Could we use nuclear power on a space shuttle to seperate the oxygen from the air to fuel a craft into space?

Question

Just a curious thought

Answer 1

i don't think so and it would be weird if you could

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Answer 2

You need something to combust with the oxygen; the shuttle uses hydrogen.  Still, if you could carry the hydrogen and save weight by not having to lift your entire liquid oxygen supply also , this would permit more payload weight.

It is not clear to me what the advantage would be of separating oxygen from the air vs. simply using an air breathing system to use the ambient oxygen at its natural concentration. Either way you are limited by the amount of air you can pull into your intake, so if you can't get enough oxygen to burn with a big 'ol air intake on the front of the shuttle, then using the same intake and a bunch of power and equipment (weight) to distill the oxygen after you get the air on board isn't going to make things better.

This is a clever and creative idea. Maybe there is some way to take advantage of the impressive energy to weight ratio in nuclear power to get into orbit, but I don't think this one will work.

Answer 3

The oxygen would be an oxidizer.  Meaning it needs to burn something.  But for now let's say you have a fuel like hydrogen.

Now oxygen can be used to burn hydrogen and then nuclear power to power something to separate the water, and then the hydrogen can burn more oxygen and the oxygen can be put into storage.  Best case scenario.

But something that would be impractical since what would the astronauts breath?

From early concepts of nuclear propulsion, it would make more sense to use nuclear energy to super heat gases for propulsion.

Answer 4

idk but it's worth a try and there is nothing to lose!

Answer 5

You could, but you don't need to.  You can burn stuff using air as an oxidizer.  You also need something to burn.  You could use any power you have - solar cells, nuclear power, etc., to turn water into oxygen and hydrogen.  You could then burn them in your rocket.

You could also use nuclear power to ionize just about anything, and also use that power in a linear particle accelerator to use as a propulsion engine.  This could give you amazing efficiency for your reaction mass.

Answer 6

We cannot use nuclear power on a space shuttle to separate the oxygen from the air to fuel a craft into space.

1. oxygen alone cannot fuel a shuttle.

2. why use nuclear power to get pure oxygen from the air. there are plenty of other ways.

3.  Ive seen a program on the telly about the nuclear powered aircrafts, by using nuclear power to drive a jet engine, but it's too dangerous that they scrapped the project. If it is dangerous for an aircraft... surely it will e much dangerous for a shuttle specially on re-entry.