NASA--and NIAC by charter--have a habit of continually reaching for
unobtainium. Maybe one day that spending will produce a usable result....
But we don't need metallic hydrogen or the like, a relativity dense fuel with
sufficiently strained bonds will more than do the job: very high payoff,
relatively low investment cost....
Now that my highly itinerant life is settling some, I plan on spending some
time getting back up to speed on the latest in HEDM; any suggestions as to near
term opportunities would be welcome.
Bill
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 1, 2017, at 1:52 PM, Anthony Cesaroni <acesaroni@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/637123main_Silvera_Presentation.pdf
Good luck.
Anthony J. Cesaroni
President/CEO
Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace
http://www.cesaronitech.com/
(941) 360-3100 x101 Sarasota
(905) 887-2370 x222 Toronto
-----Original Message-----
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of William Claybaugh
Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2017 3:34 PM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: methane to methanol
Just my view, but well worn: what we need are new propellants. A fuel with
the density of kerosene and the performance of hydrogen and SSTO becomes
economic.
That said, I imagine nobody would object to a 1200 sec. ISP mono
propellant....
Bill
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 1, 2017, at 1:10 PM, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:up here before...)
(This is a bit off the beaten track for Arocket, but the subject has come
system, there's long been an annoying snag in that easily-made fuels have a
For those interested in in-situ fuel production elsewhere in the solar
bad habit of being cryogenic. In the 5 May issue of Science, there's an
interesting paper (Sushkevich et al) on a simple catalytic process that
converts methane to methanol: CH4 + H2O -> CH3OH + H2. It can be found at
<http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6337/523>, although the full
paper unfortunately is paywalled. (Mind you, any university library will
get Science.)
They're thinking of terrestrial applications: being able to easily turn
(Be warned, the end notes mention that they do have a patent in the works!
natural gas into a room-temperature liquid fuel could be a Big Deal -- the
main existing process for this is a complex, energy-intensive hassle.)
Now, we just need an easy way to make HTP... :-)
Henry