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Chinese astronauts make rocket fuel and oxygen in space

(www.livescience.com)
298 points Teever | 2 comments | 24 Aug 25 17:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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habibur ◴[26 Aug 25 22:08 UTC] No.45032963[source]▶
This won't enable perpetual space travel in case anyone thought so.

Rockets need to eject particles to generate force. And to eject 1 kg of fuel, its photo synthesis system has to lose 1 km of mass in one way or another.

The solution is to find a way to generate thrust without rocket fuel ejection.

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swayvil ◴[26 Aug 25 23:15 UTC] No.45033506[source]▶
Maybe we could travel without bodies. Ala Lovecraftian astral travel or whatever. I mean you couldn't ship matter like that but for everything else it might work just fine.
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1. Cthulhu_ ◴[27 Aug 25 11:27 UTC] No.45038153[source]▶
Astral projection isn't Lovecraftian per se (fhtagn), but it's an interesting thing to ponder from a hypothetical / fictional perspective.

At best we'll be able to send out probes. Maybe, but this still feels science fiction too, we can harness quantum entanglement for long distance instant communication.

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2. swayvil ◴[27 Aug 25 12:41 UTC] No.45038851[source]▶
In his books, one way of travelling was to switch souls with a creature on another planet. Apparently it worked very well. Though managing a new set of limbs and senses could be difficult.