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C M Edwards has been a member of NewMars since 2002-04-29, and has over 1000 posts...
His first post was about Plasma Space Drives.
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=929#p929
After a pause since 2007-05-31 16:21:11, it is good to see his ID back in view.
His most recent is about signs of (possible) life on Mars:
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 92#p190392
(th)
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This is a follow up to the recent visit to the forum by C M Edwards.
GW Johnson has kindly agreed to think about the problem posed by C M Edwards in his fist post from 2002.
The question had to do with the practicality of feeding a plasma drive with chemically stored energy.
The "traditional" supposition is that a practical plasma drive would be powered by atomic energy. Indeed, NASA has used atomic energy (in the form of thermal energy from decaying isotopes) to achieve astonishing success with ion drives.
However, C M Edwards asked about the practicality of using chemically stored energy to provide electricity to operate a plasma drive.
Here is part of a reply from GM Johnson:
Back to the hypothesis we've been discussing here ...
You've posed a very interesting question, and I'll post it in the forum for all to consider:
Aside from how the electricity might be used, if we start with 4 tons of liquid hydrogen, and 20 tons of liquid oxygen:
1) How much electric energy might we produce using traditional heat engine technology?
2) How much electric energy might we produce using the newer fuel cell technology?
Begin Quotation from Google:
Search for: How much energy does it take to burn 1kg of hydrogen?
What mass of oxygen is needed to burn 4g hydrogen?
4 g hydrogen reacts with 20 g of oxygen to form water.End Quotation.
This question set should interest a few forum members.
This forum is blessed with more than a few members who have the education, experience and communications skills to tackle this subset of the larger question. This forum is as good a place as any to reply. We can move the discussion to another topic if it appears to have legs.
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