3 ms·
To get a turborocket to work in an atmosphere without oxygen you just have a classic rocket engine, with its own fuel and oxidizer, use its exhaust to drive a t
by Symmetry 3y ago
To get a turborocket to work in an atmosphere without oxygen you just have a classic rocket engine, with its own fuel and oxidizer, use its exhaust to drive a turbine the same way a jet is used to drive a turbojet. You have to leave off the afterburner stage that many existing turborockets have where you inject more fuel to burn after the final turbine.
- mlyle 3y agoIf you're using air for just working mass and not for an oxidizer, it's my belief that this does not improve specific impulse but only improves peak thrust/engine weight.
- Symmetry 3y agoBecause the energy lost to the movement of the propellant goes up as the square of the velocity but the thrust goes up linearly. Bulking out your propellant by a factor of ten while reducing the exhaust velocity by a factor of ten doesn't change the resulting thrust, but reduces the energy you need for that thrust by a factor of 10. The above elides a lot of complexity but the Wikipedia summary of the situation is pretty good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket#Energy_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket#Energy_efficiency