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Press X to doubt. I'll believe it when I see it. "The key insight is to use electric motors to drive a compressor" Uhhhh what? This just does not seem like a

Press X to doubt. I'll believe it when I see it. "The key insight is to use electric motors to drive a compressor" Uhhhh what? This just does not seem like a good approach, admittedly most of my aerospace knowledge comes from KSP and Scott Manley videos, but the atmosphere thins out pretty damn quick and if they're saying that they can get a benefit on a first stage by getting their oxidizer from atmo in exchange for a bunch of hardware and batteries color me extremely skeptical. This is a field that has had it's problems attacked by a lot of very smart people and the even if this made sense (to my amateur eye it doesn't) the devil is in the details. Hope I'm wrong though!

SkyMarshal 3y ago
Are they really using batteries, or do they have constant electrical generation via a turbine or something? Seems batteries for this thing would add a lot of weight.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > batteries for this thing would add a lot of weight The only reason I can think they would choose launch over e.g. drones is that it's powerful but doesn't last long. That implies supercapacitors.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cobbal 3y ago
  The electron rocket used batteries to drive the fuel pumps for a liquid engine that could get into orbit. It used a lot of LiPo batteries, which it jettisoned as they were used up.
powderpig 3y ago
Conventional jet engines run at RPMs in excess of 20000rpm. To get this same speeds for the same mass flown rates of say a J79 (F4-Phantom) you'd be looking at some massive electric motors. Conventional jet engines would be using electric motors if they were light enough already. There is a reason Rolls-Royce UltraFan uses a speed reducing gearbox for it's fan blades and not an electric motor. More to the point above, at hypersonic speeds, using a conventional compressor is sort or useless unless you can keep your air cool.

SkyMarshal 3y ago

Are they really using batteries, or do they have constant electrical generation via a turbine or something? Seems batteries for this thing would add a lot of weight.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> batteries for this thing would add a lot of weight The only reason I can think they would choose launch over e.g. drones is that it's powerful but doesn't last long. That implies supercapacitors.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cobbal 3y ago
The electron rocket used batteries to drive the fuel pumps for a liquid engine that could get into orbit. It used a lot of LiPo batteries, which it jettisoned as they were used up.

powderpig 3y ago

Conventional jet engines run at RPMs in excess of 20000rpm. To get this same speeds for the same mass flown rates of say a J79 (F4-Phantom) you'd be looking at some massive electric motors. Conventional jet engines would be using electric motors if they were light enough already. There is a reason Rolls-Royce UltraFan uses a speed reducing gearbox for it's fan blades and not an electric motor. More to the point above, at hypersonic speeds, using a conventional compressor is sort or useless unless you can keep your air cool.