Biodiesel: It IS Rocket Science

John Davis

biodieselrocketCarlsbad, California-based Flometrics, Inc., an engineering service for the aerospace, medical device and consumer products industries, has tested B100 biodiesel on a RocketDyne LR-101 rocket engine.

This story from Space-Travel.com says it performed very well:

The B-100 fuel was found to have performance within 4% of the RP-1 fuel which the engine was originally designed for.

BioDiesel is a renewable, low toxicity, low flammability fuel. The use of vegetable based rocket fuel opens up the possibility of growing oil-producing crops on the moon or mars for use as stock for rocket fuel, eliminating the need of lifting the fuel from the surface of the earth.

NASA is already working on extracting oxygen from the lunar soil, and some scientists at ESA and NASA have proposed growing plants on the moon.

So while the moon might not be made of green cheese, it could one day produce green fuel.

Biodiesel