SpaceX uses natural gas on anything equipped with a Raptor engine, this is true, but it wasn’t the company’s primary accomplishment or field of research like with Blue Origin.
It looks like starting with BE-7 Blue Origin started using Hydrogen and are now researching potential nuclear fuel options, I hadn’t even heard of these engines before today, it looks like they’ve never been used outside of testing phase, so I suppose I might have been overly critical.
If you read my comment you will see that Blue Origin has primarily developed and sold Natural Gas rocket engines. Blue Origin is the Jeff Bezos owned Fucking Natural Gas Rocket Engine Company. What part about this is unclear to you?
We’ve never launched from mars much less have an entire manufacturing plant and refueling station built, so it doesnt really seem pertinent at this juncture to be launching Vulcan rockets and frequent satellites that that technology.
We have flown this experiment on the ISS. It is a chemical process that is over 100 years old and is well understood.
It’s also the only way to lift any significant mass off of mars, because as you said we have no manufacturing or refueling there. So the rocket must refuel itself.
It then follows that if Mars is the next major target of exploration, and methane is cheap and abundant, why not get started now? The alternative is to spend a decade qualifying an engine for human space flight after the green light for a crewed mission.
Alright cool but we’ve never used these rockets anywhere other than earth. Their development for future use isn’t an excuse to use them over other types currently.
Also, Mars has lower gravity and little to no atmosphere, there are definitely other ways in that pointless hypothetical.
They say this a lot, so I expect they have some machinery running to demonstrate the technology here on earth? We have plenty of hydrogen here after all.
Oddly enough when the process was demonstrated by French scientists in the 1800s they did it in space, so the earth has yet to see this advanced technology.
Since it’s been around so long, surely there exists a plant somewhere that is creating methane at scale? Or a system has been designed that will produce enough methane to fill a starship economically? This problem must be long solved, I should be able to buy an off the shelf methane generator, no?
What does this mean? Starship uses methane too, you know?
SpaceX uses natural gas on anything equipped with a Raptor engine, this is true, but it wasn’t the company’s primary accomplishment or field of research like with Blue Origin.
It looks like starting with BE-7 Blue Origin started using Hydrogen and are now researching potential nuclear fuel options, I hadn’t even heard of these engines before today, it looks like they’ve never been used outside of testing phase, so I suppose I might have been overly critical.
So what were you trying to say when you said “fucking natural gas rocket engine company?”
If you read my comment you will see that Blue Origin has primarily developed and sold Natural Gas rocket engines. Blue Origin is the Jeff Bezos owned Fucking Natural Gas Rocket Engine Company. What part about this is unclear to you?
The part where your not calling Elon Musk’s fucking natural gas rocket engine company a Fucking Natural Gas Rocket Engine Company
SpaceX also had the Merlin, Kestrel, and Falcon series which were LOX/RP-1 fueled and they also had the Draco series which were Hydrazine fuel.
Fuck both of them, but Blue Origin is most well known for their Natural Gas rocketry.
Importantly they use methane because you can generate methane on Mars(especially if you bring some spare hydrogen).
We’ve never launched from mars much less have an entire manufacturing plant and refueling station built, so it doesnt really seem pertinent at this juncture to be launching Vulcan rockets and frequent satellites that that technology.
They use methane because it’s cheap and light. Any other justification is just bullshit greenwashing.
We have flown this experiment on the ISS. It is a chemical process that is over 100 years old and is well understood.
It’s also the only way to lift any significant mass off of mars, because as you said we have no manufacturing or refueling there. So the rocket must refuel itself.
It then follows that if Mars is the next major target of exploration, and methane is cheap and abundant, why not get started now? The alternative is to spend a decade qualifying an engine for human space flight after the green light for a crewed mission.
Alright cool but we’ve never used these rockets anywhere other than earth. Their development for future use isn’t an excuse to use them over other types currently.
Also, Mars has lower gravity and little to no atmosphere, there are definitely other ways in that pointless hypothetical.
They say this a lot, so I expect they have some machinery running to demonstrate the technology here on earth? We have plenty of hydrogen here after all.
Correct. It’s called the Sabatier reaction and it’s over 100 years old.
So where are the machines on earth demonstrating the process?
Oddly enough when the process was demonstrated by French scientists in the 1800s they did it in space, so the earth has yet to see this advanced technology.
Since it’s been around so long, surely there exists a plant somewhere that is creating methane at scale? Or a system has been designed that will produce enough methane to fill a starship economically? This problem must be long solved, I should be able to buy an off the shelf methane generator, no?