Electrical propulsion systems

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grooble

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Anything on the horizon or are we bound to chemical / liquid style fuels like rockets use?<br /><br />What is pulse detonation wave? <br /><br />I'm talking earth to orbit, not in space propulsion like ION engines.<br /><br />
 
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nacnud

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The difference between a normal engine and a pulse detonation engine is the speed of the wave front in the burning fuel.<br /><br />In internal combustion and jet engines the fuel burns through deflagration, in a PDE the fuel burns through detonation. In detonation the wave front moves faster than the local speed of sound.<br />
 
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henryhallam

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Aside from Orion (definitely not going to happen) and NERVA (almost definitely not going to happen for earth to orbit) I don't think there is much that's likely to be viable in the near future. <br /><br />The only things I can think of are scramjet first stages (great for reusability but nothing revolutionary in terms of payload capacity) and, even further off, that thing with the lasers where they heat initially air and then later in the flight rocket propellant. I've seen a video of that going a few hundred feet into the air but it is a long way off launching anything into orbit.
 
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starfhury

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Perhaps a space elevator, but that remains scifi for the present. There isn't much in the near term that can help. Aside from the environmental threat NERVA is the next closest technology we can tackle to take us away from chemrocks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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