Re: Just add water

John H. Kim writes:

>Ammonia (NH3)
>  %wt of Hydrogen:  17.65%     (3/(14+1+1+1))
>  About 1.70 times the hydrogen in the same space.
>  (Water worked out to about 1.57 times the hydrogen)
>
>
>Methane (CH4)
>  %wt of Hydrogen:  25%     (4/(12+1+1+1+1))
>  About 1.96 times the hydrogen in the same space!
>  Wow, almost doubled capacity!

This is an interesting breakthrough in starship design.
Sell your stock in refined fuel companies!
The facilities should be designed to allow sufficent fuel capacity if
water was being used, as the other gasses may not always be avaiable.
Thus is methane is designated as providing a 30 day supply, then Ammonia
would give you 26 days, and water 24 days, this should be plenty.

This brings up three points:

First: Are there any astophysicsts out there who can describe the
strucutre of a gas giant. i.e. what gasses are found at the top of the
atmosphere, how far down do you have to go to get ammonia, or methane?

Second: If a load of mixed gasses come in to the tank, can the
refinery eliminate the unwanted material, and leave ammonia water or
methane. They are designed to extract hydrogen, and dump everything else.
Would two purifiers be necessary? One to sort the incoming wilderness
fuel, and the second to provide hydrogen for the holding tank.

Third: Another method of saving fuel space is logically considering
the energy usage of a ship. The fuel consumption is based on full output
24hrs a day for 30 days. Warships in particular devote a lot of energy to
weapons screens or agility.
We know that the fusion engines can vary their fuel consumption, as the
idling rules imply. anyways if you don't agree with this, then you can
always designate two fusion engines, one for the consant energy, and the
other for the on-demand energy.
Thus only allocating fuel for 12-48 hours of combat, a reasonable
assumption I believe, even more fuel savings can be made.

			-Dan

Dan Corrin, System Manager, Mechanical Engineering, UWO, London, Ontario
TML FTP site coordinator:  [email removed]    ...!watmath!julian!engrg!dan