Quote:
Originally Posted by hal
Ammonia MIGHT be the other alternative route to go - in that if the Liquid Hydrogen is Cryogenic in nature, it (the tanks) should also be able to handle the Ammonia. By chance, would you know how much liquid Hydrogen one can obtain from Liquid Ammonia? If not, no biggie. If yes - well, might be interesting!.
|
In general take the density of the material, and multiply by the number of hydrogens in the formula, divided by its total molecular weight
So for liquid hydrogen you have 0.071 * (2/2) = 0.071
For water you have 1.00 * (2/18) = 0.111
For liquid ammonia you have 0.68 * (3/17) = 0.120 around boiling
Chilled liquid ammonia can get denser, so up to 0.74 * (3/17) = 0.131 for that.
For chilled diborane you have 0.48 * (6/25.6) = 0.113
The real unbalancing concept for Traveller is metallic hydrogen, which given the existence of materials like bonded superdense should be *easy* with existing tech. Estimates of densities vary, by 0.85 is about the minimum estimate, leading to 10-fold or more smaller fuel tanks.