ICHC-logo.jpg (2201 bytes)       BUILDING A WORLD THAT WORKS TM    WWW. HYDROGENCOMMERCE .COM
       Welcome to the International Clearinghouse for Hydrogen Commerce
       
    "First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight with you, then you win." -- Ghandi 

IS THIS THE END OF AMERICA?
"We're going to be a second-rate country."
Thomas Friedman   CNN Money Interview     September 16, 2008
  
A TRAITOROUS CONGRESS, HARD AT WORK DESTROYING THE ECONOMY FOR THE SAKE OF OIL PROFITS, IS PUTTING AMERICA UP FOR SALE TO HER ENEMIES. THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE JAILED, NOT RE-ELECTED. --
RDM

WARNING: John McCain is Big Oil's Manchurian Candidate
 

"
[John McCain thinks] Americans are so stupid — so bloody stupid —
that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad
they’ll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power
— when you didn’t."

Thomas Friedman, author and New York Times columnist
Eight Strikes and You’re Out    Thomas Friedman    The New York Times    August 12, 2008
 
McCain accepted almost no money from Big Oil for 8 years but suddenly he's taken over a million dollars!
Does that strike you as odd?
McCain always talks big about wind and solar but he's NEVER cast one vote for Renewable Energy PTC!
Does that strike you as strange?
This psychologically damaged stealth hypocrite is out to make you a patsy for Big Oil and Nuclear Power.


"Wait until you find out who is the most knowledgeable person on energy in the United States of America!"

 The Big Fat Stinking Dead Rat in the Refrigerator
Big Oil’s U.S. House Republican Study Group's "Energy Policy Brief "
How the Oil/Nuke/Coal Industry Bought the
Republican Party to Wage War on Renewable Energy

Air & Space Propulsion
Part 2  1

Photo: NASA

Helios Sets
Unofficial New World Altitude Record!

AeroVironment

QUANTUM Awarded
Contract By AeroVironment
for NASA-Sponsored Program

IMPCO/PRNewswire

On August 13, 2001, Helios Prototype took off from Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii, and flew to a peak altitude of greater than 96,500 feet.

...After holding on the ground for 36 minutes to wait for low-altitude clouds to clear the path between the aircraft and sun, Greg Kendall, the "Mobile Pilot", advanced the throttle and the giant aircraft took-off at 8:48 AM. Helios rolled about 600 feet before lift-off. After reaching the end of "solar" runway 16, Greg turned the aircraft to the west and climbed toward the island of Niihau.

Wyatt Sadler, the "Stationary Pilot", took control of the aircraft when Helios reached an altitude of about 2000 feet. The crew got help from the Niihau Ranch helicopter and an up-looking fish-eye camera mounted on Helios to avoid flying under clouds. Once Helios was above the clouds, the climb to the altitude achieved on the previous flight (76,271) was rather uneventful.

Rik Meininger, the second "Stationary Pilot", flew Helios to 77,000 feet and then handed control to Wyatt. Wyatt was at the controls as Helios shattered the 80,201 foot altitude record set by AeroVironment's Pathfinder Plus in 1998. Then Greg took the controls as Helios broke the altitude record of just over 85,000 feet set by the Lockheed SR-71 in 1976. The final ascent to peak altitude was completed by Wyatt. A peak altitude over 96,500 feet was reached at about 4:10 PM and we stayed above 96,000 feet for over 40 minutes. The record flight was witnessed by Stanley Nelson, chairman of the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Peak altitude was where the power available from the sun matched the power required for level-flight. At peak altitude, while we were still getting about 24 KW from the sun, several stars were visible in the up-looking, fish-eye camera. Also, it's interesting to note that the aircraft climbed above 99% of the earth's atmosphere.

QUANTUM Technologies WorldWide, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMCO) announced today that it has been awarded a major contract by AeroVironment and NASA to design, fabricate, test and supply large advanced hydrogen and oxygen tanks for the next generation Helios fuel cell prototype aircraft. The Helios fuel cell aircraft is a remotely piloted flying wing prototype for NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project -- demonstrating the capability to carry a payload of scientific instruments and telecommunications relay equipment for the next generation of broadband communications.

    The unique system to be developed by QUANTUM is a key enabling technology that will allow Helios to fly continuously for up to 6 months at altitudes up to 60,000 feet. Ultra-light-weight, low permeability, hydrogen and oxygen tanks are critical for achieving the high specific energy and for minimizing reactant gas loss required for the energy storage system.

    ...The Helios prototype is the fourth generation of all-wing aircraft designed and built by AeroVironment at its Design Development Center in Simi Valley, CA, as technology demonstrators for future solar-powered high-altitude aircraft platforms for science and commercial missions. The Helios prototype has a wingspan of 247 feet-longer than the wingspans of the Air Force C-5 military transport (222 feet) or the Boeing 747 commercial jetliner (195 feet) -- the two largest operational aircraft in the United States. The lightweight, electrically powered Helios is constructed mostly of composite materials such as carbon fiber, graphite epoxy, Kevlar, Styrofoam, and a thin, transparent plastic skin.

    The Helios fuel cell aircraft uses an electrolyzer to disassociate water molecules using excess electrical energy generated by the solar cells. Oxygen and hydrogen gases are accumulated in separate tanks. At night, when the solar cells stop producing electricity, the process is reversed. The oxygen and hydrogen gases are fed into a fuel cell that produces water and electricity. The electricity is used to power the Helios prototype until the next morning, when the cycle starts all over again.     more

Harvesting for Fuel -  The Engineer      February 15, 2001
Go to E4 Engineering
    The proposed new fuelling system, called Alchemist, would allow a plane the size of a Boeing 777 to take off from a runway with an orbiter on its back. It would fly around in the atmosphere for a few hours, storing oxygen in liquid form, which would then be combined with liquid hydrogen and used to blast the space-shuttle-sized orbiter into space. 'Normally, you carry six pounds of liquid oxygen for every pound of hydrogen. When you take off with only hydrogen, you carry only one seventh of the propellant weight,' said Dana Andrews, chief technology officer at US aerospace company Andrews Space & Technology. Since 90 per cent of a conventional rocket's take-off weight is fuel cutting that figure leads to a huge saving, said Andrews. The company has proposed its oxygen-harvesting scheme as part of NASA's Space Launch Initiative, a program that's studying emerging technologies for a reusable launch vehicle that is safer and cheaper than the space shuttle. By doing without liquid oxygen at take-off, the plane's total weight would be cut almost in half. Because there would be no chance of liquid oxygen coming into contact with liquid hydrogen, the likelihood of an explosion during launch would be considerably reduced, theoretically making it possible for a carrier plane and orbiter to take off from a commercial airport.

Photo: Aldrin by Armstrong, Apollo 11 - 1969; NASA
Futurists See
Living 'Off the Land' of the Moon

June 8, 2000 by James McWilliams  Huntsville Times (Alabama)

    Robots could lay the groundwork for lunar-mining colonies and orbiting solar-power stations could turn space trips into profitable commercial ventures, said Gregg Maryniak, executive director of the X Prize Foundation, a St. Louis-based group promoting space-based commerce.
    ''You could get 99 percent of the materials for a solar-power station from the moon,'' Maryniak said at the conference, hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center at the Von Braun Center.
    ... Building colonies in space from materials in space could allow people to live ''off the land,'' like the first explorers visiting the Americas did, said Maryniak and other speakers.
    The rocks and soil on the moon have aluminum, iron, silicon, calcium, glass and other materials that could be useful in building a power station, and have oxygen and hydrogen that could be used in rocket fuel for propelling lunar materials into orbit or toward Earth, Maryniak said.
    ''The moon is 40 percent oxygen, by weight,'' said Maryniak. Hydrogen is at the lunar poles.

 

TimeMars.gif (9281 bytes) Will We
Live on Mars?

by Jeffery Kluger
April 10, 2000     Time Magazine

    For the past decade--ever since NASA's 1989 proposal laid its half- trillion-dollar egg--the space community has been intrigued by a mission scenario known as the Mars Direct plan. Developed by engineers at Martin Marietta Astronautics, a NASA contractor, Mars Direct calls not merely for visiting the Red Planet but also for living off the alien land.

    As early as 2005, when Earth and Mars are in their once
every-26-months alignment, the plan envisions launching a four-person spacecraft to Mars--but launching it with its tanks empty of fuel and its cabin empty of crew. Landing on the surface, the craft would begin pumping Martian atmosphere--which is 95% carbon dioxide--into a reaction chamber, where it would be exposed to hydrogen and broken down into methane, water and oxygen. Methane and oxygen make a first- rate rocket fuel; water and oxygen are necessary human fuels. All these consumables could be pumped into tanks inside the ship and stored there.

    Two years later, when Mars and Earth are again in conjunction, another spacecraft--this one carrying a crew--would be sent to join the robot ship on the surface. The astronauts could work on Mars for 18 months, living principally in their arrival craft, and then, at the end of their stay, abandon that ship, climb into the robot craft and blast off for home.

LMCOBlimp.jpg (12852 bytes)

High-Altitude Airship Concept Design
Nears Completion at Lockheed Martin

February 16, 2000    Defence Systems Daily, UK

   Lighter-than-air vehicles operating at altitudes of 21 kilometres (70,000 feet) are nearing a reality thanks in large measure to the technical savvy of Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems-Akron and the convictions of Stratcom President Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, USAF (retired), and other members of its stratospheric airship industrial team.
    All vital technologies were evaluated individually during the recently concluded concept feasibility phase, which began in October 1998, and are ready for integration into a demonstration vehicle.
    ...Since it is not practical to carry fuel aloft in a long-endurance buoyant vehicle, all power must be generated on station. This includes payload and propulsive power. A combination of photovoltaic (PV) and fuel cell systems likely will be used to provide the multiple kilowatts of power necessary for these functions. The PV and regenerative fuel cell technologies required by the vehicle are being developed based on work at NASA-Glenn in Cleveland and NASA-Dryden at Edwards AFB.

Hubble Finds Much of the Universe's Missing Hydrogen

photo: NASA
Rocket Fuels Researchers Suspend Frozen Hydrogen Particles In Helium
August 16, 1999

"Atomic fuels will make possible rockets with liftoff weights one-fifth that of today’s or with payloads three to four times more massive."
-- Bryan Palaszewski, Glenn principal investigator

    Rocket fuels researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center have made for the first time tiny particles of frozen hydrogen suspended in liquid helium. This is the first step toward new rocket fuels that can revolutionize rocket propulsion technology needed for getting off the Earth.
    In the experiments, small amounts of liquid hydrogen were poured onto the surface of liquid helium. The liquid hydrogen was at a temperature of 14 kelvins (minus 435 degrees F), just above freezing point; and the liquid helium was held at 4 kelvins (minus 452 degrees F), or just above absolute zero. As the liquid hydrogen fell toward the surface of the helium, small, solid hydrogen particles formed and then floated on the surface of the helium.
    The suspension will be used to make futuristic atomic fuels that take advantage of the chemical recombination of atoms into molecules.
    ...Using atomic fuels could reduce or eliminate on-orbit assembly of large space vehicles, thereby eliminating multiple launches and years of assembly time and making flights to all parts of the solar system less expensive and more practicable.

                     
NASA Glenn Research Center/Science Daily

Boeing Rocketdyne and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Partner to Develop New Upper-Stage Rocket Engine

NASA TERMINATES X-33
Next Generation Spaceplane Project Killed

Venture Star
X-33 Fuel Tank Cracks
November 5, 1999

   A joint NASA-Lockheed Martin team is meeting at Marshall to analyze the nature and extent of the damage, and to determine the probable cause, Marshall spokesman Dave Drachlis said this morning.
    At 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, engineers observing the tank through video monitors discovered damage near one of its seams, said Drachlis. The damage went through the tank's outer skin and exposed honeycomb material underneath. Engineers need to investigate to find out what other damage might exist, he said.
    Two hours earlier, the tank had been through a test cycle that appeared to have normal results, Drachlis said. The tank had passed a pressure test with a full load of liquid hydrogen, and had passed a structural-loads test to simulate the force of the X-33's fully loaded, liquid oxygen tank sitting atop the liquid hydrogen tank.
    The X-33 is a more than $1.2 billion project. NASA is investing just under $1 billion in the vehicle, while Lockheed Martin and its business partners are investing $287 million, said Drachlis.

    by James McWilliams            The Huntsville Times (Alabama)

X-33 Liquid Hydrogen Tank Damaged
November 4, 1999

    The 29-foot, 4,600-pound graphite epoxy tank is called a "protoflight" article because it is being used for testing but was also intended to be installed on the X-33 for test flights.
     On Wednesday, the hydrogen tank had successfully completed a cryogenic pressure test while it was fully fueled with the super-cold rocket propellant. Test engineers filled the tank with 29,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen. They then brought the tank's internal pressure to 42 psi, or 105 percent of its design. The pressure was maintained for seven minutes before being reduced.
                   
by Justin Ray                  Flordia Today

X-33 Liquid Hydrogen Fuel Tank Ready For Tests
September 7, 1999

   Tests are to begin this week on the first of two 4,600-pound graphite epoxy tanks, each designed to carry approximately 29,000 gallons of rocket fuel -- liquid hydrogen -- at -423 degrees Fahrenheit. The twin hydrogen tanks form the flanks of the X-33 vehicle and comprise roughly half its airframe.
    The X-33 is being developed in a partnership between NASA and the   Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif. The vehicle is a half-scale, sub-orbital technology demonstrator of a proposed future reusable launch vehicle Lockheed Martin calls "VentureStar™."
   ...Before testing the tank with liquid hydrogen, it will be partially filled with liquid nitrogen and then pressurized to test its structural integrity. Once nitrogen testing is complete, Marshall engineers will fill the tank with liquid hydrogen to simulate internal pressure loads.
    ...The vehicle is scheduled to conduct flight tests beginning in summer 2000. It will fly faster than 13 times the speed of sound and at an altitude of 60 miles to prove its technologies and systems.
                             
NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

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