New Mars Forums

ERRORIST

Member

From: OXFORD ALABAMA

Registered: 2004-01-28

Posts: 1,182

Re: Ram Jet

Any way to scoop the H2 out of the air like the ram jet scoops the O2 out of the air as it flys along? I can think of a few ways?

GCNRevenger

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2003-10-14

Posts: 6,056

Re: Ram Jet

The Hydrogen has too low of a concentration in the atmosphere to be useful, there just isn't much there. You would have to do some pretty serious seperation too to refine it, if you could get it to liquify at all.

---

[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

ERRORIST

Member

From: OXFORD ALABAMA

Registered: 2004-01-28

Posts: 1,182

Re: Ram Jet

Well if you look at the exhaust of the Jet liners way up there you can see the vapor trail they leave are those ice crystals?

GCNRevenger

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2003-10-14

Posts: 6,056

Re: Ram Jet

There isn't much water up there either, and capturing the exhaust water would reduce the amount of reaction mass, hence greatly reducing the engines' thrust and efficency.

Furthermore, splitting the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen is a very energy intensive process, and infact requires more energy to split the water molecules up then the energy released when you burn the resulting fuel.

If you are trying to come up with a clever way to make an airplane fly forever by scooping in atmosphere and combusting it, forget it, it won't work.

The idea of a plane that flies forever isn't a pipe dream though, the USAF experimented with nuclear powerd turbine (jet) engines, using the heat from a reactor to heat the air in the engine instead of burning fuel. The engines were ground tested and a reactor of appropriate size was flight tested, though radiation from the device is a big problem.

---

[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

ERRORIST

Member

From: OXFORD ALABAMA

Registered: 2004-01-28

Posts: 1,182

Re: Ram Jet

Yes, they built a 50 Mw test design and it work perfectly. Then they built a 500mw full size model and it too worked perfectly.Then the project was cancelled.

GCNRevenger

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2003-10-14

Posts: 6,056

Re: Ram Jet

Except that it would kill anyone they flew over on the ground from the radiation, the airplanes' payload was taken up by radiation shielding for the crew, and getting in and out of the thing or handling the reactor on the ground was a nightmare.

---

[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

ANTIcarrot.

Member

From: Herts, UK

Registered: 2004-04-27

Posts: 170

Re: Ram Jet

Except that it would kill anyone they flew over on the ground from the radiation,

Which of course set the USAF thinking...

Project Pluto was a mach 3 nuclear ram-jet powered cruise missile, proposed in the years before America had supriem confidence in it's ICBM systems.

It was intended to overfly russia, dropping nuclear bombs as it went, and using its sheer speed to escape the blast waves. One the last bomb was expended the auto pilot was then programmed to overfly russia for as long as the engine lasted; roughly 4 years. No one was quite sure whether the radiation from the over-flys or the bombs would actually do more damage.

ANTIcarrot.