For those who aren't already subscribed to the free NASA newsletter: > NASA Science News for January 29, 2003 > > Forget antimatter and dilithium crystals. The next > hot rocket fuel is candle wax! > http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/28jan_envirorocket.htm?list818490
"Waiting inside his Mercury capsule for the command that would start the countdown and make him the first American in space, Alan Shepard yelled impatiently, "Let's light this candle!" Those words may turn out to be more prophetic than Shepard intended. Since 2001, NASA's Ames Research Center has been testing a new rocket fuel made from--believe it or not--candle wax... ...In their design, the paraffin burns in the presence of pure oxygen gas. This alone causes it to burn much hotter than it does in air, which is only about 21% oxygen. That much had been done before. Karabeyoglu's innovation was to blow the oxygen past the melted surface of the paraffin fast enough to "whip up" this surface, like the ocean's choppy surface on a windy day. The "sea spray" of paraffin droplets that this kicks up burns very rapidly, tripling the combustion rate of the fuel. More than 40 test firings by the Stanford-Ames collaborative project have shown that the idea works as advertised. That's good news for the rocket industry, because this paraffin fuel would be much simpler and safer to work with than the toxic, explosive fuels used today..." Cleaning Out "To Read" Files Maru __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
