Fusion Rocket

 news, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, nukes, projects, rockets, science, spacecraft  2 Responses »
Apr 052013
 

A new fusion rocket concept, funded by NASA, is generating a little press:

Scientists develop fusion rocket technology in lab – and aim for Mars

Researchers at the University of Washington say they’ve built all the pieces for a fusion-powered rocket system that could get a crew to Mars in 30 days.

The concept is straightforward enough. It’s a variant of the inertial confinement class of fusion rocket. In this particular concept, magnetic fields slam down on aluminum or lithium rings. The rings are very rapidly collapsed inwards by the magnetic field. The momentum of the imploding metal ring is theoretically enough to spark enough heat and pressure in a magnetically suspended  deuterium plasma to create fusion conditions.Importantly, the metal ring also absorbs most of the fusion products; it gets vaporized and stripped of electrons, and directed aft by the magnetic fields. This is an efficient way to couple the reaction to the spacecraft without impinging hot gases on physical structures.

Performance is not spectacular, as fusion engines tend to go… specific impulse of 2,440 to 5,720 seconds. But it ranks up there with the best of the Orion systems.

Some of their publications are HERE.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 6:41 pm

VTOL SST

 aircraft, art, projects  5 Responses »
Mar 302013
 

A 1960’s concept painting from Bell depicting a vertical takeoff and landing supersonic transport. The eight individually podded turbojet engines were hinged so that they could rotate upwards at least 90 degrees, providing vertical thrust. It’s far from certain that this was an actual engineering effort as opposed to pure artistic marketing. Exactly what benefit there would be in a VTOL SST is anyones guest.

 Posted by at 11:37 pm

Grumman pressure-fed Shuttle concept

 drawings, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Mar 282013
 

A Grumman alternate Space Shuttle concept with a low cross range orbiter and a series of pressue-fed storable-propellant rockets for the first and second stages. Pressure-fed boosters like this are heavy and relatively low-performance, but also relatively simple and cheap. The heavy construction required for the large high-pressure tanks makes them readily recoverable and refurbishable.

 Posted by at 11:17 pm

A pipeline alternative

 aircraft, blather, Hmm..., politics, projects  5 Responses »
Mar 262013
 

In the 1970’s, when everybody and their brother was thinking of ways of dealing with oil shortages and the like, Boeing studied the idea of using giant aircraft to carry oil and/or natural gas from Alaskas north slope down to the lower 48. Quite a number of these aircraft were designed; the math seemed to work on the aircraft being possible, but the math didn’t seem to work on them making economic sense. One of these crashes… hoo boy. Still, the idea of watching the Keystone pipeline protestors heads asploding when seeing these monster planes fly over would almost make the risk worthwhile.

Shown below is a photo of a model of one such design, capable of hauling a two-million pound payload (about 10 times the 747’s capability).

nat resources

One of these decades I’ll probably do an APR article on the concept.

 Posted by at 2:42 am

Early V-22 Art

 art, projects  No Responses »
Mar 182013
 

An early 1980’s Bell Helicopter artists concept of what would become the V-22 Osprey. The design is largely right, though the canopy is noticeably different. Note the refueling probe above the nose and the Gatling gun projecting from the tip of the nose.

 Posted by at 7:37 pm

Lockheed LH2 SST Artwork

 aircraft, art, history, projects  No Responses »
Mar 172013
 

The OPEC oil embargo of the west of 1973-74 and subsequent skyrocketing of petroleum prices made sure that the American SST program, cancelled by Congress in 1971, stayed cancelled. As Concord subsequently showed, an SST in an era of expensive aviation fuel would be an economic disaster.

In the late 1970’s there was a flirtation in the American aviation industry with liquid hydrogen as an alternate fuel for jetliners. LH2 would pose a number of issues, not least of which being the very low density of the stuff; relatively gigantic heavily insulated fuel tanks would be needed. For subsonic jetliner designs, these tanks often took the shape of extremely large fuel tanks on the wings, nearly the size of the aircraft fuselage. This was not much of an option for supersonic transports due to the increased drag. Nevertheless, liquid hydrogen fueled supersonic transports were designed. One such is shown below, a late 1970’s Lockheed design. The liquid hydrogen tanks occupy much of the forward and aft fuselage volume; the passengers are stuck in a relatively short segment in the middle of the double-deck fuselage. There would be no direct connection between the passenger compartment and the cockpit… so at the very least, the likelihood of a hijacking – another feature of air travel in the late 1970’s – would be greatly reduced.

By the 1980s, efforts to wean the west off OPEC petroleum were bearing fruit (or at least looking promising); as a result, the price of oil plummeted. And with cheap oil the imperative to design hydrogen-fueled aircraft largely vanished.

 Posted by at 2:08 am

Cutlass with a difference

 aircraft, drawings, history, projects, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Mar 142013
 

In 1949, the Langley Aeronautical laboratory of the NACA studied external stores (apparently fuel tanks) configurations for the Vought F7U Cutlass. A wide and occasionally unusual range of layouts was considered. As it happened, the Cutlass was a disaster of an airplane, with low powered engines prone to flameout in the rain and landing gear prone to collapse. The Cutlass did not last long and a surprising fraction were destroyed in crashes.

 

 Posted by at 2:35 am
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