Timeline for Could ships in space use a Steam Engine?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 18, 2018 at 15:35 | comment | added | G0BLiN | Another practical obstacle is that steam engines generate a lot of waste heat. In space, you can't radiate that heat to the environment, so you'll need some other form of cooling (which takes energy)... | |
| Nov 26, 2016 at 20:34 | comment | added | Peter | @Andrey Must lose mass - or interact with preexisting outside mass. | |
| Oct 17, 2016 at 3:09 | comment | added | Andrey | Just so it's said plainly here. Any spaceship, using any real physics, must loose mass to accelerate | |
| Oct 14, 2016 at 19:38 | vote | accept | TrEs-2b | ||
| Oct 14, 2016 at 12:58 | comment | added | Dustybin80 | I remember reading something about 'steam engines' that use liquid other than water. I found one that worked using CO2 scientificamerican.com/article/… I don't know about the practicality of it but it would be quite fun as a use for CO2 on the generation ship. | |
| Oct 14, 2016 at 9:56 | comment | added | user64742 | @vsz the op is welcome to comment but I'm pretty sure they were intending the obvious meaning of "power a rocket". After all, powering things inside a rocket is no difference than powering things on Earth and in that case the question would be more like "can steam engine's be used to power modern machines?". | |
| Oct 14, 2016 at 8:09 | comment | added | Taemyr | @vsz RE having a steady supply of hydrogen and oxygen - I read using steam as boiling water to get pressure and using that pressure. If you have hydrogen and oxygen you are not likely to first create water and then heat said water, it's easier and more effective to make a hydrogen rocket engine. - Of course said engine do expell steam, so you could make the case that the rocket is using a steam engine, but I don't think this is what OP meant. | |
| Oct 14, 2016 at 6:07 | comment | added | vsz | @TheGreatDuck : Electricity can have many uses, even if it's not used to propel the ship. The question didn't specify that it must be used for propulsion. | |
| Oct 14, 2016 at 5:31 | comment | added | user64742 | @vsz but where, sir, will the electricity propel the ship? | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 21:14 | comment | added | vsz | "Have a steady supply of water" - not necessarily. You can have a supply of Hydrogen and Oxygen. Many modern rocket engines do it. Or, you can have a closed loop where the water circulates and turns a turbine, generating electricity. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 18:57 | comment | added | AndreiROM | @Innovine - I didn't know all that. All the more reason to come up with a system that won't rust when on a space ship meant to last hundreds of years, don't you think? | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 17:27 | comment | added | Cem Kalyoncu | Also you don't need constant supply of materials. A generation ship requires minimal amount of course correction. It will run during launch and descent. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 17:04 | comment | added | Innovine | Burst pipes, tanks, corrosion and overheating are very real problems in all rocket engines. Some propellant is so cold you need to pre-chill the engine so it doesn't flash boil when used. The LM engine propellants did so much corrosive damage that the engine was effectivly a run-once device. Most engines would melt apart but for the fancy coolant systems in use. Soyuz can only be fueled for a short time before the fuel corrodes the tanks. A bit of rust on your plumbing seems pretty mild in comparison to real rocket engines. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 16:33 | history | answered | AndreiROM | CC BY-SA 3.0 |