Spaceflight?

[Eliezer]

I understand that focus-fusion research was funded by NASA. Is there a prospect of using focus fusion to get out of a gravity well? In other words, can I point a stream of hot helium downward and go shooting up into space? Can the power station lift itself at one gravity, let alone a cargo? Or is this something that you’d only do for long, slow trips starting from orbit, maintaining a gradual acceleration for a long time using minimal propellant, like an ion drive?

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[Jolly Roger]

There is an article on this Focus Fusion site:

https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/university_of_illinois_space_propulsion/

It mentions Earth-to-Orbit applications. No specifics were given.

Often, however, high specific impulse usually implies low thrust. There may be a way to engineer around that.

[Jolly Roger]

One interesting thing about a Focus-Fusion-powered spaceship is that it might have a green exhaust on takeoff from the Earth’s surface. The exhaust may contain some unburned fuel (decaborane or pentaborane), which burns in contact with air with a green flame. Pentaborane, which was once used as a rocket fuel, was nicknamed “Green Dragon” for that reason.

If we were to build a squadron of space fighters (ala Buck Rogers) with Focus Fusion engines, the “Green Dragons” would be a natural name for it.

One downside of borane fuel is that it is a potent neurotoxin. It is one of the environmental issues that need to be addressed.

(Borane info courtesy http://www.wikipedia.com )

[Transmute]

I can see how it could easily be used in the vacuum of space, but how could it operate in earth

[Jolly Roger]

Transmute wrote: I can see how it could easily be used in the vacuum of space, but how could it operate in Earth’s atmosphere? Could it have a thrust to weight ratio high enough to get off the ground?

FF by itself may not have enough thrust for liftoff, but perhaps it could be used as the power source of some sort of plasma rocket that could. I also brought up the idea in another thread of an FF powered jet engine that could power a craft up to the edge of space.

And won’t the x-ray flux of a unshielded reactor have a huge lethal radius?

If it can’t be shielded because of the weight, perhaps it can be launched remotely from a ship far from land. If the craft is manned, or carrying electronics, it would at least have shielding between the engine and the crew cabin/cargo bay.

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