Carbon Negative Rocket Fuel Could Bring Mars Within Range

It's not rocket science -- well it is, actually. British rocket scientist Ray Wilkinson has developed a fuel made from carbon dioxide that could make a future manned-mission to Mars viable. Here's more...




Preparing for a lift off - burning carbon dioxide.




Ray Wilkinson teaches rocket propulsion at the University of Hertfordshire in England and he's about to teach the space industry how to fuel future missions to Mars with a greenhouse gas.




[Ray Wilkinson, Rocket Scientist]:
"So what we're looking at is that if we can burn something with carbon dioxide then that allows us to turn the carbon dioxide back into carbon and take energy out of it in the process and that is where the carbon negative bit comes from."




This is a hybrid rocket motor - burning solid fuel with the help of gas - normally nitrous oxide.




What Wilkinson has developed is a way of using CO2 instead.




[Ray Wilkinson, Rocket Scientist]:
"It does seem too good to be true but the science is there. It works. We can burn it with aluminium powder and we can produce carbon from it, we can remove the oxygen from the carbon dioxide and turn the carbon back into carbon."




Burning carbon dioxide with aluminium powder works fine in the laboratory but the powder has to be in suspension - not so easy during a rocket launch.




So, while the chemistry is not new -- the technique is.




[Ray Wilkinson, Rocket Scientist]:
"What we've found is that if we use nitrous oxide, which we already use, with carbon dioxide then we don't need to use powered aluminium. We can use this stuff which is a mixture of aluminium powder set in a plastic. The nitrous oxide burns the plastic and the carbon dioxide burns the aluminium. This makes our job a lot, lot easier and its quite possible that we can fly this, probably this year."




The atmosphere of Mars is 95% CO2 - so a visiting space ship could refuel for the return trip.

A manned mission to Mars is generally regarded as the next big step in space exploration...a huge challenge that Ray Wilkinson says might now be one step closer to reality.

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[syafiq930]

awesome



[puffleperson]

yay for britain

[dhakagod]

This guy made my degree 10 times harder.

[lovegunz1]

phs i figured that out when i was 5. alto i still havent figured out how to spell now that is a tough one

[screamjackson]

collect all the CO2 that we pollute with and make rockets out of it, awesome.

[propyropower]

cool!