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

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 06:35:56AM -0700, spike wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> If we're making LOX/methane on Mars, we'll need a
> liquification plant and a cryogenic tank there.
>  
> > 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.
> 
> You're not sending much ahead to Mars, are you?

Actually, Zubrin's plan was to send landers with a full fuel load of
boranes, and produce the oxidizer in situ.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


	
		
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