We Have Ignition! NASA Tests a New Rocket

How do you test a new kind of rocket engine? Step 1: Bolt it to a trailer in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Step 2: Vroom! In this case, NASA is firing up the 5M15, which runs on compressed liquid methane. The odorless substance has multiple advantages over conventional rocket propellants: It's cheaper, it requires much less insulation, and it exists on several planets NASA hopes to travel to — Mars, here we come. That means astronauts could collect their own fuel for the trip home. Bonus rocket science: Those glowing figure eights in the blast stream are called Mach disks, after the guy who lent his name to the speed of sound. They're shock waves, created as the expanding fuel hits the higher atmospheric pressure outside the nozzle. If part of this blast weren't obscured, you could take the number of Mach disks (we count seven) and multiply by the speed of sound — about 758 mph at the 1,300-foot altitude of this test — to estimate the speed of fuel exiting the engine. Just don't get too close.

By Erin Biba | Wired Magazine Issue 15.09

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Wired
• Nasa
• Rocket

[threadysparrow]

i am guessing that this would be the best way to take out zombies?

[sportstalents]

Could it be used to let the earth spin faster? There would be more days in a year and all the economy would get a boost.

:-D

[ReeceAndersonable]

Sound AWESOME!

[Jant00]

The sounds sound like later added to the video, not from the camera.

[SStarwind]

That's intense

[neiggu]

At first i was like "who farted", but then KAPUUUSCH!!!! HOHO!! :D

[Tyrannobeast]

@oomblikkies A maglev wouldn't work with humans, because unless you want a huge rail the acceleration would be so massive that the crew would be dead before they knew they'd launched. You also need to already have the infrastructure in place.

Chemical rockets will probably be the only way for people to leave the surface of a massive celestial body for a very long time, nothing else approaches the balance of power and delicacy at the present time.

[oomblikkies]

Still looks like a chemical rocket to me. That is not the way forward. Ion propulsion has not the raw boosting power, but what about a sort of a maglev approach where a spacecraft it accelerated and then sling into space with its full compliment of chemical propulsion and/or ion drive still available.

[IceZer0X2]

why explore space when the bible have every answer? lol, jk. fuck religion, go science!

[EpiDemic117]

@sportstalents hahahah! Troll physics? Problem Wallstreet?

[TheGameHive]

ION + SPACE = MARS MISSION LOLZ

[briansrh]

thats chuck norris's ciggerate lighter haha!!!