Tuesday, December 24, 2013

What kind of fuels are more suitable for spacecrafts?

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shirley386


what type of fuels should be used to travel by spacecrafts in space?
please give me an explanation too.



Answer
Spacecrafts consume two tanks of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for burners.
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/archive/2003-01/a-2003-01-14-1-1.cfm

The space shuttle is fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. To fly, the oxygen and hydrogen are mixed together and ignited to make a very hot fire. The expanding gases from that fire are what propel the spacecraft. The exhaust from spacecraft rocket motors (and hydrogen-fueled fuel cells) is mostly water.
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/transportation/fuelcells.html

Hydrogen fuel cells are used in spacecraft and other high-tech applications where a clean, efficient power source is needed.
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/fuel_cell/fuel_cell.html

What would be the economic benefits of private space flight?




Kailie


If you could list and explain why as well it would be much appreciated. I'm finding this to be a hard topic to explain so please help.


Answer
You bet it is a hard topic -- so here's a few hints.

First, look at history Bear with me here. Early on, new technologies are always uncertain -- but they follow a pattern. Cars and aircraft are examples. To start, they were expensive and not all that reliable. Rich men's toys. BUT, by buying those toys, rich people paid for research and development that led to practical and affordable ground and air travel. Key breakthroughs were the MOdel T (automobiles ( and the Douglas DC-3 -- military version the C-47.

For you, that history is crucial. Space travel is about where autos were in the years just before the Model T or air travel c. 1930. And private space travel is following the pattern of those two technologies -- the parallel is uncanny. We DO NOT know exactly what shape commercial space travel will take, or all of the economic benefits. But we do know some of them.

1) IMproved technology with other applications (spin offs). Here's one: creating airframes that can withstand launch and reentry stress at lower prices will provide materials that will make aircraft (and maybe cars) safer adn more efficient. There will be a hundred other spin offs we can't even guess at now. That's not a hope -- it is a certainty. Look at the history of space spin off technology to date (NASA.gov).

2) Crating an entirely new tourist industry (see Space.cm and the Virgin Galactic website).

3) Lower cost launches of communications, weather and other satellites -- plus the ability to go out and fix them when they malfunction, instead of writing off multimillion dollar systems due to a blown fuse.

4) The BIG payoff: zero-gravity manufacturing. We already know that extremely valuable products can be made in space that cannot be manufactured on earth, or at least not at a price anyone can afford. Check out "arogel" as a good example. This is gong to revolutionize materials science and technology, electronics, biotechnology -- and pharmaceuticals (checkout "interferon").

5) Unlimited power generation. This one is possible -- whether it can pay off is still debatable. Basically the idea is to build giant solar power stations in orbit adn use microwaves t transmit the electric power to the earth's surface. We know how to do this. Commercial space travel at affordable prices might make this a reality.

IN purely economic terms: countries that promote commercial space travel will generate jobs and ongoing hig tech innovations that will make them leaders in world markets. New businesses -- entire new industries in some cases -- will be created, leading to greater overall economic growth.

A last note: This is what we already know about. but if history is any guide, the really big payoffs will be the things we DON'T even have a clue about today. Example from the history of space: the technoogy for the Internet, personal computers, GPS cellphones are all outgrowths of us space reserch aimed at creating more powerful adn lighter computer circuits -- and nobody had a clue what tht reserch ws going to lead to.




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