Curious if anyone has interesting thoughts on
https://payloadspace.com/transitioning-space-propulsion-to-a-nitrous-based-industry-standard/
For me it plays loose with the truth a bit too much in order to strengthen
its arguments. For example:
“Propellant storage: N2O is a pure chemical compound. It does not demix,
decompose, come out of solution, or crystalize. It does not degrade in any
manner and is, therefore, theoretically infinitely storable.“
Nitrous can be a pure chemical, but industrial nitrous that it talks about
elsewhere in the article isn’t. Nitrous obviously decomposes, it’s a
monopropellant, and exposure to ionizing radiation in space would give a
constant irreversible decomposition rate. It crystallizes if you freeze it
like any chemical will.
In general if nitrous is the best possible storable oxidizer then it should
capture the space storable oxidizer market without needing position papers.
So far LOX for short duration storable and the angrier nitrogen/oxygen
compounds for longer durations seem unthreatened, but I’ll be glad to see
more attempts at nitrous and peroxide and other oxidizers fly. Metal-based
solar electric seems poised to take a lot of dv from things that would have
been storables in the past.