W
wtrix
Guest
It's been a buzz about the hydrides found in lunar surface. That enables future lunar explorers to refuel their rockets for round trips. But I found myself wondering, what about one-way payloads from Moon to Earth?
One thing is sure. Bringing empty rockets form Earth is plain waste. Also one can't manufacture high-power liquid rocket motors on the moon. It's too difficult with their tubing, high production turbopumps, super strong casings, precision injectors etc. Though, you can still manufacture small steering motors with pressure fed fuel systems.
So for main motor, it seems to be far easier to go for solid (or hybrid) rockets. There the main question is of where to find the carbon from, because all known binders use carbon. What I propose is to use the following mixture:
1. Oxydizer - Ammonium Nitrate (or LOX/NOS in case of hybrid) - it's difficult to manufacture ammonium perchlorate there because chlorine is a scarcity on moon
2. Fuel - Aluminium or magnesium - there's lot of them
3. Binder - polyborazylene (B3N3H4), which is a polymer that you can't use on earth, because it absorbs moisture (to my knowledge), but no such problem exists up there
One thing is sure. Bringing empty rockets form Earth is plain waste. Also one can't manufacture high-power liquid rocket motors on the moon. It's too difficult with their tubing, high production turbopumps, super strong casings, precision injectors etc. Though, you can still manufacture small steering motors with pressure fed fuel systems.
So for main motor, it seems to be far easier to go for solid (or hybrid) rockets. There the main question is of where to find the carbon from, because all known binders use carbon. What I propose is to use the following mixture:
1. Oxydizer - Ammonium Nitrate (or LOX/NOS in case of hybrid) - it's difficult to manufacture ammonium perchlorate there because chlorine is a scarcity on moon
2. Fuel - Aluminium or magnesium - there's lot of them
3. Binder - polyborazylene (B3N3H4), which is a polymer that you can't use on earth, because it absorbs moisture (to my knowledge), but no such problem exists up there