The Chinese just launched the first methane-powered rocket.

The methane rocket is more environmentally friendly than traditional rocket fuels. Methane is a greenhouse gas that bacteria produce from biowaste. And that thing makes methane a quite cheap fuel for rockets and jet engines. The melting and boiling points of methane are very low, which makes this gas suitable for space operations. If the melting point of gas is too low, it will freeze in space.

The reason why methane is an interesting fuel is that moons like Titan have methane atmospheres. And also, methane can be produced on the same refinery platforms that clean up environmental waste. Methane itself doesn't involve oxygen. And that allows engineers to use that gas in thermal nuclear rockets as well as hydrogen or some other gases.

The thing is that methane is also suitable for use in new types of chemical lasers. Methane lasers can have a similar radiation impact as carbon monoxide lasers. But their efficacy is lower. The fact is that methane is an inflammable gas. And that thing makes it more difficult to handle than carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide lasers.

But in space, the methane lasers can also operate as well as the carbon dioxide lasers in a vacuum. The methane-powered liquid fuel rockets can operate in both civil and military areas. The lasers can be installed in the rocket stage. And in that case, the high-power carbon dioxide and methane lasers can get their energy from acetylene light.

Those large lasers can operate in long-range communications as well as anti-satellite roles, and they can destroy high-flying objects. When we think about the kilometer-long chemical lasers, those systems are powerful enough to burn houses from the orbiter.

The accuracy of those systems is far higher than that of some other systems. And in some doomsday visions, the high-power orbital lasers can shoot single people from the streets. The system can use quadcopters or high-resolution image reconnaissance satellites to locate the target. Then the laser system can aim at that point.

This is the reason why we should consider the Chinese attempts to build a kilometer-long space station. Those extremely powerful lasers can be installed in that structure. And the laser systems can get their energy from solar panels.

Comments

Chinese innovations and space lasers are interesting combinations.

Above: "Tiangong is China's operational space station located in low Earth orbit. (Image credit: Alejomiranda via Getty Images)" (Scpace.com, China's space station, Tiangong: A complete guide) Chinese are close to making nuclear-powered spacecraft. Almost every day, we can read about Chinese technical advances. So are, the Chinese more innovative than Western people? Or is there some kind of difference in culture and morale between Western and Chinese societies? The Chinese superiority in hypersonic technology is one of the things that tells something about the Chinese way of making things. In China, the mission means. And the only thing that means is mission. That means that things like budgets and safety orders are far different from Western standards. If some project serves the Chinese communist party and PLA (People's Liberation Army) that guarantees unlimited resources for those projects. Chinese authorities must not care about the public opinion. If we th

Iron Dome is one of the most effective air defense systems.

The Iron Dome is a missile defense system whose missiles operate with highly sophisticated and effective artificial intelligence. The power of this missile defense base is in selective fire. The system calculates the incoming missile's trajectory. And it shoots only missiles that will hit the inhabited area. The system saves missiles and focuses defense on areas that mean something. The system shares the incoming missiles in, maybe two groups. Another is harmless and another is harmful. Things like killer drones are also problematic because their trajectories are harder to calculate than ballistic missiles. The thing that makes drones dangerous is that they can make masks for ballistic missiles. And even if those drones are slow, all of them must be shot down. The thing is that the cooperation between drone swarms and ballistic missiles is the next danger in conflict areas. In the film, you can see how drones make light images of the skies. The killer drones can also carry LED li

The innovative shield that protects OSIRIS-APEX can also protect the new hypersonic aircraft.

"NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft successfully completed its closest solar pass, protected by innovative engineering solutions and showing improvements in onboard instruments. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab" (ScitechDaily, Innovative Engineering Shields NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX During Close Encounter With the Sun) The OSIRIS-APEX probe travels close to the sun. The mission plan is to research the sun. And especially find things that can warn about solar storms. Solar storms are things that can danger satellites at the Earth orbiter. And the purpose of OSIRIS-APEX is to find the method of how to predict those solar storms. Another thing is that the OSIRIS-APEX tests the systems and materials that protect this probe against heat and plasma impacts. The same technology. The researchers created for OSIRIS-APEX can used in the materials and structures. That protects satellites against nuclear explosions. That means this kind of system delivers information on how to prot

Interesting and futuristic innovations

Search This Blog