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Steam-Powered Asteroid Hoppers Developed through UCF Collaboration
Using steam to propel a spacecraft from asteroid to asteroid is now possible, thanks to a collaboration between a private space company and the University of Central Florida.
UCF planetary research scientist Phil Metzger worked with Honeybee Robotics of Pasadena, California, which developed the World Is Not Enough spacecraft prototype that extracts water from asteroids or other planetary bodies to generate steam and propel itself to its next mining target.
UCF provided the simulated asteroid material and Metzger did the computer modeling and simulation necessary before Honeybee created the prototype and tried out the idea in its facility Dec. 31. The team also partnered with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, to develop initial prototypes of steam-based rocket thrusters.
"It's awesome," Metzger says of the demonstration. "WINE successfully mined the soil, made rocket propellant, and launched itself on a jet of steam extracted from the simulant. We could potentially use this technology to hop on the Moon, Ceres, Europa, Titan, Pluto, the poles of Mercury, asteroids — anywhere there is water and sufficiently low gravity."
What if it gets stuck in a shadowed crater and loses access to solar power?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 14 2019, @07:22PM (1 child)
I've got tiny fingers
short and stout
I'll get my way
or I will pout!
When I get all steamed up
hear me shout!
Tweet: you're fired, now get out!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday January 15 2019, @06:51AM
You're tweeting about me. I can tell you're tweeting about me. Saying some things that are very nasty. And by the way, not true. So many foolish people say, "oh, his hands are very small." They haven't seen my hands. My hands are too big. Really, they're too big. But the haters & loosers say, "oh, small hands, small hands!" Terrible people. And you're terrible for tweeting that. When you should be thanking me. Look what happened in your bank account. Your paycheck. And, your brokerage account. Extra money -- because of me. Because I signed the biggest Tax Cut in the history of our Country. And our House & Senate GOP, they worked very hard on that one. But I signed it, so beautifully. And, I put in the Tariffs. China is paying HUGE Tariffs, they don't want Tariffs. But I'm making them pay. It's a lot of money for our government. And it's wonderful for our manufacturers. So many factories coming to our Country. In many cases, coming back after 20, 30 years of manufacturing in China or Mexico. No more NAFTA, we're doing USMCA now. And it's magnificent for our trade deficit. We had tremendous deficits with Mexico. And with our foe, Canada. Those, very quickly, are turning around. And we'll see huge amounts of money -- billions of dollars -- coming back to the coffers of our Country. To pay for the Wall. To pay for my military -- Space Force and Cyber Space Force -- my Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency. Which I call, CSIA. Because CIA, unfortunately, was taken. Part of our DHS. That one is going to be paid for by Mexico. And they're going to do the cyber for the Wall. So indirectly, Mexico will be paying for the Wall.
NASA, as you know, a lot of their Space Ships go BOOM. They explode all over the place and it's a total disaster for everybody in the Ships Department. And I looked into that, a lot of times it's the digital that makes them explode. They don't use the modern digital, they use the old. Very careful about that. But, so many times it's still a problem. So I said to them, do the same thing, but without the digital. With goddamned steam. And it's going to work much better. For much less money. Same thing, less money and it won't explode as much. You put in the coal-fired Boiler and you can go anywhere. All the planets, the moons and the everything else. We call it a Steam Ship. Everybody knows Steam Ship, it's very reliable. It's not the fastest. Not as fast as the cyber. But you can count on it. Very few explosions with that one. You crash it into an iceberg, not so great -- Titanic. Everybody's seen Titanic, right? Leonardo DiCaprio, great performance in that one. That one came out in '97. Massive success. And the next year -- 1998 -- I starred with him in Celebrity. He was at his peak. But people are saying, I'm the real star of Celebrity. America First!!!