Why SpaceX is Using a New Fuel

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Credits:
Producer/Co-Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Writer: Barnaby Martin
Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Animator: Mike Ridolfi
Animator: Eli Prenten
Sound: Graham Haerther
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster

References

Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.

Thank you to my patreon supporters: Adam Flohr, Henning Basma, Hank Green, William Leu, Tristan Edwards, Ian Dundore, John & Becki Johnston. Nevin Spoljaric, Jason Clark, Thomas Barth, Johnny MacDonald, Stephen Foland, Alfred Holzheu, Abdulrahman Abdulaziz Binghaith, Brent Higgins, Dexter Appleberry, Alex Pavek, Marko Hirsch, Mikkel Johansen, Hibiyi Mori. Viktor Józsa, Ron Hochsprung

[hughjass]

"Where I can inspire, brilliant can educate"
Don't sell yourself short man, you've taught me a hell of a lot

[zenithparsec]

The reason it burned with so much soot was it was a deliberately fuel rich mixture. If they ran the engines at perfect stoichiometric ratios, they would have melted. And some of the soot is from the turbopump. And the ratio could be changed to "throttle" the engine via the engines' "Propellant Utilization" valves. (It's not actually throttling, but had a similar thrust modulating effect . )

[daviddempster]

Methane LOX is very clean. It also allows for the use of co-axial fuel tanks where the LOX tank is surrounded by the Methane tank. This creates a very strong and efficient structure while decreasing the weight of the LOX tank.

[fraserhenderson]

Albert Einstein said something like "if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it yourself". I think Albert would approve of this video.

[kineteks]

A note about sooty rocket exhaust - a few times you talk about how sooty rp1 is and at the same time show a bunch of relatively dark black flecked exhaust from a Saturn five launch. Yes the combustion is relatively incomplete which is why we can see the yellow flame but it isn’t like what you show in these clips. That part of the exhaust comes from film cooling, where they purposely ran fuel rich mixture around the outside of the nozzle to keep it from overheating.

[blackmesaresearchcorporati]

3:25 THAT SHOT

That just has to be the most breathtaking shot of the Saturn V ever

[williamkennison]

This is the 1st I've heard of this technology. It is KISS simple and one of those things that was right in front of us all this time.
Brilliant!

[Michaelonyoutub]

Another benefit of methane is that since it has a similar boiling temperature as oxygen, not only can they use similar infrastructure, they can also be stored right next to each other in the rocket with minimal insulation which is not possible with hydrogen and oxygen or kerosene and oxygen, since the differences in the boiling point for those liquids is too much. This save space, simplifies components, and saves on the mass of systems within the ship to cool the propellants since you can use one system instead of two separate ones. All of that really helps when you want to mass produce those systems and tanks for as cheaply as possible.

[davidlloyd]

I can thoroughly recommend reading “ignition!”, it is absolutely packed with information and they should make a film of his career as a rocket propellant expert. They even used liquid mercury once as a propellant. He also talks about using chlorine triflouride (which actually burns concrete on contact!) as a propellant too, among myriads of other types.

[uncommonlogic]

Great video.
Thank you for the explanation of the importance of Discovery and Space.
People don't know the massive impact of innovation driven by discovery and just trying to understand our universe.

[osamahebala]

This is a great video, nicely summarizing so many topics & ideas.

[JainZar]

Another reason they went with Methane is that is allows the full flow staged combustion cycle of the Raptor to work. The Merlin uses uses Kerosene and has minimal to no refurbishment required.

[Knirin]

By the way that 400C reaction temperature for the Sabatier process is about 200C below the operating temperature of the MSR built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Most Solar Thermal systems using molten salts operate around 600C as well, so there are several options for cheap thermal energy to run the reaction.

[peter_david_]

"We have been given the scientific knowledge, the technical ability and the materials to pursue the exploration of the universe. To ignore these great resources, will be a corruption of a God-given ability"

I just love this opening address ❤️

[cjschoenmann]

This is one of my favorite videos. I just did a science fair on this concept. Thank you for the video

[msebastien]

Soviets had already developed mathalox rocket engines : RD-0162, RD-0141 & RD-0143, RD-183 & RD-185. Unfortunately, they never flew on a real rocket, only static fires had been conducted.

[TheSpacecraftX]

The darker exhaust on the Saturn launch is because there is fuel sprayed down the sided of the nozzle to provide cooling. Not all kerosene rocket exhausts look as dark as that.

[ronjon]

I’ve a better feel for specific impulse after watching this. Viewing total impulse as the area under the total thrust curve really helped. Maybe after watching this a few times will help solidify specific impulse for me. At any rate, I found this video to be the best description of the metric to date. If anyone has links to links that you found helpful, I’d appreciate it. Suppose I could (gasp) search YouTube or DDG….

[cjmatulka]

My favorite interest in the space industry is in the launching and recovery process.

Things are still primitive and the years of practical experience is beginning to pay off, still have a lot of room for evolution in both realms.
Carry on.

[BezBog]

These slow motion shots of the Saturn V never get old. This was truly an awe inspiring moment in human history