Hydrogen bomb vs Atomic Bomb vs Shuttle

[MrRamon]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the space shuttle use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to blast off and create water(H20) as a by product?

We have "nuclear" reactors as a form of energy but why not "hydrogen" reactors as the hydrogen bomb was way more powerful than the nuclear bomb. Doesn't the hydrogen bomb separate water and reduce it to hydrogen and oxygen? Why don't we have hydrogen reactors?

I don't know much about the subject but I am interested in the energy produced by breaking the bond vs creating water . I may be wrong on the space shuttle, but I think it uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to blast off producing a crap ton of energy and water. (thus clean energy)

 

[keird]

[snip] I may be wrong on the space shuttle, but I think it uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to blast off producing a crap ton of energy and water. (thus clean energy)

It's a great idea on paper but those products were recalled. There were reports of children being hit.

 

[Fayd]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the space shuttle use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to blast off and create water(H20) as a by product?

We have "nuclear" reactors as a form of energy but why not "hydrogen" reactors as the hydrogen bomb was way more powerful than the nuclear bomb. Doesn't the hydrogen bomb separate water and reduce it to hydrogen and oxygen?

no. the hydrogen bomb is another name for the fusion bomb. it works by harnessing energy released when hydrogen is fused into helium. this is as compared to fission bomb, which works by harnessing energy when heavy elements are split into lighter elements.

Why don't we have hydrogen reactors?

because you're starting from a very significant misunderstanding of how energy production works.

and as far as fusion reactors go, we haven't worked out the bugs yet. 40 years ago, the scientists said we'd have them in 40 years. the current scientists still say 40 years till viable fusion reactors.

I don't know much about the subject

that's clear.

 

[Fayd]

It's a great idea on paper but those products were recalled. There were reports of children being hit.

unfortunate. those toys were so cool

 

[MrRamon]

no. the hydrogen bomb is another name for the fusion bomb. it works by harnessing energy released when hydrogen is fused into helium. this is as compared to fission bomb, which works by harnessing energy when heavy elements are split into lighter elements.


because you're starting from a very significant misunderstanding of how energy production works.

and as far as fusion reactors go, we haven't worked out the bugs yet. 40 years ago, the scientists said we'd have them in 40 years. the current scientists still say 40 years till viable fusion reactors.


that's clear.

There is no need to be a dick with "That's clear" quote. I obviously don't know much about the subject, however I'm interested in learning. To be clear the hydrogen bomb never at any point in time after going off breaks the bond between oxygen and hydrogen if it interacts with h20?

 

[Colt45]

Because what you want is fusion, which doesn't really want to work well unless it's strapped to a fission bomb, or is... the sun.

(controlled) fusion has been just around the corner for decades now... maybe some day but I'm not holding my breath. They can get it to kind of half ass work, with more energy input than they can get out of it, afaik. or in weird constraints that can't be scaled properly or have some other problem.

 

[Tsavo]

(controlled) fusion has been just around the corner for decades now... maybe some day but I'm not holding my breath. They can get it to kind of half ass work, with more energy input than they can get out of it, afaik. or in weird constraints that can't be scaled properly or have some other problem.

All it takes is money, which they don't have a lot of.

 

[jhu]

There is no need to be a dick with "That's clear" quote. I obviously don't know much about the subject, however I'm interested in learning. To be clear the hydrogen bomb never at any point in time after going off breaks the bond between oxygen and hydrogen if it interacts with h20?

Wikipedia is your friend.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Might be worth mentioning hydrogen bombs start their fusion reaction by using the energy from fission reactions, which is why they still have fallout.

Maybe we'll see viable fusion sooner than 40 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER still probably many years away though.

The space shuttle didn't use any sort of nuclear reactions. Just simple combustion. The special sauce of fission and fusion reactions is the release of energy bound up with subatomic particles. Any resulting water from the space shuttle was just the result of chemical reactions.

 

[MrRamon]

Might be worth mentioning hydrogen bombs start their fusion reaction by using the energy from fission reactions, which is why they still have fallout.

Maybe we'll see viable fusion sooner than 40 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER still probably many years away though.

The space shuttle didn't use any sort of nuclear reactions. Just simple combustion. The special sauce of fission and fusion reactions is the release of energy bound up with subatomic particles. Any resulting water from the space shuttle was just the result of chemical reactions.

Yes, I know the space shuttle didn't use nuclear reactions to take off. What I'm getting at is the chemical reactions of the space shuttle produced water. I didn't understand how the hydrogen bomb worked. I guess my question now is we can create H20, can we break the bonds as well? And if so is the problem having less and less energy over time using chemical reactions over and over.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Yes, I know the space shuttle didn't use nuclear reactions to take off. What I'm getting at is the chemical reactions of the space shuttle produced water. I didn't understand how the hydrogen bomb worked. I guess my question now is we can create H20, can we break the bonds as well? I know there is energy loss, thus netting less energy.

Breaking the bonds of H20 is still just a chemical reaction and it's possible although I don't think it produces energy generally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting

 

[jhu]

Yes, I know the space shuttle didn't use nuclear reactions to take off. What I'm getting at is the chemical reactions of the space shuttle produced water. I didn't understand how the hydrogen bomb worked. I guess my question now is we can create H20, can we break the bonds as well? And if so is the problem having less and less energy over time using chemical reactions over and over.

This is basic high school chemistry: 2H[size=-10]2[/size] + O2 = 2 H2O + energy

The reaction can go left to right or right to left. Left to right releases energy, right to left requires energy.

 

[akahoovy]

Yes, I know the space shuttle didn't use nuclear reactions to take off. What I'm getting at is the chemical reactions of the space shuttle produced water. I didn't understand how the hydrogen bomb worked. I guess my question now is we can create H20, can we break the bonds as well? And if so is the problem having less and less energy over time using chemical reactions over and over.

No, water or O2 will naturally form because oxygen is an extremely negative charged element. It oxidizes everything that has valence electrons to share. It doesn't require much energy for that to happen. It doesn't require much energy to separate hydrogen and oxygen either. In a pot of boiling water, some of the molecules are becoming steam and vaporizing off, but the heat energy is excited electrons that allows the oxygen and hydrogen bonds to break and reform rapidly. That's what heat in a volume is, at least water, if I remember correctly.

 

[Fayd]

There is no need to be a dick with "That's clear" quote. I obviously don't know much about the subject, however I'm interested in learning. To be clear the hydrogen bomb never at any point in time after going off breaks the bond between oxygen and hydrogen if it interacts with h20?

if you don't know much about a subject, before assuming that you are uniquely gifted in finding unorthodox but valid solutions to the ills of the world, become more knowledgeable about the subject.

not unless h20 simply happens to be nearby for some reason. even then, i have no idea if it just vaporizes (phase change, no chemical change) it or magically converts it back to h2 and o2. h2o isn't required or even wanted in a fusion reaction. (though we have done weapons testing of nukes underwater. they blow up in a sphere. who would have guessed. (the physicists. same with explosions in space.)

 

[dawp]

the shuttle uses a chemical reaction, i.e. it burns hydrogen and oxygen to get the wanted thrust with water as the result.

there was a program back in the late 60's and early 70's called nerva that used a nuclear reactor to generate heat to produce thrust.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/djm5200/NERVA.html

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910017902.pdf

 

[jhu]

There was also nuclear pulse propulsion in the works until the nuclear test ban treaty.

 

[John Connor]

I don't think they stopped nuclear propulsion... It's just done in a different way. Anyone know about Area-51?

 

[SlowSpyder]

The space shuttle uses a chemical reaction, the elements hydrogen and oxygen burn and expand / heat up tremendously and are then forced out the nozzle creating thrust. Think of blowing up a balloon, not tying it and releasing it. The air in the balloon being pushed out the 'nozzle' propel the balloon through the air. The water produced is still made of elemental oxygen and hydrogen, just combined to form the new compound.

Uranium reactors and uranium/plutonium bombs use a type of nuclear reaction called fission. Large and heavy atoms of uranium or plutonium break down into smaller atoms. The nuclear bonds that held the large nucleus of the uranium or plutonium hold a lot of energy, much more than chemical reactions like that used in the space shuttle engines. In a power plant this reaction is controlled so that never is there too much energy being produced, so that the core of the fissile material never gets too hot (read about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island if you'd like to see what happens when things go wrong).

The type of nuclear reaction that uses hydrogen is called fusion. Where wit fission large atoms are broken a part to release energy, with fission much smaller atom are smashed together to create heavier elements. In doing so energy is created when the new element is created, this is the type of reaction happening in the cores of starts like our sun. This produces even more energy than fission. Creating a run away reaction in a bomb is easy (relatively speaking) to do, keeping the temps and pressured required to keep this kind of reaction going in a controlled manner, as to produce electricity has so far been very challenging for science. From what I understand these types of reactors that have been built have so far all required more energy to get started than they produce, and keeping them going in a sustained reaction hasn't happened as far as I'm aware.

 

[Paratus]

To the OP. The other part I'm not sure you are getting, is that while the shuttle was burning H and O2 to make water and thrust, or using them in fuel cells to make electricity and H2O, that H had to come from some where. H2 is bound up in molecules on Earth so it takes energy to release it. Thermodynamics says you will use more energy liberating it then you will get back in recombining it making it a losing proposition for power generation.

Fusing H2 is not a chemical reaction, it's a nuclear one. It releases orders of magnitude more power.

 

[IronWing]

OP, serious suggestion: go read The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun both by Richard Rhodes. Both are excellent books and will provide the basics of fission and fusion reactions in layperson's terms.

 

[norseamd]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the space shuttle use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to blast off and create water(H20) as a by product?

We have "nuclear" reactors as a form of energy but why not "hydrogen" reactors as the hydrogen bomb was way more powerful than the nuclear bomb. Doesn't the hydrogen bomb separate water and reduce it to hydrogen and oxygen? Why don't we have hydrogen reactors?

I don't know much about the subject but I am interested in the energy produced by breaking the bond vs creating water . I may be wrong on the space shuttle, but I think it uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to blast off producing a crap ton of energy and water. (thus clean energy)

first off the hydrogen bomb is actually a fission fusion bomb

A thermonuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon design that uses the heat generated by a fission reaction to compress and ignite a nuclear fusion stage. This results in a greatly increased explosive power. It is colloquially referred to as a hydrogen bomb or H-bomb because it employs hydrogen fusion, though in most applications the majority of its destructive energy comes from uranium fission, not hydrogen fusion alone. The fusion stage in such weapons is required to efficiently cause the large quantities of fission characteristic of most thermonuclear weapons.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#cite_note-1

 

[norseamd]

There was also nuclear pulse propulsion in the works until the nuclear test ban treaty.

considering outer space is the safest place to test nuclear weapons that is a shame

of course not above the atmosphere but in the asteroid belt would work

 

[norseamd]

because you're starting from a very significant misunderstanding of how energy production works. and as far as fusion reactors go, we haven't worked out the bugs yet. 40 years ago, the scientists said we'd have them in 40 years. the current scientists still say 40 years till viable fusion reactors.

Because what you want is fusion, which doesn't really want to work well unless it's strapped to a fission bomb, or is... the sun. (controlled) fusion has been just around the corner for decades now... maybe some day but I'm not holding my breath. They can get it to kind of half ass work, with more energy input than they can get out of it, afaik. or in weird constraints that can't be scaled properly or have some other problem.

commercial fusion may be 40 years away but there have been some advances in prototype reactors and the iter reactor is supposed to start working in the next 10 years

 

[norseamd]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-us-towards-a-future-of-clean-infinite-energy

 

[sdifox]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-us-towards-a-future-of-clean-infinite-energy

op could buy an e-cat :awe: