Re: Space travel is no longer SF

On 1 Oct 2007 08:52:35 -0400, justinf@xxxxxxxxx (Justin Fang) wrote:

In article <1191208259@xxxxxxxxx>, Wayne Throop <throopw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: dbd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David DeLaney)
: "fire ... not ... sustainable tech". Check.

A source of oxygen to feed to the fire is not sustainable tech. Or if
it is, nobody's explained how to do it. Remember, you were talking
about melting many many kilograms of silicates to make glass, for
greenhouses. Most likely any plausible source of oxygen would render
the flame somewhat irrelevant. So, yes, in this context, fire is not
sustainable, because there's no source of oxygen that will *last* *long*
enough to make your glass.

Also, there's no source of fuel to burn with that oxygen.

(Yes, Zubrin, Mars Direct, etc. But that's a scheme for storing the output
of the nuclear reactor you brought along as rocket fuel, and requires an
imported supply of hydrogen anyway.)

Actually, you can get reasonable ammounts of propellant using solar power
and native water, though if you're bringing lots of stuff from Earth you
probably will want to include a nuclear reactor and a bit of hydrogen.
And if your name is Zubrin, it is to be taken for granted that you'll
be bringing the most spectacular nuclear thingamagummy you can get your
hands on whether you need it or not :-)

If you're trying to completely cut your ties with Earth, note that you
can use O2/CO as a perfectly good propellant combination for the sort of
modest delta-V missions likely to be undertaken on and around Mars.


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