Energy Limitations of Liquid Rocket Propellants: An Examination of the Potentialities of the Available Chemical Fuels

APPLICATION of the so‐called high energy liquid fuels and high energy liquid oxidizers to power plants based on the jet propulsion principle is receiving the increasing interest and attention of rocket propellant chemists and power plant engineers universally. The aspect of substantially increased—as much as 50 per cent— energy per pound of propellant load or per cubic foot of propellant tankage over today's propellants has whetted scientific appetites and justified probing the field of high energy chemicals to determine, as logically and as practically as we can at the present time, the gains, problems, limitations and applications of these higher energy chemicals. The object of this paper is, in a general way, to discuss the subject of chemical rocket propellants in such a way that the following five questions will be, in part at least, answered or recalled to the minds of this audience for additional deliberation.