Reply To: General thought on old coal mines.

[zapkitty]

Seems that a lot of preliminary work has actually already been done on all-electric propulsion. It’s the obvious next step and keeps showing up in the trade spaces because of the benefits that accrue even if the electric generators are chemically fueled. Funny how that sort thing happens…

Yes, Virginia, you can have a supersonic Prius 🙂

More seriously, the mass savings that are to be had with fully-superconducting engines and all-electric control systems are indeed considerable and several of the larger proposed designs would seem to be large enough to swap FF units in directly. The FFs substitute for the generators and fuel, they would directly power cryocoolers thus reducing the storage volume for needed for cryogens, and they would greatly reduce the frontal drag of intake area as the FF units are not airbreathing.

Going to try and see where all that might take us with FF-powered craft before going to the next step…

An example from the ICAS 2010 conference
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20100036222_2010039460.pdf