Re: OT:Technical Question About Rocket Fuel

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:22:37 -0800, "forex10@xxxxxxxxx"
<forex10@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello,
Due to the low activity in other space groups I thought I would post
this question here. With regards to monopropelant rocket fuel which
catalyst works the longest for hydrogen peroxide - silver or iridium.
What I am trying to determine is that with jet packs silver makes it
last for around 20 seconds. Could it be longer when iridium is used?

No. The reason jet packs stop working after twenty seconds is not
that the catalyst has stopped working, it is that the fuel tanks
are empty. Well, OK, to be pedantic, the reason jet packs stop
working after twenty seconds is that the operators turn them off
on account of being safely on the ground at the twenty-second
point, because they know that the fuel tanks *would* run dry at
thirty seconds. I don't think anyone in the history of jet
packs has ever been foolish enough to run out of fuel in flight.

But ordinary silver catalyst packs will last much, much longer
than will any practical tank of hydrogen peroxide rocket fuel.
Hovering on rocket thrust in a 1-G field, consumes propellant
at a prodigious rate, and straight peroxide is not all that
energetic a fuel. If you want a "jet pack" to work any longer
than that, you're going to need a better fuel - and even that
is unlikely to get you more than a minute.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
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