New answers tagged propulsion
-1
Could this work?
Yes, because it passed peer review at an AIAA conference.
No, because the energy losses in moving energy back and forth between flywheels are enormous. The back and forth smells like a perpetual motion machine. It's much more predictable to power it by something with immensely higher energy density, i.e., something nuclear not chemical. ...
6
The Everyday Astronaut just released an hour long video investigating this question.
Some of the main points are:
Aerospikes are especially advantageous to single stage to orbit vehicles, and current space companies are not building those. There isn't really an advantage in SSTOs compared to multi stage rockets.
The efficiency advantage of aerospikes isn'...
-1
It is nice to see these equations about ionocrafts however, the first equation shown, that everyone has been going by, is wrong.
The thrust of an ionocraft correlates primarily with the voltage not current. 1 watt at 100kV produces far more ion wind than 1000 watts at 10 volts for instance. 1000 watts at the same voltage will produce more wind than 1 watt ...
5
The amount of propellant required to achieve a certain delta-V is dependent on the ratio between the starting and ending mass of the spacecraft, according to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation; a given thruster and fuel supply will get you more delta-V on a smaller spacecraft and less delta-V on a larger one. That is, 0.058 km/s per kg is not an inherent ...
0
CubeSat propulsion systems employing HAN-based propellants are currently under development and slated for launch in the next couple years. AF-M315E, the most developed HAN-based propellant, has very low shock and impact sensitivities. In light of this (along with the negligible vapor toxicity), range safety management has designated AF-M315E in a lower ...
5
The method described proposes a propulsive force based on
following the gradient of the vacuum energy density.
However, I see two problems
There is no evidence given in the question showing that a gradient in vacuum energy exists.
Even if one did exist (some location has a lower vacuum energy than another location) there is no evidence given in the ...
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