Re: Fuel and Armor

>
>}     Note also that liquid ammonia stores more Hydrogen per kiloliter
>}than liquid hydrogen does (120Kg per Kl, as opposed to 70.6 Kg per
>}Kl).  So warships may (should!) be carrying fuel in the form of
>}ammonia, and processing it into H2 as needed.  Then the problem tends
>}to evaporate.

Here's a question for you...If you carry your fuel as ammonia, what do you do
with the nitrogen after processing?  Vent it to space?  Store it for those
times when you use wilderness refuelling and recombine it with the H2 so you
can store it as ammonia again?

If you vent it, would it be possible to detect a ship by the cloud of nitrogen
it leaves behind it?  Or would it be a trail of N?  Would it leave enough N
to detect, perhaps by the wavelengths of light it absorbs from the local sun?
How much N would be contained in a tankful of ammonia?

Paul Baughman
- ----------
Captain Sir Michael Talmoth,  UPP:  BA5A8B

"You see me now a veteran,
     Of a thousand psychic wars,
         I've been living on the edge so long,
             Where the winds of Limbo roar.
- -- BOC