What a wonderful world it must be in your head, have you seen "Being John Malkovich"? Loved it :-)
Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jones Beene" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 4:49 PM Subject: Re: [VO]: New "vacuum" fuels > 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 > >
