Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes killed in rocket crash outside Barstow

Re:Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes killed in rocket crash outsid... by cstross on Sunday February 23, 2020 @07:54AM (#22396612)

If you squint at it the right way, the UK's Black Arrow launch vehicle was steam-powered; it used HTP (85-98% hydrogen peroxide) as an oxidizer, which decomposes to oxygen plus superheated steam on its way into the engine (the oxygen was then combusted with RP-1 fuel). The steam contributes a fair amount of reaction mass:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow

... And the (one) satellite it successfully launched is still in orbit, nearly 50 years later.

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Re:Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes killed in rocket crash outsid... by justin66 on Sunday February 23, 2020 @02:42PM (#22399038)

You probably know this, but one can quite successfully skip the kerosene entirely and just use peroxide as a monopropellant with a silver catalyst.

Presumably Hughes's belief system demanded that all his silver exist in coin form, hoarded and buried in the backyard, or something.

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Re:Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes killed in rocket crash outsid... by wolf550e on Monday February 24, 2020 @07:18PM (#22409789)

117 seconds specific impulse [1] is miserable. It is possible [2] to reach orbit with that, but not efficiently.

1 - http://www.astronautix.com/h/h2o2.html

2 - https://space.stackexchange.com/a/8720

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Re:Daredevil “Mad Mike” Hughes killed in rocket crash outsid... by mhh__ on Monday February 24, 2020 @10:59AM (#22405158)

I believe that we (the UK) are the only nation to develop and test a orbit-capable launch vehicle and then scrap it?

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