[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Re: Are dwarfs betterforlongduration spaceflight?]

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl
...
> 
> I was just curious, why people were sticking to (tried and true,
> admittedly)
> assymetric dimethylhydrazine/NOx fuel. With a large mission, cryogenic
> fuels are not a problem.
...
> --
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>


I don't follow your reasoning here.  To have fuel keep
for seven months, use a little, then keep for another
two years after that, hydrazine and NOx would be hard
to beat.  It isn't clear to me how you would store your
LOX that long, even out there at 1.5 AU.

The disadvantage of hydrazine and NOx, the lower
specific impulse, is compensated by the fact that
you don't need all that terribly much delta V to
get out of Mars synchronous orbit to an earthbound
Hohmann transfer orbit, then you might be able to
use aerobraking to reenter.

spike