🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Mar31.163051.5961@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>The second possibility is to use a smaller fusion reactor to preheat
>fuel and/or oxidizer before injection into a conventional chemical
>engine.  This would increase the Isp beyond that possible with
>chemical fuels alone.

I doubt the practicality of this.  Existing oxyhydrogen rockets already
run fuel-rich partly to *cool* the exhaust a bit (and thus reduce thermal
dissociation of water into oxygen and hydrogen).  It might help the less
energetic fuels like hydrazine, but why bother?  If the power densities
stay low, the big use will probably be as a power source for electrical
propulsion in space.
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