Mercury would be a denser propellant than xenon/other Nobel gasses used for ion thrusters in orbit. There’s been a ton of other insane fuel types proposed over the years which thankfully haven’t been used (although a lot of rockets have and still use toxic hypergolic fuels like hydrazine)
lefty7283@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Mercury would be a denser propellant than xenon/other Nobel gasses used for ion thrusters in orbit. There’s been a ton of other insane fuel types proposed over the years which thankfully haven’t been used (although a lot of rockets have and still use toxic hypergolic fuels like hydrazine)
Good vid going over some of these fuels: youtu.be/_wLk2j7_KB0