We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

International Space Station has reached its end of life and new space stations are planned. I would like to propose an International Underwater Station which would benefit humanity more than its space counterpart. An underwater habitat was described in Jules Verne's "Vingt Mille Lieues sous Les Mers" almost two centuries ago. However, we are still leagues behind creating such habitat even though we have the technology. We should start by creating an underwater research station. It would be made of specially designed submarines. These submarines would be cascaded like the space stations sections are attached to one another. As time goes by more sections would be added and the old ones would be removed.

International Underwater Station would make research on deep-sea habitat and would also clean the surrounding region as it explores. It would create underwater farms to feed its occupants like in Jules Verne's novel. With a nuclear reactor on board, it would be a self-sufficient habitat.

An autonomous ship above water would accommodate the submarine to assist in logistics and as a rescue boat in case of emergency. A smaller version of this underwater station would be deployed on Mediterranean Sea first, then a larger version on the oceans.

Hybrid Streaming

For some time, I have been watching YouTube videos on vintage audio video media. In those videos the YouTuber tries to show its audience the quality of these stored media and the players. However, the current audio video formats treat the media as one single piece. Once different things are combined into one video, the quality of the sections making up the video are transformed into a single format and the details are lost. YouTube's compression algorithms worsen the case further.

My proposition is a new media format which is simply a gapless playlist of different media. It has some similarities to MKV, but the major difference is that it is a playlist. The video and audio are played in order without a gab. The viewer watches the video as one long piece. However, some of the video and audio would be streamed in different format to enable proper experience. The streamer services would stream them as it is without converting them into other formats.

This technology would allow proper product reviews of media recorders and players as well as true to life reproduction of vintage media.

Space Antiproton Decelerator

The Antiproton Decelerator is a unique machine that produces low-energy antiprotons for studies of antimatter, and “creates” antiatoms. Isolated and stored antimatter could be used as a fuel for interplanetary or interstellar travel as part of an antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion or another antimatter rocket. Since the energy density of antimatter is higher than that of conventional fuels, an antimatter-fueled spacecraft would have a higher thrust-to-weight ratio than a conventional spacecraft.

It is very difficult to create and store antimatter on earth while a collision between any particle and its anti-particle leads to their mutual annihilation. An ideal location to create and store antimatter would be where there is no matter in the first place. The vacuum of space is an ideal location. The South Atlantic Anomaly is an area where Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of 200 km. This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region.

My proposition is to create a robotic space station that would create antimatter in space. Like in ISS it would be composed of sections. One of the sections would be Antiproton Decelerator. Its orbit would pass over the South Atlantic Anomaly to harvest the highly energetic particles already created by the sun. Ideally, it should be powered by nuclear batteries in order to reduce drag of solar panels at lower altitudes.

To have particle accelerator on earth and anti-particle decelerator in space makes sense.

Rocket Drafting

If you have watched a bicycle race, you should have noticed the drafting of the riders. Drafting is an aerodynamic technique where two moving objects are aligning in a close group to exploit the lead object's slipstream and thus reduce the overall effect of drag. This technique is exploited by the migrating birds as well as in the form of wake updraft. Airbus believes an aircraft can save 5-10% of fuel by flying in formation, 2.8–3.7 km behind the preceding one.

This technique can be used by the space rockets as well. The countries that only have small rockets with limited payload can launch several rockets in formation to increase payload. This technique can also be used on high energy space missions such as geostationary satellite launches, lunar and planetary missions. A single stage rocket with an aerodynamic nose cone can fly ahead of the main rocket to reduce its fuel consumption and increase its payload capacity. Wake updraft would only work for the first stage of a rocket while the rocket still travels through the thick air.

It would pave road to swarm of space rockets. Swarm satellites are already in use by NASA’s Starling mission, A Multi-CubeSat Mission to Demonstrate Autonomous Swarm Technologies.

Alternate SR-72

The Progressive Rocket I proposed can be altered to function as a SR-71 replacement. Rise of anti-access/area denial tactics and counter-stealth technologies renders speed more promising than stealth for penetrating protected airspace. Therefore, a hybrid rocket, ramjet, scramjet plane would suffice the requirements. The main difference of my design compared to SR-72 (SR-71 replacement) is that it will utilize rocket engines instead of turbofans at low speed.

Inefficient but much lighter rocket engines (compared to turbofans) will be fired on takeoff until the adequate speed is reached for the ramjet to fire. Once ramjets are fired, the rockets will be shot down. Beyond certain speeds, the ramjet will transform to a scramjet for efficiency. Transformable ramjet is much lighter and simpler than a turbofan engine. This reduces the R&D and manufacturing cost of the plane.

The plane will have multiple wings like a biplane. Reduced thickness of the wings will not have a drag penalty compared to traditional wings. This will increase the lift capacity of the wings so that the plane can fly at higher altitudes. Additionally, vertical sections supporting the wings will double as vertical stabilizers. The presence of liquid oxygen on board will also allow the plane to fly at higher altitudes by supplying oxygen to the engines.

In order to compensate for extra fuel consumption, the plane can be build larger. Simpler design (compared to SR -71) of the plane allows easy scalability. My design also allows fast servicing times and reduced preparation times compared to the original SR-71. It can also be refueled in air by a tanker version of it.

The plane’s common technologies with the progressive rocket, reduces the R&D budgets and manufacturing costs for both of them.

The Progressive Rocket

Based on the ideas I proposed earlier, I would like to define the progressive rocket I mentioned previously. The objective of this rocket is to utilize earth’s atmosphere for the reusable first stage of the rocket. As a result, the first stage will have wings and additional ramjet engines to assist the rocket engines.

The first stage of the rocket will utilize RP1 as fuel and LOX as oxidizer. The rocket will takeoff like a plane from an airfield. Initially, the rocket engines of the first stage will be fired. This will give fast acceleration to enable shorter take off. When the rocket reaches minimum speed for ramjet to operate, the ramjet engines will be fired and some of the rocket engines will be shot down for efficient flight. Plane like takeoff will require much less thrust compared to a vertical one. Therefore, there will be fewer engines on the first stage. Also, the engines will not be throttleable and will not have gimbal. The ramjet engines will have thrust vectoring. During takeoff ailerons will be used.

Ramjet nozzles will have regenerative cooling which will preheat liquid oxygen before being injected into the ramjet engines. At low altitudes, ramjet engines will utilize external oxygen. As altitude increases, liquid oxygen will be injected to maintain thrust. The air entering the ramjet will be accelerated by the exhaust gases which will increase its efficiency compared to a rocket engine even at higher altitudes. However, most of the thrust will still come from the rocket engines.

The wings of the rocket will enable it to takeoff with much less thrust compared to a vertical takeoff. The lift generated by the wings will also reduce the thrust lost to counteract the gravity. Additionally, the wings coupled with ramjets will reduce the fuel requirement for the return to base flight. It will be also much easier to land the first stage of the rocket with wings. The first stage of the rocket will be like a biplane. Unlike traditional wings that are thick to generate lift. These wings will be thin to reduce drag. Airlift will be generated by angle of attack. Thin vertical sections supporting the wings will double as vertical stabilizers. The upper stages of the rocket will also have much smaller wings to improve the stability of the plane.

The first stage of a rocket usually reaches Mach 8. Ramjets cannot operate efficiently at those speeds. The engine would need to transform into a scramjet during flight. If that wouldn’t be possible the flight trajectory and final speed of the first stage would be adjusted accordingly.

The previous attempts on this idea tried to come up with a magical engine that would do everything. However, I propose the existing engines which would support one another to improve fuel efficiency.

Progressive Rocket

Yesterday I read about progressive rock and listened to “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Then, I decided to write this article. Progressive rock style emerged from psychedelic bands who abandoned standard rock traditions in favor of instrumental and compositional techniques more commonly associated with jazz, folk, or classical music, while retaining the instrumentation typical of rock music. A landmark work of British psychedelia, Sgt. Pepper is considered one of the first art rock LPs and a progenitor to progressive rock.

That’s what we need to do with our rocket designs, abandoning standard rocket design and add more innovation to every piece of the design. Reusability is one good example. However, it is a single, we need an album. For example, in my previous articles I had proposed wings for the first stage, cascaded propellant tanks for liquid methane and oxygen, high bypass nozzle for the first stage and many more.

Today’s advanced simulation technologies allow radical designs to be tested with minimal cost. AI can be used to perfect the details as well. We need to break through from the traditional approaches to achieve our ambitious space exploration goals.

Orbital Flight Trajectory

I would like to say few words on orbital flight trajectory. The orbiting of an object relies on the centrifugal force counter acting the gravity. When a rocket propels itself away from the earth, the earth's gravity effecting on the rocket doesn't change much within couple of hundreds of kilometers. On the other hand, if that thrust is diverted to increase the rocket's horizontal speed, the centrifugal force would reduce the effect of gravitation on the rocket. That's why the rocket trajectories are designed to increase the rocket's horizontal speed even at denser lower atmosphere.

A complex alternative to reach orbital speed would include the use of light weight but sturdy wings on the first stage of the rocket. Close to 1 g of the rocket's thrust is lost to counteract the gravity. The wings would reduce that need while they would contribute to the lift passively. However, they would induce drag. That's why I stated that the design would be complex. A perfect design which would have less drag compared to the positive lift it generates can be developed. I think it is totally feasible. One benefit of the wings is that they would help the first stage of the rocket return to the launch site safely with less propellent and less complex engines.

Aviation Strategy

I was looking at the comparison of orbital rocket engines. There was so much different design. It reminded me of mobile phone manufacturers that would use tens of different cameras on their product line where as Apple would perfect a sensor for years. If a country has billions to spare there is no problem with experimenting with so many different designs. However, I would like to propose strategies for countries with limited budget.

Within the aviation sector, space has a considerably small percentage. There are more than 100 thousand one-way flights daily worldwide. The main cost of these flights is jet fuel. In the meanwhile, most space launches still use RP1 as the rocket fuel. Which is a more refined version of jet fuel. My proposition for the countries is that they should invest more on jet fuel refining to reduce the cost of RP1 and increase its production. Even though, liquid methane is becoming a new standard as a rocket fuel, RP1 has still have many advantages that would never go away. Most important of being a liquid at room temperature and having higher energy density per volume. This allows simpler engine design and smaller propellant tank for the same thrust.

The countries with considerable military budget should also invest on solid boosters as well. While most of the missiles use solid boosters on their initial stages. Additionally, solid boosters give so much thrust with simpler design compared to liquid rocket engines. Therefore, the rockets with solid boosters would require fewer liquid engines which would simplify the design. It is also important to establish a solid booster manufacturing facility that is consumed regularly. The produced missiles are mainly stocked pilled and only a few are tested regularly. On the other hand, regular space launches would allow the process to be continuously tested in real life. Establishing strong civilian roots for military is important. They would reduce the costs and keep high production capacities alive in peace time. That's why I propose RP1 as rocket fuel which has its root on jet fuel and solid boosters which has its root on military missiles.

Data Manager

Modern technology allows people to generate huge amounts of personal data. However, at the moment there is no data management standard. What I mean is a data tracking and management standard. When you take a picture or video or receive a media from social media platforms, they are stored on your phone and depending on your subscription some of them are uploaded to cloud. Many people even do not have such cloud syncing. My proposition is that an app would index and assign a GUID to such data once it is created. Then, as this data is duplicated, the management platform would note that. As a result, you would know where the copies of that data is stored. It can be cloud platforms or external disk drives or other computers or mobile devices. Additionally, this standard and GUID would be shared over the social media platforms to track the same data. If you have the original photo, you don't need to store the small copy of it created by Instagram or WhatsApp.

Once the standards are set, the data management apps with the help of end user and AI can aggregate and classify your data. It should also prioritize them so that the most important ones are duplicated more and stored on expensive cloud services before the less critical ones.

Storage Medium for 4k

For some time, I have been watching a YouTube channel that displays old audio and video equipment. Watching the progress of storage medium is very interesting. At the moment the highest capacity storage medium is 100 GB with a triple-layer UltraHD Blu-ray disk. I would like to propose an alternative to that. A 120 mm floppy disk with a hard disk drive platter inside.

As solid state storage became the standard for computing, the demand for mechanical hard disk drives is diminishing. The know how developed on these magnetic disk drives can be transferred to come up with an alternative to optical counterparts. The mechanical disk drives have a higher storage density then their optical counterparts. They are also more reliable in the long run especially compared to multi layered disks. They would be somewhat more expensive though.

The trend with video is online. However, very high bit rate quality video and audio cannot be streamed over internet to many locations around the world. There would be still need for a read only medium to distribute very high-quality movies. Buying a very big and expensive TV and consuming highly compressed and lower quality media over internet can raise demand for such new medium. An enclosed hard disk drive platter can be an alternative to Blu-ray disks while they would allow much higher capacities and retain info more reliably.

Jewelry Manufacturing Ecosystem

It was in 2009 when I got inspired by the Apple App Store. I was among the first developers in the platform including the first iPad apps. Creating a platform for the designers can be extended to manufacturing as well. I have several ideas on that. Here is one on jewelry manufacturing.

The objective of this platform is to utilize technology to develop jewelry to reduce the need for environmentally and humanitarianly corrupting gold and diamond. There are already materials available that can substitute them. However, they lack the trend. The idea relies on a technical manufacturing facility to develop materials and alloys that would be used to manufacture jewelries. Some of the manufacturing process would also be automized to reduce costs and improve quality.

The jewelry designers would create designs that can be manufactured by this facility and sell them online over the dedicated website. The manufacturing company will handle the financial transactions and the shipment as well as provide servicing to the products. The jewelry would be produced on demand and shipped after manufacturing and quality control. There would be several manufacturing facilities around the world for fast delivery. It’s a kind of jewelry version of Amazon’s book publishing. Instead of authors, the designers would get the commission. Unlike book publishing there would be some limitations to be accepted as a designer. At least one sample should be produced and photographed before sale.

Proposals for material substitutes:

- Instead of Diamond (C), Moissanite (SiC) would be used. It would be lab grown, so that it would lack imperfections which improve brilliance and clarity. Additionally, they could be perfectly colored with proper additives.

- Instead of Gold (Au), different alloys will be used. The alloys will be selected to have corrosion resistance and dermatologically safe. There would be no plating which peals of after several years. One suggestion that goes well with Moissanite would be Aluminum Silver (AlAg) alloy. It’s lightweight, strong, and corrosion-resistant. More importantly Aluminum forms a eutectic with silicon at 577 °C. As a result, the gemstone can be directly fused on the jewelry negating the need for prongs.

- I also propose specially etched silicon wafers used as ornaments. Silicon when etched in nanometric scale reflect light in specific wavelengths. Like the nanostructures on a butterfly wing. These colors are generated with sealed nanostructures that never fade.

Rules and Regulations by Authorities

When I returned home from vacation, I was welcomed by graffitied elevator. The chamber of engineers had made those ugly stickers mandatory for residential elevators. The elevator had more important flaw of not settling level with the current floor. However, this was not considered as a problem. The authorities are being paid to develop standards and regulations. However, when the people occupying those seats are short sighted, problems arise. Unfortunately, capable technical people are scarce and those who work for authorities are not usually the best. I propose the regulations to be questioned by semi-technical people with broader view before being published.

An extension of this problem can be seen on the environmental protection. When the regulations are set without solving the root cause of the problem. The problem is transferred to locations with less regulations. However, when the environment is polluted, it is transferred to the origin country as well. The objective of rules and regulations should be to solve problems, not to create obstacles for the industries or the society. It is easy to write and publish a rule, however it is much more difficult to come up with solutions. Therefore, more effort should be put on the solutions. I, myself almost always come up with solutions when I see a problem. I wish, I could transfer my mindset to more people as well.

Finally, the rules and regulations should be developed in coherence with the trends. Innovations don’t happen in a day and they take some time to spread around. Unfortunately, the regulators lag behind such trends even though they had time. As a result, the innovations and reforms should start from the regulatory side to speed up the advancement of the humanity.

Hybrid VTOL

My previous VTOL design relied on rocket engines. This time I am proposing a hybrid design. The plane will use efficient turbofan engines during flight and utilize rocket engines during takeoff. SpaceX Merlin engines can be modified to operate with jet fuel instead of RP-1. Even though, jet fuel is not an ideal rocket fuel, rocket engine would only operate during takeoff and landing. Takeoff requires so much power which cannot be met with vector thrusting turbofan engines. Here is an example: Boeing 737-800’s engine CFM56-7B27 generate 121 kN thrust from 2,370 kg dry weight. On the other hand, SpaceX Merlin engine generates 845 kN thrust from 470 kg dry weight.

Hybrid VTOL would require a new plane design. The passenger cabin would accommodate the luggage like in trains. The entire bottom of the plane would be used to store jet fuel, LOX and the rocket engines. Turbofan engines of the plane would have thrust vectoring for stabilizing the plane during takeoff and landing. They would also assist the ailerons during flight. This design eliminates the need for some of the complex flaps on the wings as well.

As a conclusion, a VTOL plane can be easily developed using current turbofan and rocket engines. More importantly utilizing the same fuels. The only additional requirement would be liquid oxygen. Which would only be consumed during takeoff and landing. Airports can be modified to accommodate such planes. The boarding of the planes would also be different with luggage carried inside the plane like in trains. This would eliminate the need for waiting for the luggage. More importantly, the luggage would not be lost or damaged!

The Washing Machine

All consumer electronics have moved away from the real-world cases to complex products with lots of bells and whistles that fail frequently. I would like to propose a washing machine design based on my use cases.

The objective of this washing machine is to clean and dry the cloths effectively with highest reliability and lowest disturbance. The machine will not have detergent drawer and will not spin dry. Its user control will only have push buttons and LEDs. It will have a mechanical on/off button and a wireless enable switch. The clothes will be washed up to 35 degrees Celsius which is approximately the body temperature. The clothes will be dried using a heat pump assisted air dryer. The reasoning behind all these as follows:

- In real life, when a cloth has a critical stain, it is treated before wash with special chemicals. Therefore, a washing machine do not require a prewash. Additionally, there are detergents with softeners. As a result, there is no need for a detergent drawer which attracts mold and gets very dirty and is hard to clean.

- Almost all washing machines have a rotary switch. They are susceptible to accidental rotation. Once they are rotated, the program is completely altered. On the other hand, a push button can be deactivated when required. The selection would be displayed as a LED when needed. The washing machine will only have buttons for classical use cases. Additional features will be accessible via mobile app. As a result, there is no need for complex button schemes and displays on the machine. The screen of a phone or tablet will provide the best user interface to access additional features if needed.

- Mechanical switches permanently turn off a device and functionality unlike push buttons. Therefore, wireless connectivity can be permanently disabled if needed.

- Detergents of today are activated even at very low temperatures. As a result, there is no need to heat up the water above 35 degrees and deform the clothes as well as consume power. Additionally, the washing machine will have a small heat pump to heat the water with less electricity compared to a resistor.

- Modern houses are getting smaller and smaller in Europe. As a result, there is no room for a dryer or place to hang the clothes after wash. The washing machine should dry the clothes after washing without the destructive spinning method. The heat pump and an air blower inside the drum reservoir will air dry the clothes. Eliminating the spinning also reduces the power requirement for the main motor of the machine.

- For a better cleaning, the drum of the machine will be large. The dry weight of the clothes will be measured before washing and the user will be alerted on overload conditions before the washing begins.

Ultimate Electric Highway

I had previously proposed a robotic highway. I would like to enhance that idea further. The new idea is an ultimate electric highway. It would be composed of suspension bridges with wind turbine towers. The electric generated by the wind turbines would be feed over the single lane roads. The vehicles operating on this elevated highway will be powered from the road. As a result, they don’t need to incorporate a large battery on board. However, they will still have a small capacity battery. The highway’s electric infrastructure would also be connected to the mains grid. The surplus power from the wind turbines would be fed into the grid and vice versa. All the vehicles would be autonomous while traveling on the highway and would be manually operated outside the highway. This allows the electric vehicles to operate point to point. While traveling long distances they would operate autonomously and powered from the road. When outside the highway they would function like a traditional electric vehicle with battery and manual control. This setup allows personal cars to operate on the highway as well. Unlike my previous idea on robot only highway. The overall objective of the idea is the come up with a solution to operate electric vehicles over long distances without the need for larger batteries. The idea relies on already mature wind turbine construction. The suspension bridge architecture also speeds up the construction.

Lunar Transporter 2

On 11ᵗʰ of November 2024, I had written about a Lunar Transporter.

I would like to re-emphasize the importance of such a rocket stage in order to establish a lunar base. The main objective of lunar transporter is to preserve the momentum between the lunar-earth transporter orbit. The transporter would be accelerated on LEO and ideally preserve most of its momentum by orbiting the moon. While it is orbiting the moon, it would deploy its cargo to the drop zone, I had discussed earlier. Then it would fire its engine for an earth injection. Once it reaches earth, it would orbit at LEO. Then, it would be refueled and loaded with a new cargo. Finally, it would fire its engine for a translunar injection to complete a full lunar-earth transporter orbit.

Lunar Drop Zone

Lunar base requires many sorties from earth to moon. Therefore, developing a new rocket architecture is a necessity. I will discuss about it on my next article. This article is about minimizing the cost of each lunar delivery. I propose a lunar drop zone like in the military where personnel or equipment may be delivered by parachute or by free drop. Due to lack of atmosphere on the moon, the drop zone will be a free drop area.

On the image you can see tilted Hawke crater, the impactor that excavated it struck the sloping inner wall of Grotrian crater. Tilted crater is an ideal drop zone. It would allow a hollow travel area for a free-falling object with a horizontal speed. The lunar orbit velocity for the Apollo missions was a little over 1600 meters per second (5760 km/h). This is faster than the speed of a bullet ~3000 km/h. As a result, I propose the lunar cargo container to have a small rocket as well. This rocket would be a fixed-thrust hypergolic rocket engine like the one used on lunar module ascent engine (LMAE). It would be fired close to impact to slow down and maneuver the cargo to the drop zone. It would be a much simpler and smaller rocket engine compared to a direct descent engine. The web like drop zone would catch and stop the cargo safely.

The drop zone would be made of web like impact absorber. A spider like lunar bot would screw poles on the lunar regolith. Then carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers would be attached across these poles using special springs. These springs would absorb the impact over the CNT fibers. After the cargo is caught, the tilt of the crater would be used to roll the cargo down to the lunar base with minimum energy.

Few Words On Hydrogen

Hydrogen is getting a lot attention on the last decades and it is promoted as the cleanest energy source. I would like to share my opinions on the topic. All energy sources require mining and refining procedures before being used. Among these energy sources coal was used for decades with minimal processing after excavation. Later came the crude oil. It required refining to be utilized. Then came the natural gas which required comparably less energy intense refining process. Compared to all these fuels, hydrogen cannot be found on earth in pure format. At the moment hydrogen is obtained from methane gas. Therefore, hydrogen generation requires one more step after natural gas production.

Energy by all means pollute the environment. For my point of view, the energy source which can be obtained with fewer steps and has the highest energy density is the best energy source. This valuation is valid for pure substances. Unfortunately, purification process is very expensive especially for some material. Compared to coal and gasoline, natural gas is the purest with minimal hazardous impurities. Therefore, its use is promoted. However, many countries do not have natural gas reserves. Trying to substitute it with hydrogen does not make much sense while it also relies on methane for production. More importantly, liquid hydrogen is less energy dense than liquid natural gas in terms of volume and is very difficult to store in liquid form. I recommend countries to invest on methane production facilities. Facilities that generate methane from coal instead of generating hydrogen from methane which is exported.

Water vapor is a more dangerous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Then what is the point of using hydrogen instead of natural gas and gasoline. Energy source which requires less environmental pollution during mining and refining and has the highest energy density is the GREENEST fuel. Methane is an ideal energy source. The excess energy generated by the renewable energy sources can be used to produce methane from coal which is widely available world-wide. The cars, planes and rockets can operate with methane. Later when nuclear energy becomes the dominant energy source, it can be used to produce methane that can be used safely by the vehicles.

The World Is Betting On The Wrong Horse.

Liquid Air Plane - Final

I have previously written about the liquid air powered plane. It had a major flaw in the pressure chamber. Liquid air needs to be heated to ambient temperature very fast. This cannot be achieved with heatsinks. Instead heat pumps need to be used. The evaporator section of the heat pump should be embedded inside the aluminum payload fairing. Then, the compressor would pump the ambient air’s heat to the pressure chamber. Heat pumps are 300 – 400 % efficient. Additionally, the energy lost on the compressor mainly turns into heat which is also utilized by the pressure chamber. The more heat that can be transferred to the pressure chamber, higher the efficiency of the liquid air engine would be.

The main turbine of the liquid air engine would be powered by the pressure of the expending air. When the engine is cold, main turbine would be heated by electric to start the engine. Once the main turbine is operational, it would run the heat pump which would generate the necessary heat for the engine. Main turbine would also run the liquid air pump and the electric generator.

Main engine would be a pressure chamber which would be fed by liquid air and internally heated by the heat pump’s condenser. The rapidly expending gas would generate pressure and would be exhausted by the rotatable engine nozzles. In this design, the wings would be stationary on the fuselage of the plane and only the engine nozzles would rotate. The plane would not be a VTOL but a short takeoff and landing plane.

Direct Nuclear to Electric Conversion

I had previously proposed direct heat to electric conversion using a novel Thermoelectronic Energy Conversion method. This method can be enhanced to operate on radioactive materials as well.

My proposition is to generate high energy electrons using gamma rays and then store them. Most widely used gamma ray emitter is Cobalt 60. It converts the energy of fast neutrons to gamma rays. These gamma rays can be used to remove and accelerate the outermost electrons of Rubidium. I chose Rubidium due to its low work function (energy required to strip an electron). It is also more abundant than Cesium which has slightly lower work function. Additionally, Rubidium is a better electric conductor than Cesium. Rubidium has a very low density and has a very large atomic radius which is not ideal to stop gamma rays. Therefore, a lead layer would be used to stop the gamma rays to propagate further. Ideally, most of the gamma rays should be used to excite electrons not to excite the nucleus of an atom.

The excited electrons would be further accelerated by the high potential on the plate of the setup. Like in a pentode vacuum tube. The electrons will be collected on the collector of the setup. The collected electrons would then be pumped into capacitors using special charge pump circuitry so that the circuit would be completed. In order to maintain a potential difference between the rubidium emitter and the aluminum collector, aluminum oxide layer will be used. The thickness of the layer would be such that it would allow electrons with certain potential difference.

Space Zen

Recently there was an event on small satellites. As the size of a satellite decreases, it is much easier to deploy more of them to the orbit however they also lose some abilities of the bigger counterparts. I see people complain about space debris and in the meanwhile promote tiny satellites.

Here is my opinion on the topic; space is not a playground and not everyone should send a satellite. As the satellites get smaller, they lose the ability to deorbit themselves at the end of their life. They also lose some of the redundancies of the bigger counterparts. As a result, if something fails, they immediately become a space junk. There should be minimum requirements for a satellite to decrease space debris.

People are trying to obtain more and more data from space. Do we really need that much data, if we cannot take action related with them? There should be a sweet spot for that.

At the heart of Zen-inspired minimalism lies the concept of simplicity. This design approach emphasizes the removal of excess, clutter, and unnecessary ornamentation. By paring down one’s surroundings to the essential elements, a sense of tranquility and clarity is cultivated.

Tranquility of space requires Zen approach. Every satellite and constellation deployed to space should be well thought about.

Feasibility of a Liquid Air Powered Autonomous Truck

I had previously proposed liquid air powered autonomous cargo trucks that operate on a dedicated suspended bridge highway. Recently, I made some calculations on the feasibility of a liquid air powered vehicle based on the theoretical values with acceptable correction factors. The results look promising. I would like to repeat again that the performance of liquid air cannot beat a combustion engine. However, it performs better than battery operated alternatives.

Theoretical energy density of liquid nitrogen at atmospheric pressure and 27 °C ambient temperature is about 213 W·h/kg, while typically only 97 W·h/kg can be achieved under realistic circumstances. This compares with 100–250 W·h/kg for a lithium-ion battery and 3,000 W·h/kg for a gasoline combustion engine running at 28% thermal efficiency (Liquid nitrogen engine). Most notable advantage of liquid air is its Carnot efficiency. At 27 °C ambient temperature it is 74.3 %; at -16 °C ambient temperature it is 70 %. At such low temperatures, batteries have no chance and even diesel engines struggle to operate due to freezing of diesel.

I made my calculations for a full-sized container carrying truck. The weight of the truck with full fuel tank was 7300 kg (600kg fuel), the trailer was 6000 kg, the payload was 16,000 kg. I set the energy density of liquid air to be 1 / 20 of a diesel engine. In order to achieve half the range of a diesel truck it would require 6000 kg of liquid air. However, autonomous trucks have advantages in terms of weight because they can simply be a motorized trailer. Additionally, the cryogenic tanks can be designed to be used as the chassis. As a result, the liquid air powered autonomous container carrier can accommodate such a huge fuel tank with the same weight as a traditional truck with a trailer for half the range. One more advantage of such a huge fuel tank is, as it is depleted the truck gets much lighter compared to a diesel truck and its fuel consumption gets lower.

The prerequisites for this idea are light weight composite fuel tanks, light weight and high thermal conductive heat exchangers to create pressure that would turn the wheels. Aluminum alloy heat exchangers with carbon fiber can be a solution for that.

Ply Aluminum Storage

Wind energy is unpredictable and therefore require additional systems to meet the demand. Batteries are expensive and more importantly cannot handle so many charge recharge cycle. On the other hand, capacitors have much longer endurance. I would like to propose a simple capacitor design that can be used to store the excess energy of a wind turbine. It is just ply of aluminum and aluminum oxide. It is comparably easy to grow a thin layer of oxide over aluminum or remove the excess of it. They also form a very solid structure; higher strength compared to aluminum itself like the plywood.

Wind turbines require strong tower structures as a support. Ply aluminum capacitor can also meet this demand. A dual-purpose ply aluminum tower structure which doubles as a giant capacitor. Unlike batteries, this giant capacitor can be built to store high voltages. Therefore, it would be easy to charge them compared to complex balanced cell charging of batteries.

This technology can also be utilized on the construction of the buildings to compensate for the demand inequalities and to correct the power factor.

VTOL

I had previously proposed a VTOL design using liquid air. The same design can be implemented using rocket engines. Liquid propellant would generate more thrust and range compared to liquid air counterpart. At the moment there is no proper VTOL plane. Propeller powered ones lift off like a helicopter. Which has low lift capacity and very dependent on the elevation. Turbofan engines on the other hand are two heavy and thrust vectoring using nozzles produce inadequate takeoff thrust. When it comes to vertical takeoff nothing comes close to the rocket engines. They can takeoff at any altitude unlike helicopters and produce much more thrust than a turbofan. They are also much lighter compared to the thrust they produce.

My proposed plane will have four rocket engines on their sides and several (depends on the thrust requirement) engines on its bottom. Each side engine will be sandwiched between two wings for proper support and increased lift area. The wings and the nozzle of the rocket engine will be rotatable. This will allow all the engines to generate vertical thrust and vertically oriented wings to produce minimum drag while takeoff. The wings will be thin and flat with no curvature. The lift will be generated by the angle of attack of the wings. This slight orientation of the wings and the engine nozzles will generate lift. Multiple wings allow more even distribution of the load and reduce the stall speed of the plane. Additionally, the engines will have cascaded nozzles that I had proposed earlier. Together with low stall speed, the fuel consumption of the plane will be lowered.

The wings and the engine nozzle will be rotated by the directed exhaust gas of the engine. Therefore, there will be no need for high power heavy actuators for rotation. The payload fairing on top of the plane can accommodate military missiles as well as rockets for space. The rocket engines of the plane allow it to reach very high altitudes compared to traditional planes. This is beneficial for military defense while not many missiles can reach the plane. This is also beneficial for the space rockets while the rocket will not need to go through the dense atmosphere.

MIRV Defense System

A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The introduction of MIRV led to a major change in the strategic balance. Previously, with one warhead per missile, it was conceivable that one could build a defense that used missiles to attack individual warheads. Any increase in missile fleet by the enemy could be countered by a similar increase in interceptors. With MIRV, a single new enemy missile meant that multiple interceptors would have to be built, meaning that it was much less expensive to increase the attack than the defense.

I would like to propose an economical defense system against MIRV attacks. It’s based on the fact that MIRVS are launched from a distant location than the defender missiles that need to travel less to defend. The idea is to utilize VTOL (Vertical Take-Off & Landing) or STOVL (Short Take-Off & Vertical Landing) cargo planes that can launch short range anti-ballistic missile. Ideally these planes would be unmanned and stay aloft for a longer period of time. Their fast maneuverability compared to land-based defense systems would allow them to locate themselves close to the direction of the attack. Therefore, the defensive missiles do not need to travel long distances. Additionally, anti-ballistic missiles can also have multiple defensive warheads to counteract the multiple heads of an offensive missile.

One final note, the anti-ballistic missiles can be powered by liquid propellant. This would enhance their range and even final speed. The unmanned cargo plane would also be powered by the same fuel as the rocket. Therefore, the missiles can be filled on demand from the large tanks of the plane depending on the range requirement like the naval powder bags.

High Bypass Cascaded Nozzle

I have previously proposed high bypass rocket nozzle designs. This one is a more refined version of them. The objective is to contribute the ambient air to thrust. My proposed design looks like a cascade fountain nozzle however extended more towards the rocket’s fuselage. Its perfect design should be iterated between the minimum drag and maximum additional thrust. This design reduces the dimension of the rocket’s main nozzle. The cascaded bypass nozzle also improves the stability of the rocket together with the support fins. The outer bypass nozzle does not need to withstand high temperatures while it would be isolated from the exhaust gas by the air cushion.

This design like all other nozzles would perform best at a specific flight speed range and altitude. Therefore, they would be designed specifically for every rocket or missile depending on their trajectory. High Bypass Nozzle would work wherever there is air such as Earth, Mars and Venus.

Orbital Transfer Vehicle

NASA has selected companies to study lower-cost ways to launch spacecraft to difficult-to-reach orbits. I would like to propose my own design based on my Mars Rocket Lower Stage idea. The idea is to utilize the high vapor pressure of carbon dioxide to attain high efficiency thrust using much simpler mechanisms. Unlike the Mars Lower Stage, the Orbital Transfer Vehicle will produce thrust in pulses.

The idea is very simple. Fill a cold pressure chamber with a predetermined amount of liquid carbon dioxide while the exhaust valve is closed. Then, close the input valve and start heating up the gas. When the pressure inside the pressure chamber reaches a certain pressure, open up the output valve which would generate the thrust. The output valve will remain open until the pressure inside the chamber drops to a certain level. Then, the output valve will be closed and the remaining gas will build up pressure again. This cycle will continue until the pressure drops considerably. Then, all remaining gas will be ejected. After that, new liquid carbon dioxide will be filled inside the chamber and the cycle will repeat. In classical liquid propulsion rockets, this process is continuous and turbopump are used to keep the pressure high and the heat is generated by combustion. This requires a complex and heavy engine. However, it may be enough to produce short powerful thrust pulses for some orbital transfers. Unlike ion thrusters, my method would produce very high thrust. For example, the combustion chamber of Raptor engine is 350 bar. If the pressure chamber of my proposal reaches those pressures, it may produce such high thrust for a short period of time. It is the most efficient way of turning the stored propellent into maximum thrust.

The heat source for my engine can be either solar panels or Plutonium 238. The liquid carbon dioxide can be pumped into the pressure chamber using an electric pump. Even pressure inside the propellent tank may be enough for pumping because the thrust is not continuous.

The overall objective of my idea is to store high density propellant, liquid carbon dioxide, inside a relatively light weight tank. Then release parts of this liquid as high-pressure gas in pulses. The temperature of the exhausted gas would be much lower than the liquid rockets. Therefore, aerospike nozzle can be utilized which saves a lot of space in vacuum. Maneuvering will be achieved by small side exhausts instead of gimbled nozzle. Simple design will reduce the failure rate for long missions and allow more room for the propellant.

Discussion on Nuclear Propulsion

When we need to apply one technology to another field. Too much reliance on experts kills the ideas instantly. I would like to support my thesis against the experts. The large distances in space requires more energy dense alternatives to current combustion-based propulsion. Nuclear is the most obvious alternative.

When I proposed to activate tiny nuclear bombs to generate energy pulses, the objection was that due to critical mass it wouldn’t work. A critical mass is a mass of fissile material that self-sustains a fission chain reaction. A steady rate of spontaneous fission causes a proportionally steady level of neutron activity. If the mass of the fissile material is below the critical mass, the reaction will die out; if it's above, the reaction will grow exponentially. As we all know the exponential growth produces a mushroom that ends the rocket and its surroundings. However, anything below that would die out while still producing energy in the meanwhile, E = mc². Even a tiny fraction of the fissile material is fissioned, the energy produced is way more than a complex turbopump combustion engine would produce. More importantly, the system would be less complex and scalable.

The energy by itself wouldn’t produce thrust. We need to accelerate material to achieve that. Gas is the most obvious solution. Liquified gas would be pressurized and expelled by the heat generated by tiny fission reactions.

This simpler rocket design should be implemented on the upper stages of a rocket, that would travel in space. This would generate much longer thrust necessary for planetary missions. More importantly, the planets or moons that have atmosphere can be used to refuel the rocket with much simpler mechanisms. This is a much feasible solution compared to propellent generation from ice. Heat dependent electrolysis process would take ages to fill up a tank. On the other hand, trying to liquify the air which is already very cold is a much simpler and fast solution.

Liquid Air Powered Ships

I had previously proposed ideas to use liquid air as a clean energy source alternative to some battery and hydrogen systems. I also had proposed ways to generate liquid air directly from the wind turbines.

Liquid air can be used as a direct propulsion for ships as well. Especially short-range ones. Liquid air at room temperature expends up to 700 times its liquid volume. This expansion can be used to propel a ship at sea. There is no need to use propellers. Jet stream of air would propel the ship silently. The lack of propellent noise is also environment friendly for the sea life. High thrust levels can also be achieved. The range would be limited but it would still beat the battery powered alternatives. Additionally, as the liquid air is consumed, the ship would get lighter. This is not the case with batteries. This design also allows high efficiency side thrusters for fast maneuvering.

This technology can be ideal applied to autonomous supply ships for islands. They would be refiled using the offshore wind farm. It would reduce the cost of supplying islands and produce no air, sea or noise pollution to the environment. Most importantly, it would require almost no exported raw materials to implement it.

Wind Breeders

Wind energy is the dominating renewable energy source. Unfortunately, its unpredictable nature requires supplementary energy sources. One way of balancing the supply and demand is to temporarily store the excess energy of a wind turbine. I would like to propose a new storage medium for this excess energy.

When we look at the energy densities of different materials, energy stored in fissile materials outnumber the rest by a giant margin. Unfortunately, and luckily, fissile materials found in nature are not easily fissile. They have to be in a certain isotope form. To overcome this problem breeder reactors were invented which create fissile material at a faster rate than it uses another fissile material as fuel.

My proposition is simple, but requires some serious R&D. Develop a new generation of wind turbines that are optimized for breeding none fissile materials into fissile ones by the kinetic energy of wind. Kinetic energy can be converted to electricity first and then this energy can be used to make the materials more fissile. Or much better, wind powered neutron emitter to convert Thorium 232 to Uranium 234 or even Uranium 235.

Such wind turbines can be build close to a reactor and supply the fuel or farmed offshore and harvested periodically. These turbines or farms would definitely require patrolling. Therefore, their numbers would be limited.

Ideas On Coal Power Plants

Chemically, the main composition of coal fly ash is amorphous-phase SiO2, Al2O3, CaO, Fe2O3, and FeO. Most of these materials have high hardness on Mohs scale. Therefore, they are used as cement additive. I would like to propose an enhancement to this idea; directly depositing these fly ashes into molded plastic. The flue gas of the coal plant can melt the raw plastic and deposit its content inside it. Leaving out colder gases and no ash. Some of these ash ingredients are already been used as plastic additives. For example: Hygroscope-P is Calcium Oxide in powder form, with a purity of 95%. The function of Hygroscope-P is to absorb moisture and eliminate moisture related problems in plastics and rubber applications. Silicon dioxide is a commonly used additive in plastic films to improve clarity, compressive strength, elasticity, and aging resistance. The molded plastic then can be used in construction. Unlike aerated concrete, this plastic would be much stronger and even replace concrete blocks to carry weight.

The coal plants also produce bottom ash. These ashes stick on the bottom of the furnace and buildup over time. It is difficult to remove them as well. I propose the bottom of the furnace to have a sheet of lead. As the furnace heat up this lead would melt and attract the bottom ashes inside the furnace. All the ashes would be much lighter than lead and float on top. As long as the furnace is heated, the bottom ashes can be collected over the sea of lead. Some of these bottom ashes can also be used as plastic additive. When the furnace is shot down, lead can easily be melted and removed from the bottom of the furnace. A typical coal plant furnace has a temperature higher than lead’s melting point and below lead’s boiling point.

I developed my idea after reading this article https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/materials-science/coal-ash.

Scalability

I would like to summarize my previous statements and would like to point out why humanity stuck with the space race. During 1960’s companies with open checks from government developed powerful rocket engines. More than a half century later, a private company developed a much efficient but less powerful engine with a limited budget. Private and public institutes have different priorities. Expecting revolutionary designs from public sector is a dream. Space industry when it comes to deep space exploration is a money losing business which requires heavy government support like in 1960s.

Today, I thought of, how small a rocket that can deploy a tiny satellite to LEO can be. Liquid propulsion rockets are very efficient. However, they have pressurized tanks and heavy engines. These overhead weights restrict their minimum dimension. Then I thought about my carbon dioxide rocket with Pu 238 heater. That design can be scaled down considerable. If launched at cold temperature, the rocket shell can be made of thin plastic like in cola bottles. The majority of dry weight of the rocket would come from the propellant pump and Plutonium itself. The rocket would have a high propellant mass to dry weight ratio. Additionally, this design can be scaled up almost indefinitely.

I would like to make some comparisons here. The very first rocket V2 had only 15.5 bar of combustion pressure. It also used less efficient ethanol water mixture as fuel. However, it attaining an apogee of 176 kilometers with a single stage. On the other hand, todays much complex and efficient rockets can achieve more with less fuel. The problem with them is that they cannot be scaled down or up beyond certain limits due to cost and complexity. Within those limits, they are the best. However, huge distances of space require scalable solutions.

I would like to defend my stage zero design as well. Most objections come from the drag induced by multiple wings. Even AI things that way. The reason is that when they thing of a wing they thing of the wings used on current consumer planes. They are thick and have considerable drag. Therefore, multiplying their number would increase the drag further. However, my proposition is very thin flat profiles that generate lift by the angle of attack. It is the same principle with paper planes. Their wings are just thin and flat. However, the angle of attack during their launch generate lift with very minimal drag. Additionally, they can be quite strong for their thickness. Almost all the engineers working on aerospace industry had seen the planes as they are built now. Current established aviation firms take no risk and continue developing on the same design over and over again. Any new startup with such idea would receive minimal funding because the planes would not look fancy. As a result, humanity is spiraling on such designs. We need a propulsive maneuver like a trans-lunar injection to free our minds from the orbiting old designs in our heads.

AI Assisted Healthcare

Human body is a combination of complex subsystems. Almost everything is connected with everything. Unfortunately, medical doctors only have expertise in a single subsystem. As a result, some diseases take a long time for the real diagnosis. In worst case, the problem is related to several of the subsystems. In such cases, the patient is directed to different experts continuously like the bouncing ball in a pinball game. In pinball each bounce increases your point, but in healthcare it empties your pocket.

I am not a fan of AI in most fields. However, healthcare would definitely benefit from AI. AI with so much memory and broad knowledge, can see the big picture and diagnose the patient much earlier with fewer bounces.

Stage Zero Revisited

In my first book, I had proposed stage zero for a space rocket. After many design iterations, I am revisiting the idea again. This stage can easily be developed with current technologies. However, the stage is considered as a plane and therefore it is never build. However, it should be treated as a rocket with wings that flies at denser atmosphere.

It would run with the same fuel as the rocket itself. The oxidizer would be LOX. There are several options for its engine. It can be either a ramjet with LOX injectors or a simplified version of the rocket engine with high bypass enclosure. Designing a ramjet is much easier than a classical turbofan engine or a rocket engine. However, lower thrust would require more of these engines and larger propellant tanks. Unlike classical rockets, the atmosphere would be utilized during propulsion. It wouldn’t be as efficient as a turbofan engine, but would have much higher efficiency compared to a rocket engine. These engines will be supported by two wings, one at the top and one at the bottom. Multi-wings increase the lift of the stage zero and increases the strength of the engine housing. These wings together with the engines will be 90 degrees rotatable. This increases the thrust for takeoff and eliminates the need for ailerons. Stage zero will not fly at supersonic speeds. It will just climb. At higher altitudes more and more LOX will be used. Ambient heated air will provide additional thrust.

Stage zero would vertically takeoff and climb on a spiral route to the deployment altitude. The rocket would be housed inside a fairing to improve aerodynamics. At the deployment altitude, these fairings would open and the rocket would be released and fired. The objective of this stage is to launch the rocket at a much higher altitude. Therefore, the rocket wouldn’t need aerodynamic design details (no payload fairing) and all the engines can be vacuum optimized.

Companies have previously tried to launch a rocket from a plane. However, they are by no means close to my proposal. I propose a completely specialized rocket plane. Which is considerably different compared to a traditional cargo plane. It has multi-wings and special engines and the rocket is enclosed inside. Therefore, it should be mainly designed by rocket designers with collaboration with aeronautical engineers. Designing such stage would be much easier than designing a large first stage of a rocket. Additionally, this stage would consume less fuel compared to a rocket while it would have wings to support lift and high bypass engines for improved fuel consumption. Recovering stage zero would also be much easier due its wings compared to a very tall and thin first stage of a rocket. Finally, the rocket utilizing stage zero wouldn't need a launch platform. Horizontally assembled rocket can be launched horizontally.

Rover for Mars and Beyond

I had previously proposed a nuclear battery design that utilizes a radioactive material as heat source and carbon dioxide as the heat exchanger gas. The efficiency of this battery depends on the temperature difference between the warm and cold gas reservoir. Mars and other celestial bodies further away from the sun have very low surface temperatures. Ideal for the battery. I would like to propose a rover that utilizes this battery for surface exploration.

The rover will have two big wheels that is made of aluminum magnesium alloy for strength and heat conductivity. The wheels will be filled with carbon dioxide and serve as the cold reservoir for the nuclear battery. The wheels will be driven by the gas pressure generated between the warm and cold reservoirs. The rover will have all the controls and the warm reservoir in the middle section between the two wheels. There will be two arms attached to this middle section as well. These arms will also operate by the pressurized gas. They will be used to grab samples from the surface and most importantly assist the wheel during ascent or descent on the uneven terrain.

The mechanical sections of the rover will be directly powered by the pressurized gas. This will enable more efficient use of the nuclear energy, instead of converting kinetic energy to electricity and converting electricity into kinetic energy again. Only part of this energy will be used to generate electricity for the electronics and the sensors. The warm gas will also keep the sensitive equipment at the right temperature. Large wheels will allow the rover to advance faster on rugged terrain compared to multiple small ones.

Lunar Space Telescope

I would like to propose a space telescope to be deployed inside a crater at the south pole of the moon. There are regions on the pole that never see the sunlight. An ideal location for a space telescope. A surface mounted telescope is preferable compared to orbiting telescopes such as Hubble and James Webb that require continuous orbital adjustments and have limited fuel. The lunar telescope will be powered by the nuclear battery I proposed earlier. The continuous low temperature on the shadow region, improves the efficiency of the battery.

The telescope itself will be the payload bay of the rocket. Allowing larger diameter telescope. Once the telescope lands inside the crater, it will extend vertically like a zoom lens. The top fairing will accommodate mirrors and prisms to direct light from different directions to the vertical telescope assembly. Therefore, the telescope would not require bulky rotating mechanisms. The view inside a crater on the poles may be limited, but it would allow continuous observation without any disturbance by the sun.

Telescope will communicate with earth using the polar relay I proposed earlier.

Lunar Polar Relay

Lunar south pole is an attraction point for many researches. Some of these researches have to be conducted inside craters where earth communication would not be possible. I propose a lunar polar relay for this purpose.

The relay will be a lunar lander that lands on top of a hill that has good line of sight with earth. It will be powered by nuclear battery I had proposed earlier. It will use its top fairing as an antenna for earth communication and side fairings as antennas for lunar communication. This relay will allow continuous communication with earth unlike a satellite relay that has a certain communication window.

Citroën Landing Mechanism

Citroën DS using its “suspension oléopneumatique” can drive on 3 wheels. A hydropneumatic system combines the advantages of hydraulic systems and pneumatic systems so that gas absorbs excessive force and liquid in hydraulics directly transfers force. The suspension system usually features both self-leveling and driver-variable ride height, to provide extra clearance in rough terrain. I propose this technology to be adapted on future celestial body landers.

All celestial lander’s descent stage has propellant tank pressurizers. Some of these pressurized gases can be used for the hydropneumatic suspension. Additionally, I propose the lander’s landing gears to be spikes like bald eagle talons. We name the lander as “Eagle”, but then we place foot pads instead of talons.

The mechanism will work as follows. As the lander approaches the surface, it will 3d scan the terrain to spot the high and low spots. Then, based on the surface heights each spike’s suspension will be adjusted. For the sections that require more travel, the suspension will be softer. As a result, the lander will be able to land on a slope. The high strength spikes will penetrate the ground like an eagle’s talon and stabilize the lander on the surface.

Coandă Rocket Nozzle

I had previously proposed to utilize the ambient air to contribute to the thrust of a rocket like in turbofan engines. This would only work for the first stage of a rocket. My recent idea is a more realistic solution, to use Coandă effect.

The idea is to divert the air flowing around the rocket shell towards the nozzle. This would work for single nozzle rockets. For multiple nozzles the design would be more complicated and the effect would be less. The Coandă effect is the tendency of a fluid jet to stay attached to a surface of any form. Specially designed stepped layers would keep the air attached until the end of the nozzle. The diverted air would be heated with the exhaust gases and contribute to the thrust like in high bypass turbofan engines. The stepped layers can mostly be made of composite light materials. Only sections close to the nozzle need to withstand high temperatures.