Re: Air-fueled aircraft on Titan

"Wayne Throop" <throopw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1224699220@xxxxxxxxxxxx
:: is it possible to directly use the methane in the air as fuel?

: throopw@xxxxxxxxx (Wayne Throop)
: there's nothing obvious preventing it

Oh. Well, I think there's an issue with energy density.
Since when you burn something, you're getting "CO2" and "H2O",
you're better off, mass-wise, carrying around the C and H rather
than the O, since the O outmasses the C and H. Whether that would
make it totally prohibitive... eh, dunno.


Wayne Throop throopw@xxxxxxxxx http://sheol.org/throopw

The lack of free atmospheric oxygen would seem to be a problem with your proposal. Essentially you could consider exactly the reverse of what you do on Earth, where the oxidizer is free but you have to refine and carry fuel; on Titan, the fuel is free as part of the air but you have to refine and carry the oxidizer (hence make oxygen by electrolysis from water ice, for example). I'm not sure if the density of methane is high enough for this, as the atmosphere is 98.4% nitrogen and only 1.6% hydrocarbons and other gases. So you may have to extract and concentrate the hydrocarbons, carry this in tanks, and fly by rocket. But there are lakes of methane, apparently, so fuel should be easy enough to come by, and with low gravity, carying fuel and oxidizer together should be easy enough.

--
Mike Dworetsky

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