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Comment by ballooney | original | SpaceX catches the Starship to end Flight 15
[−]ballooney · 2026-11-15 Sun 18:17 UTC · link
Yeah that’s just wrong. For chemical propulsion we no exactly what sort of valence arrangement of electrons and mass of combustion exhaust products is optimal for getting the most acceleration for your reaction rate. It’s mostly because simpler is better (eg if pure hydrogen could be a combustion product it would he impossible to improve on that). More complex molecules will be strictly worse than anything we know about already. As you said yourself, you know nothing abour rockets or chemistry. Read the book everyone has been recommending.