FWIW - the thought occurred that there could be an exotic fuel
"additive" for use with he PWD (Pulse Wave Detonation) engine of the
rumored "Aurora" spyplane - the replacement to the venerable SR-71. The
purpose of the additive would be two-fold.
The actual fuel being burned in that infamous "donuts-on-a-rope"
contrail is said to be CH4 - methane- in a novel liquid or gel form
(stable at higher than cryo-temps). How could that be?
Methane turns liquid at minus ~162 degrees C., too low for practical use
in aircraft, since fuel is most often stored in the wing areas, and
adding insulation there is not practical. But one conceivable way (just
reinvented in the last 5 minutes ;-) is to convert liquid methane into a
gel, which would remain stable at much higher temperatures (perhaps
minus 20 C which is normal at high altitude.
Doing this could involve monatomic boron (or carbon, but boron has one
great advantage). Getting boron to an atomic state would be the
"breakthrough" which has occurred in some "black" project.
Full Speculation Alert: This is a complete guess, based on rumors which
may not even be accurate about an advanced spyplane. A few experts deny
that there is such a plane at all.
Anyway, not to be deterred by expert opinion ;-)... Boron has three
'easy' ionization or bonding states and since we do not want covalent
nor ionic bonding - only hydrogen bonding - then four may be available.
If a single boron atom stands at the center of a tetrahedron of four CH4
molecules, such that there are four shared hydrogen bonds with this
central "virtual glue" atom (boron), then there is little doubt that the
high (effective) molecular weight would give it high temperature
stability - and also there is the presence of boron, which has an
enormous cross-section for neutrons, which could be most important if
the cavitation-type pulse of the PWD frees-up neutrons.
"Fonly" (if only) there exists, as a side-effect of the sequential
pulsations, a supply of free neutrons available, then one could decrease
the fuel needed by a factor of about five million to one for every kg of
boron which is burned. IOW if Aurora can burn only a single gram of
boron on a 10,000 mile spy mission, then it can reduce the fuel needed
by 5,000 kg !
BTW the tell-tale evidence of this would be the presence of tiny amounts
of lithium in the contrail. Has anyone noticed anything in the press
about a lithium anomaly at high altitude?
Fortunately for the planners at the USAF, a gram spread out over 10,000
miles and then diffused into the atmosphere would be hard to detect by
GreenPeace, for instance (but the Russians probably know by now).
Moving further out on the shaky limb, there are two ways to get the free
neutron. The first would be as a hydrex/hydrino deflated hydrogen or
faux-neutron; and the second would be to use CH4 which has been enriched
in Deuterium.
Impossibly expensive - you say?? Maybe not.
Although reactor grade heavy water is tres cher, it is possible, even
likely that HDO from certain arctic locations is very cheap and
naturally abundant. That would be if there exists in nature a natural
freeze-thaw enrichment process going on. It is also very likely that if
the vaporized HDO is mixed with methane, that over time all of the D
transfers naturally to the stronger bond - the methane.
This process would give an affordable gas which is something like CH2D2,
or a doubly enriched methane, and for cheap enough to be used in a spyplane.
Or not. But if so, why has not NASA gotten into the act?
...or have they? more on that next time.
Jones
