In my
last couple of blogs, I have been writing about nuclear power. For this blog
and the next few to follow, I will be talking about some things relating to
space travel. The subject that I will be writing about in this post will be the
problems with propulsion for space travel today. For simplicity, the space
craft that I will be examining will be the Space Shuttle.
The first thing that is a major problem is the
fuel. An amazing amount of fuel is required to get anything into space. The fuel
for the space shuttle weighed a total of 3,869,475lb, or nearly 1935 tons of
fuel! That is more than 23 times the weight of the empty shuttle itself!
There were three different types of
fuel used in the Space Shuttle. One was a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid
Oxygen. This was contained in the Space Shuttle external tank, weighing a total
of 1,621,722lb. This burns almost invisibly, and is the fire that is coming out
of the bottom of the shuttle itself. The second type of fuel was a mix of 69.6%
ammonium perchlorate as an oxidizer, 16% aluminum as a fuel, .4% iron oxide to
control burn speed, 12.04% PBAN (Polybutadiene acrylonitrile) to hold the fuel
together and act as a secondary fuel, and 1.96% an epoxy curing agent. This was
contained in the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, weighing 1,100,000lb each
for a total of 2,200,000lb. This is the fuel that causes the classic huge
plumes of smoke and fire during a launch. The last type of fuel used in the
Space Shuttle was two chemicals that, when mixed, combusted to produce thrust. These
two chemicals were monomethylhydrazine as a fuel, and dinitrogen tetroxide as
an oxidizer. These were contained in the Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering
System, with a combined weight of 47,753lb. These thrusters are small and
mostly used in space, so you cannot see them during the launch.
All three of these fuels are either
toxic and carcinogenic or cryogenically cooled, making them very difficult, expensive,
and dangerous to handle. They also are impractical for more mass or longer
travel, as this would require more fuel. This increase in fuel would need even
more fuel to lift it. This means that at a certain amount of weight or distance
to travel, it would simply require too much fuel or be too massive to achieve
liftoff. In my opinion this needs much improvement. In my next blog, I will be
writing about some ideas for improved fuel efficiency and different types of
engines and fuels.
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