Electrically Powered Space Rockets

Ok disregarding for a moment how it would be accomplished, i have 3 questions:

1.How much force is required to reach escape velocity (to get into space)?

2. How much electricity would it take to launch a rocket into space?

3. What type of engine could utilise that electricity?

1. EV for Earth is roughly 11,000 kmph. Force is something totally different, a miniscule force could do it if it weren't for wind resistance, etc.

2. Electricity is nowhere even close to being used on a rocket, so data is totally nonexistant.

1. To reach outerorbit is about 5mph, 7mph to reach the moon...or is that kmph? meh

2. It would take an equivalent amount of force to launch an electric rocket, whatever thisis, as it does a hydrogen fuel rocket.

3. What exactly do you mean electrical space rocket?

Yea AMor. i meant your answer, force was the wrong word obviously.

Frosty umm im quite positive u have that wrong. If that was the case i could skate up a half pipe and reach escape velocity.

I guess question two wasnt a relevant question.

3. I mean an electrically power space rocket.

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Ok so......

4. what kind of rocket/engine could use this electricity? eg: bigass jet engine (just an example)

Originally posted by Shadow88
4. what kind of rocket/engine could use this electricity? eg: bigass jet engine (just an example)

Well a rocket engine works by combusting one or more materials in a container and then funneling the energy out of a hole.

A jet engine burns fuel, but uses that fuel to spin a compressor. The compressor compresses the air (go figure, eh?) and it flows out the other end. The main thing for that though is that air or some other medium to pass through it is required. So at high altitudes and above jet engines will not work.

I'm not really certain for what you're asking about, but, as Amorymeltzer said, electricity is no where near being used for propulsion.

4. A lot of people pooh-pooh the idea of an electric space rocket. I do too. Electricity in itself cannot create thrust. But an eletrically-ASSISTED space rocket propulsion system. There's an idea. If we... say.... Took a small cannister of liquid nitrogen, for example, heated one up, and poked a hole in the bottom of them both. Which one's gonna go farther? The heated one of course, becauset he pressure is greater. Think of this idea. If we had a large cannister of liquid oxygen or some other element easily taken from the air, where electrolyzed or gotten through some other means, and put it on a shuttle launched from the moon. The we heat it up (using ELECTRIC heaters which are very efficient with their electricity) to increase the pressure a lot, then allowed the gas to escape through the rear of the craft. Its like a hybrid between an ion engine and a conventional hydrogen rocket.

*Note that it would have to be launched from the moon because acceleration would be gradual at best. *

It's not a really bad idea for an electric rocket, it just has to be played with a little before it can work.

Obviously i didnt mean an electrical engine, just an electrically POWERED one, or yea, assisted.

I mean there are some very unusual ways to create A LOT of electricity.....

Its just using it in an engine that can utilise that electricity.

Have you seen how large those rocket engines are? It'd take a LOT of electricity to heat up a mass that large, then you'd need all that extra weight in extra heater hardware and its power source. I know, maybe the power source for the heaters could be produced by igniting fuel, taking the heat that it generates and using it to turn a generator that then produces the electricity which is then fed to the heater elements to heat up the... uhhh... fuel.

See the problem here?

That's why they make rockets do their thing just by igniting the fuel directly. If you do the calculations based on how much energy is contained by various chemical reactions, you'll come out on top by burning the fuel.

Now if you happen to know how to make an electrogravitic drive, then that'd be able to make use of electricity. Of course, "they" would kill you first if you were looking like you were succeeding.

I can't think of any other form of electric propulsion that produces a substantial thrust. Ion rockets produce a tiny thrust, useful for something that you've already gotten into space via some other means. You might make the situation a little more interesting by beaming the electricity to such a space ship from earth, e.g. laser beam that hits the ship's solar panels.

but you know a lot of that space is fuel tanks though

I'm still not quite clear on what you mean by electric rocket. The rockets we use today use liquid hydrogen fuel and oxygen or an oxidizer as a propellant (a substitute could be flourine).

Yes fuel tanks take up a massive amount of space because the thrust needed is greater than about 70k. The Saturn five rockets were at about 250k of thrust and were multi stage.

There is electricity running through these rockets that reach orbit. But electric power rocket? I guess you mean to say a scram jet from the sound of it, which in this case would be like the x-45(?) which is the fastest scram jet out there and I believe it only reached mach 9.5. Not fast enough.

3. What type of engine could utilise that electricity?

Sounds to me as if you were specifically stating that this rocket would use an electric engine, no?

I read about using something like the electrically powered rail gun to shoot objects into orbit. Maybe that is what the original poster was looking for. While it might work for satellites, etc., I think I remember reading that the high acceleration from a rail gun would kill a human being.

[edit on 9/12/2005 by centurion1211]

With escape velocity, surely if you head upwards, under constant acceleration, you could get to the moon doing only 5mph...Obvously the fuel requirements for that would be enormous, but it would be possible. As long as your acceleration exceeded 1G

Isn't escape velocity only used when the object isnt under constant acceleration? I mean, you get it up too a certain speed using up your fuel. Once it is at that "escape velocity" it would require no more fuel in order to escape the Earths pull.

[edit on 12/9/05 by stumason]

There is no set velocity for escape velocity because it depends on the mass of an object. The formula is 1/2 mv2 = GMm/R solving for V

Originally posted by centurion1211
I read about using something like the electrically powered rail gun to shoot objects into orbit. Maybe that is what the original poster was looking for. While it might work for satellites, etc., I think I remember reading that the high acceleration from a rail gun would kill a human being.

That was the plan way back in the 30s or so when that was new technology, and people thought it was limitless. As it turns out, a railgun of that size is as close to impossible to construct as you get. And, yes, it wouldn't work even if you could build it; you'd die, and then miss your target.

IDEA: Something has come to mind now that I think of it. There COULD be a way to get a capsule to the EDGE of space where it could then launch without a problem. Y'know the Helios thing? SOmething like that. A big (reusable I might add) flying, solar-power wing to heft the capsule into near-orbit (or whatever) to that it takes significantly less fuel than a straight shot from the ground. Although Helios crashed, this one shouldn't lol. It may not be a rocket, but it does support rockets and is electrically-powered.

Originally posted by Distortion
There is no set velocity for escape velocity because it depends on the mass of an object. The formula is 1/2 mv2 = GMm/R solving for V

But gravity is a constant here on earth so there should be no reason for any change in velocity, no?

Originally posted by stumason
With escape velocity, surely if you head upwards, under constant acceleration, you could get to the moon doing only 5mph...Obvously the fuel requirements for that would be enormous, but it would be possible. As long as your acceleration exceeded 1G

Isn't escape velocity only used when the object isnt under constant acceleration? I mean, you get it up too a certain speed using up your fuel. Once it is at that "escape velocity" it would require no more fuel in order to escape the Earths pull.

[edit on 12/9/05 by stumason]

Cool we both made the mistake of saying 5mph rather than the appropriate 5mps. Thankfuly only ourselves caught us.

I take it that the electricity will come from solar cells.

Batteries would be so heavy, the craft could never get off the ground.

Extension cords would need to be quite long!!!

What other options do you see?

Maybe some sort of Tesla device.

Originally posted by Shadow88
Obviously i didnt mean an electrical engine, just an electrically POWERED one, or yea, assisted.

I mean there are some very unusual ways to create A LOT of electricity.....
Its just using it in an engine that can utilise that electricity.

You might want to work on restating your question. ALL rocket motors use electricity for ignition controls and monitoring and many other things.

The term, "rocket" basically refers to a specific kind of propulsion engine that is (as someone said) a cannister with fuel burning at the other end, providing thrust in a certain direction.

There's no such thing as an "electric rocket" -- that's the equivalent of a "mind-control porkchop."

Methinks we maybe talking about Ion Engines. Electricty as they main creator of the thrust (along with a suitable gas to ionize).... Low thrust but long output - nice for probes and the like....

Thats what I was thinking as well..
Deep Space 1..

DS1
A pretty successful test of Ion propulsion..