Posted on 04/06/2023 1:02:19 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Relativity's Terran 1 Rocket is mostly 3D-printed. It burns a cryogenic rocket fuel composed of liquid methane and liquid oxygen (methalox). In this close-up of a Terran 1 launch on the night of March 22 from Cape Canaveral, icy chunks fall through the stunning frame as intense blue exhaust streams from its nine Aeon 1 engines. In a largely successful flight the inovative rocket achieved main engine cutoff and stage separation but fell short of orbit after an anomaly at the beginning of its second stage flight. Of course this Terran 1 rocket was never intended to travel to Mars. Still, the methane and liquid oxygen components of its methalox fuel can be made solely from materials found on the Red Planet. Methalox manufactured on Mars could be used as fuel for rockets returning to planet Earth.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Burns Maalox?.......................
Or, if the astronauts are members, they can just order the fuel from Amazon Prime to be delivered.
Pretty cool. (No pun intended)
Are they already making plans to do this, or is this merely wishful thinking?
The left is looking for ways to escape Earth because "global warming", to go to a planet that has an atmosphere that is mostly CO2, is always below freezing and has no magnetic field to deflect solar particles or cosmic rays. If you understand leftists then it sort of makes sense how they would want to do this.
Plans are being made. Mars has ample CO2 and at least some water. Add energy (from the sun or a nuke) and you can convert that back to CH4 (methane) and O2.
Wow... I never realized how close we are to the era “to boldly go where no one has gone before...”.
Kinda makes me feel old.
Beautiful. It has almost as good Isp as LH2+LO2, but is much easier to handle. I hope they get stage separation figured out for their next launch.
The Raptor engines on Spacex Super Heavy and Starship use liquid methane and oxygen.
Three-D printers aren’t quite up to that level of sophistication yet. ~ Anton.Rutter
What say you now, Anton?
Indeed. It’s a race to see who gets to orbit with liquid methane first.
“The Raptor engines on Spacex Super Heavy and Starship use liquid methane and oxygen.”
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