The Biggest Bang

For six days over this extended July 4th weekend, this field on the outskirts of the college town of Geneseo is the setting for the Large Dangerous Rocket Ship launch... At East Coast launch sites like this one, which tend to be situated close to flight paths and population centers, participants are granted temporary waivers that allow them to fly as high as 12,000 feet. But at desert launch sites in the West, the sky’s the limit. In Black Rock, Nevada, last May, former Hollywood stuntman Ky Michaelson made history, launching a 21-foot, 700-pound rocket called Go Fast that climbed some 70 miles into the outer regions of Earth’s atmosphere—more than 20 miles higher than the previous unofficial amateur record. At this, the 23rd annual Large Dangerous Rocket Ship event (LDRS 23), Thursday through Sunday will be one big explosive picnic.

Static Test of Hydrogen Peroxide Kerosene Motor
Robert Compton
http://www.ad6uy.com/sac-l5/motor-test.html

"Our present plan for the coming year is to develop an 8'' diameter 500 lb/sec throttleable regeneratively cooled motor. The performance of the H2O2/kerosene motors is not trivial producing the highest density impulse of any usable oxidizer/fuel combination. We hope this report will encourage further development among amateur rocket designers."

Hydrogen delta-V
SSTO delta-V and dense fuels
Henry Spencer
http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/hydrogen_deltav.html

"A steeper mass line means that at any time after liftoff, the H2O2/kerosene SSTO has lower mass than the LOX/LH2 one, and since they have the same thrust... the H2O2/kerosene SSTO is accelerating faster. If they have the same total delta-V requirement, that last assumption must be wrong: the H2O2/kerosene burn time is shorter.

"But... the biggest penalty on top of the theoretical delta-V is gravity losses, and gravity losses are a function of burn time! The H2O2/kerosene SSTO is accelerating faster, so it has lower gravity losses, and needs less total delta-V. Moreover, that makes its burn time still shorter, and its mass line still steeper, so the difference in acceleration is even larger than it first seems...

"The H2O2/kerosene SSTO is operating in a very steep part of the mass-ratio curve. A 6% saving in delta-V is *not* trivial. For engines with a vacuum Isp of 320, the required mass ratio drops from 20 to 16. Given the aforementioned sophisticated scaling models, at this mass ratio, the H2O2/kerosene SSTO's payload at the same GLOM is now equal to that of the LOX/LH2 design."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.