact Disc
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
To use this in automobiles. That would put a stake in the hearts of those in the middle east (assuming it's not oil based).
John Carmack, are you out there?
Can this fuel be used for amateur or semi-professional space ventures? Does it give any advantages over using, say, Peroxide fuel? How does the energy release/pound compare?
I know Peroxide is pretty nasty stuff, so it would be cool if a safer to handle alternative came down the pike.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
here's why:
Solid boosters are great because they are easier to handle than liquids, but most of all, because whatever weight a liquid booster carries around as turbopumps, plumbing, pre-combustion chambers etc, can now be given to PAYLOAD. That funny little bit of the rocket that actually does something other than look spectacular.
The design and manufacturing simplicity also reduces cost, which also lets us send more PAYLOADS up!
So a nice simple solid has a couple of nasty problems, too. i) uneven burning rates (thrust) is hard to overcome, causing vibration ii) no liquids to cool the nozzle with, so higher nozzle weight iii) can't shut it down, so no abort iiii) no throttle to control thrust, so payload shroud and carry through structure has to be heavier to accommodate higher MAXQ, AKA maximum aerodynamic pressure.
So the next thought is Hybred! Meter the LOX oxidizer flow, and you overcomesall these problems! COOL!! (but not so easy)
Uhh.... how do you get the fuel to stay solid, until it is really needed for burning? and ... Uhh... What keeps the solid fuel from melting, and just running out of the "tailpipe"? Idea!!: Make it hard to melt! OOPS! it also doesn't become available for combustion!
So here's what's done:
Put in a little pre-burner at the top of the solid fuel, a "heater" for evaporation of the fuel! Run the vaporized fuel through a restrictor into a second combustion chamber down by the nozzle. Also feed the second combustion chamber with the right amount of LOX, and well, you get the picture.
Not all that simple to model and control in practice. And it's very hard to find dense fuels that melt, vaporize, and burn just right.
So whatever this guy is doing is potentially very useful, and in any case, it's real rocket science, not simple stuff!
Good thing you admitted that you know nothing about chemistry since just about everything you say about it is wrong.
Sulfates, sulfites, and chlorates all form acids when you tack on some hydrogen. They all also contain oxygen. The presence or absence of oxygen has absolutely nothing to do with a substance being acidic.
Chlorine does react with water to form an acid. And interesting that you mention swimming pools since when you are caring for that swimming pool, you add chlorine to lower the ph.
Now lets look at some compounds made with elements on the right side of the periodic table. Hydrochloric acid, hydrofloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid. All seem to be acids.
Now lets look on the left side of the table. sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, lithium hydroxide. Yup all basic.
I do have to agree that it seems unlikely that a rocket would cause such a dramatic decrease in the ph for a lake but not for the reasons you mentioned.
I hope your post was just a joke at how much the original poster was talking out his ass but it's questionable enough to correct.