Space Entrepenuer

[hyper_fule]

We have plently alternatives to fossil fules they are just the cheapest energy source available an will be for a long time.

 

[killer223]

what i would say is yeah find someone with money,but hey you can be the first to do such a thing,just see how much you can do on you own first.Who knows,the rate you thinkin, you'll be in history books!!!!!!!!!

 

[killer223]

i agree with you all day.<br /><br />Just like they say,great minds think a like.

 

[freeshark]

Hey Hyper fuel,<br /><br />First of all, I want to say its great that you are thinking like you do. Don't ever let someone tell you, you are nuts for trying to go to space.<br /><br />Now regarding money. There is no easy way around it. You need start up capital to do the big things like nuclear projects. <br /><br />The guys with the big bucks won't take you seriously unless you can show RIGHT NOW where the profit lies. In your case you would have to show something like this:<br /><br />Profit point 1 - State of the art plan for a nuclear power plant in a location that desperately needs it. (This is the selling point for an investor.)<br /><br />Profit Point 2 - Rights to an patents and products that come of space travel projects. (You will need to come up with the funding for this from the profits of the nuclear power plant. And not too much of it at that.) <br /><br />Profit point 3 - Selling rights on revolutionary rocket. (This will look like science fiction to him/her unless you show convincing plans for building it.)<br /><br />And so on.<br /><br />Once you can show that your plan is realistic AND promises many levels of renumeration, the investor might consider it. ]<br /><br />The key is GAURENTEEING a certain amount of success. In this example the nuclear power plant would definately bring in major cash. The rest would be virtually free for the investor and therefore of little risk or consequence.<br /><br />If you want to make the money your self YOU CAN. Forget school. If you have the qualifications to play with plutonium, any idiot will listen to you just not to piss you off!<br /><br />But since you are qualified I suggest you start by creating something very useful to your project and that you can resell.<br /><br />Personally, I can't make a thing using my hands. I am the best negociator I know and can make millions of dollars but I am useless when it comes to technical stuff. <br /><br />You sound like you can make tons of stuff with your hands. Start by making a model of t

 

[qso1]

Could not have stated that better, Bill Gates is one of hundreds of dropouts but a rare dropout who was highly successful.<br /><br />His story however, is "American hype".<br /><br />How bout the guy that starts his business in a cheap apartment selling tiny classified adds! Talk about hype. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

incorrect. it is a myth that millionaires in America mostly inherit or begin with privileged lives. Try reading "The Millionaire Next Door" and you will see the truth: most millionaires in this country are self made, a majority do not have college degrees, and they got where they are by thrift, hard work, and simple living, not the flashy ostentatiousness you see on MTV.

 

[evolution]

hello<br /> ideas propels man, a idea today is the reality tommarrow. traveling through skies was once a idea.

 

[nexium]

If your parabolic dish is 4 square meters, it can collect 2 kilowatt of sunlight on a clear day in June, about 1 pm. At 50% efficiency that's one kilowatt; less other times of day and other months of the year, plus less than 50% efficiency is all but certain. Would you care to tell us how to use the myler, propeller and electric motor? Neil

 

[ortemus74]

Forget Nuclear

 

[mlorrey]

I really like the separate ejection capsule for the crew. <br /><br />"In the event of an in flight emergency, you passengers are screwed, we outta heah!!!"

 

[tomnackid]

I don't think you are going to get it up to the 18,000 MPH needed for LEO much less GEO. I could be wrong--at work and unable to do the math right now--but if it were that simple why wouldn't we already be doing it? Also, combining LH2 and LOX in fuel cells and using the electricity to make a steam rocket would seem to be a lot less efficient then just burning the LH2 and LOX directly to produce thrust. <br /><br />Although, I've often thought that beamed power--either from a ground station or from a satellite--could make a space plane commercially viable. Take off with conventional turbojets then at the optimum altitude the power beam locks on. It could either be a microwave beam to power an electric arc jet type engine or a laser or maser that would directly heat a working fluid.

 

[mlorrey]

I suspect, and tell me if I'm wrong, the electric steam engines will put the energy extracted from a given mass of LH2/LOX into a smaller mass of water. Given that LH2/LOX rocket engine exhaust is really just steam to begin with, if you concentrate the same amount of energy in a smaller mass of exhaust, you get a higher exhaust velocity and thus higher Isp. The fuel cell method of extracting the energy of combustion may be more efficient than a rocket engine, as well, so that may also increase Isp as well. I don't, however, think he has calculated the systemic efficiency, i.e. added all efficiencies together to sum. Typically this winds up being a lot worse for complex systems that are made of lots of more efficient technologies than for a simple system made up of a few lower efficiency technologies.

 

[tomnackid]

I suppose a thermoelectric engine can be very efficient since it can run at temperatures up to the melting point of the electrode. How hot do carbon arcs get? Probably hotter than oxygen/hydrogen combustion. The problem is that generating, storing and transmitting electricity is so inherently inefficient. That's another reason why I like beamed power, the inefficiency don't give you any weight penalty. Your electrical generating and transmitting equipment stays on the ground.

 

[mlorrey]

You have a point. My experience with plasma cutting technology tells me that, especially dealing with water in the plasma stream, can be difficult. Typically you use actively cooled copper or silver electrodes with hafnium tips with any plasma involving oxygen, as the alternative is typically tungsten, but it will burn up in a second in the presence of oxygen at those temperatures.<br /><br />You are correct regarding beamed energy, though putting a whole vehicle in the path of such a beam that is not designed for it (such as the 747 design above) is not a good idea.

 

[tap_sa]

The 747 design above appears to attempt generate necessary energy on it's own using fuel cells, without additional beamed energy.<br /><br />I'm unable to grasp where to designer gets the 1lb water = 2000lbs of thrust idea but that would mean 2000 second Isp, which is a pipe dream. Fuel cell-resistojet combo won't heat the water more than burning the propellants, but using resistojets one is limited to the melting point of the gadget. That thing would reach perhaps 200s Isp on a good day, dunno if it's enough even getting off the ground.

 

[ortemus74]

Tap_Sa,<br /><br />I arrived at 2000lbs. thrust per 1lb. of water using current microwave powered spacecraft research. (which is stated in the image.) If you think it is a pipe dream to have a thrust vector higher than 1lb. of water for 2000lbs. thrust look at 'numerous' nuclear powered spacecraft whose thrust vectors well exceed 2000lb. thrust per 1lb. of water.<br /><br />Btw, my fuel cells are run in PARRALLEL. Which means power is used FAST... If you run something in SERIES it will run slow using a smaller voltage with many more fuel cells helping out. When used in PARALLEL less fuel cells are required but you need many more small tubular cavities inside the fuel cell. 'MANY SMALL TUBULAR PAPER THIN CAVITIES' inside the fuel cell allow my 747 spaceplane to emulate a nuclear power source - simply by running the fuel cells in PARALLEL. <br /><br />As soon as the fuel cell power is drained into the capacitor the drained cell waste *steam/water* is thrown into the chamber where electricity makes it expand.<br /><br />STEAM POWER

 

[tap_sa]

<font color="yellow">" look at 'numerous' nuclear powered spacecraft whose thrust vectors well exceed 2000lb. thrust per 1lb. of water."</font><br /><br />NTRs don't use water but hydrogen instead. Still, 2000lbf thrust per 1lb of whatever propellant means 2000s Isp and no solid core NTR can reach that because it means the chamber temperature is well over 10,000 Kelvins. A gas core NTR which in theory could reach that without uncontrolled disintegration/phase change is just a paper concept.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Btw, my fuel cells are run in PARRALLEL. Which means power is used FAST.."</font><br /><br />You can run your propellants through the fuel cells paraller, serial, diagonal, sideways, up'n'down or even along z-axis, it makes no difference to the total energy released in the process. The process won't release any more energy than burning the propellants in a conventional rocket engine. No more magic energy means no more magic thrust nor magic Isp.

 

[ortemus74]

*NTRs don't use water but hydrogen instead* <br /><br />Here we go... Steam powered nuclear rockets!<br /><br />I found one that uses salt water as propellant. <br />Steam endows this rocket with a specific impulse or 6600s Isp -<br />thats more than triple my 2000s Isp for my 747 spaceplane.<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_salt-water_rocket<br /><br />Here is another...<br /><br />http://www.neofuel.com/<br />http://www.neofuel.com/liq_hydrogen_vs_water.doc

 

[ortemus74]

*NTRs don't use water but hydrogen instead*<br /><br />A nuclear-heated steam rocket engine (NSR) uses a nuclear reactor to convert water propellant to superheated steam. A pump raises the pressure of the water to about 3300 psi. Operation above the critical pressure avoids a propellant phase change and allows operation at higher power density. A rocket nozzle attached directly to the reactor converts the steam expansion pressure into thrust. The rocket vehicle consists of the nuclear engine, propellant water tank, nozzle, payload, and vehicle structure. Multiple restart capability and high reliability, similar to nuclear submarine propulsion systems, are essential. <br /><br />http://www.neofuel.com/<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

 

[mlorrey]

Did you even read that wiki entry on the nuke salt water rocket? Suggest HIGHLY that you read it, it is NOT for use in atmospheres with any appreciable ecology.

 

[ortemus74]

"You can run your propellants through the fuel cells paraller, serial, diagonal, sideways, up'n'down or even along z-axis, it makes no difference to the total energy released in the process. The process won't release any more energy than burning the propellants in a conventional rocket engine. No more magic energy means no more magic thrust nor magic Isp."<br /><br /><br />Doubling specific impulse is not bad, but it's just the beginning. If we convert the nuclear power into electricity and then use it to accelerate an ionized propellant through an electrostatic grid, we can boost specific impulse by a factor of 10, to around 5000 seconds. Such a nuclear-electric propulsion system would be perfect for some applications, such as propelling uninhabited probes to the outer planets.<br /><br />- Robert Zubrin<br /> http://www.angelfire.com/stars2/projectorion/zubrin.html

 

[tap_sa]

The nuclear saltwater rocket is a controversial concept at best. As already pointed out to you it cannot be used in atmosphere. In fact using it anywhere near Earth is unwise because the contraption would vent <i>all</i> of it's fission products unconstrained along with rest of the exhaust gases.<br /><br />Another issue is the water as propellant. 6600s Isp means insanely high chamber temperatures, something like 50,000K or more. At temperatures that high water molecules may have dissociated into free radicals. Good luck trying to contain that soup that is mostly <i>oxygen</i>.<br /><br />The neofuel thingie is more down-to-earth but it also states ~200s Isp, which is realistic and probably close to what your 747 would reach. The 2000s that you keep quoting for it is surreal.<br /><br />And dunno why you start quoting Zubrin on electric propulsion. Everybody knows electric thrusters reach excellent Isps, but everybody should also know that their T/W is abysmal, rendering it useless for getting anything to orbit from deep gravity well like Earth.<br /><br />

 

[ortemus74]

Dramatically greater improvements can be had by mixing the nuclear fuel into the working fluid, and allowing the reaction to take place in the liquid mixture itself. This is the basis of the so-called liquid-core engine, which can operate at higher temperatures beyond the melting point of the fuel. In this case the maximum temperature is whatever the container wall (typically a neutron reflector of some sort) can handle, while actively cooled by the hydrogen. It is expected that the liquid-core design can deliver performance on the order of 1300 to 1500 lbf·s/lb (13–15 kN·s/kg).<br /><br />These engines are difficult to build however; the reaction time of the nuclear fuel is much higher than the heating time of the working fluid, meaning that some system must be used to trap the fuel inside the engine while still allowing the working fluid to easily exit through the nozzle. Most liquid-phase engines have focussed on rotating the fuel/fluid mixture at very high speeds, forcing the fuel to the outside due to centrifugal force (uranium is heavier than hydrogen). In many ways the design mirrors the particle-bed design, although operating at even higher temperatures.<br /><br />An alternative liquid-core design, the nuclear salt-water rocket has been proposed by Robert Zubrin. In this design, the working fluid is water, which serves as neutron moderator as well. The nuclear fuel is not retained, drastically simplifying the design. However, by its very design, the rocket would discharge massive quantities of extremely radioactive waste and could only be safely operated well outside the earth's atmosphere and perhaps even entirely outside earth's magnetosphere.<br /><br />-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<br /><br />*In this design, the working fluid is water, which serves as neutron moderator as well.*<br /><br />'In theory' liquid-core NTR's based on water as propellant can have higher Isp's because water serves as a 'neutron moderater' cooling the engine before it flies apar

 

[tap_sa]

Neutron moderation<br /><br />Pure hydrogen is the best moderator and the best working fluid for a rocket.

 

[ortemus74]

Once the hydrogen gets hot you'll need more hydrogen to keep the the engine cool. The propellant can be replenished...<br /><br />Another thing - what does the Isp do with the engine temperature couldn't you just use a simple compressor - to compress the propellant?