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Carmack Needs Rocket Fuel
Reality Master 101 writes "Saw an interesting post on the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society BBS from John Carmack, who is working on an X-prize vehicle. Apparently he is having a lot of trouble getting Peroxide from the major suppliers, and is possibly thinking of helping someone set up a company to produce peroxide. With NASA's recent problems, there has been a lot of talk about promoting more private investment in rocketry. But how can it happen when the suppliers won't even sell peroxide to well financed, registered, X-prize teams? Anyone want to start a peroxide business?"
Interesting video about the effects of H202 on clothing. The leather shoe displays an amazing reaction in less thant 2 minutes Test Video
Research into hydrogen peroxide rockets was done in during WWII, and actually made it into some experimental applications, I believe...
Actually, there were production aircraft powered by hydrogen peroxide rockets. The German Me163 was a rocket-powered fighter aircraft - tiny, but capable of almost 600mph. My flying instructor, who flew in the RAF during the Second World War, said that whenever they saw Me163 fly overhead, they flew in the opposite direction so they could catch them coming back, when they were out of fuel. Otherwise, they couldn't get near them...
There's an article in Flight Journal about them. The description of the engine is on page 3.
There is an interesting annecdote related to this.
At the world space congress last year, I was talking to Buzz Aldrin's son, who is head of acquisitions at Boeing. He really didn't believe that cheap, reusable launchers were possible (he thinks "billions of dollars in development"), but he said that if we win the X-Prize, demonstrating cheaper launch for even suborbital lobs, Boeing would "just buy us".
From our short discussion, it was clear that we have quite different world views, so I hesitate to read much into his statements one way or the other, but it was a bit curious.
John Carmack