The Grand Table of Newtonian Tomfoolery

THE OBJECTIVE

of this document is to create a preliminary index of all the rockets, engines, and propulsive mechanisms indexed in the Atomic Rockets website, for purposes of creating entries similar to these in the Galactic Encyclopedia by two-person editor teams in parallel.

Organizational Thoughts

• Consider thermal rockets as the top level division over electric vs. chemical. The energy source is perhaps less important than the basic thrust mechanism.
• Keep scientifically outdated concepts, but mark them as such. There is value for reference and for softer sci-fi in keeping these around.
• In keeping with that point, what qualifies as “scientifically outdated” is not always clear. It would be good to support an open-ended discussion section on each engine’s knowns, unknowns, properties, things that might make it unrealistic, caveats to be aware of, etc.
• The history of how a particular rocket technology was developed may also be of interest, as a subsection on categories and on particular engines. E.g. the history for NPP is straightup hilarious (as well as being foundational and somewhat explanatory of that whole age in the contemporary sci-fi). Engine type sections could link to their own history posts.
• Densities are rarely mentioned when it comes to propellant types of any system.
• Look for holes in the existing engine list, where there is a concept that could exist but perhaps doesn’t yet, and flag for future reference.
• There is an explanation of the general principles behind the engine type (e.g. how, say, laser thermal works). Associated with the upper-level categorizations for engine types.
• Explain the most fundamental limits driving some sets of rocket/engine designs *first*, building the understanding for how from these limitations, the options we offer derive and relate to.

Other Thoughts

Regarding engine performance table in general: not just specific impulse but density impulse should be included as well

Zerraspace: I'd like to point out that there is such a huge variety of chemical rockets, even in their subfields like bipropellant and monopropellant, that perhaps rather than full entries for every combination, you give a basic principles, notes on cryogen difficulties, plus a table of performance something like Wikipedia has, before getting to specific engines or classes that deserve more information in their own right.

David B: Yes, I will take good care of commenting it

In general I would make something like

Fuel mix / optimal o.f. ratio / density / specific and density impulse (at 1atm with adapted nozzle and vacuum with high area ratio nozzle) / handling notes / a few examples of rockets using it

A description of various ways you can harvest power off of rocket engines may make sense?

List of Engines from Atomic Rockets

• Real/Near - no color (either actually works or has prototypes or the principles demonstrated).
• Disproven - Orange, (disproven but still explaining the history behind it).
• Plausible - Blue, (not disproven, but has a fair chance of being real.)
• Fringe - Red, (not disproven, but probably isn’t possible at all).
• Other - Brown(either fictional or straight up doesn’t make sense, but has some merits worth including).
• Delete - strikethrough.
• Move - Green, (Movement to Other Non-Propulsion/History Sections.)

Engine List 1:

Beamed Power

Laser Thermal
Laser Sail
Solar Moth

Chemical

Storeable vs Cryogenic

Solid Rocket
Liquid Rocket
Methane-Oxygen
Hydrogen-Fluorine
Hydrogen-Oxygen
RP-1 - Oxygen
Hypergolic Fuels

Hybrid Rocket

Aluminum-Oxygen ISRU Metal-Oxygen

Metastable

Atomic Hydrogen
Metallic Hydrogen
Metastable He*
Metastable He IV-A

Electric

Electromagnetic (Plasma)
Electrodeless plasma
Helicon Double Layer (HDLT)
Magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD)
Pulsed Inductive (PIT)
Pulsed Plasma (PPT)
Pulsed Plasmoid (ELF)
Pulsed Plasmoid (Alfvenic)
VASIMR

Electrostatic

Electrostatic Propellant
Colloid
Field-Emission Electric (FEEP)
Hall Effect (HET)
Ion
Radioisotope Electrostatic
( IBS Agamemnon )

Electrothermal

ArcJet
Hybrid ArcJet
Nuclear Advanced Thermodynamic Cycle
Integrated NTR-ArcJet
Serpent Nuclear-Thermal-Electric Engine
Microwave Electrothermal
Resistojet
Wakefield E-Beam

Sail

Electric Sail
Magnetic Sail
M2P2
MagBeam
Photon Sail
Plasma Magnet
Q-Drive

Other

Mass Driver
Photon
Motovilov Field Drive
Tachyon
( Langston Photon )
( Beer )

Engine List 2:

   Nuclear Thermal
       Solid Core
           NERVA
           Pewee-class
           SNRE-class
           Cermet
               Composite/Cermet Comparison
           NERVA Derivative
           DUMBO
           Pebble Bed
               Project Timberwind
           INsTAR
           Pulsed Solid-core NTR
           Russian Twisted Ribbon
           Low Pressure NTR
           LANTR
           Bi-Modal NTR
           MITEE
               Basic
               Monatomic H
               Hybrid
       Liquid Core
           LARS
           Centrifugal NTR
       Droplet Core
       Vapor Core
       Colloid-Core
       Gas Core
           Closed Cycle
               NASA Report
               UAC Report
               Squeezing The Last Drop Report
               Pulsed Close Cycle
           Open Cycle
               General Open Cycle
               Hybrid-Fuel
               Coaxial
               Vortex Confined
               Wheel Flow
               MHD Driven Rotation
               Fissioning Plasma Core
               RD-600: Soviet bimodal GCNTR
               Nuclear Salt Water
               Lithium Salt Water
       Fission Fragment Type
           Fission Fragment
           Afterburner Fission Fragment
           Fission Sail
           Antimatter-Driven Sail
       Fizzer

Engine List 3:

   Antimatter
       Antimatter History
       Antimatter Energy
       Radiation Shielding
       Solid Core
       Gas Core
       Plasma Core
       Antimatter Bottle
       Beam Core
       Laser Core
       Positron Ablative
   Fusion
       Fusion Fuels
           Deuterium-Tritium
           Hydrogen-Boron
           Helium3-Deuterium
       Confinement
           Inertial Confinement
           Electrostatic Inertial
           Magnetic Confinement
               Linear Fusion
               Toroidal Fusion
               Direct Fusion Drive
               Flow-Stabilized Z-Pinch
           Magneto Inertial Confinement
       Fusion Engines
           Pure Fusion Engines
           Afterburner Fusion Engines
           Dual-Mode Fusion Engines
           Breeder Fusion Engine
           Deuterium Microbomb
           Thermonuclear Orion
       Nuclear Magnetic Spin Alignment
       ( STARFIRE Fusion Afterburner )
       ( AV:T Fusion )
       ( THS Fusion Pulse )
       ( Epstein Drive )
   Pulse
       Orion
           The Death of Project Orion
           Orion Thrust and Isp
           Orion Environmental Impact
           Weaponized Orion
               Excalibur
               NUKEDAR
               Casaba Howitzer
               SNAK
           Atomic Manhole Cover
       Zeta-Pinch
           Zeta-Pinch Fission
               Mini-Mag Orion
               Z-pinch Microfission
               n-Li6 Microfission
           Zeta-Pinch Fusion
       PuFF Pulsed Fission Fusion
       Medusa
       Inertial Confinement
       Magneto Inertial Fusion
           Thio MTF
           HOPE (MTF)
           Slough FDR
           Plasma Jet MIF
       Antimatter catalyzed
           AIM
           ACMF
           Radioisotope Positron