Dana Rohrabacher makes the case. He doesn’t seem to be consistent in his terminology, though. He starts out calling them “fuel” depots, and later switches to “propellant.”
3 thoughts on “Propellant Depots”
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Dana Rohrabacher makes the case. He doesn’t seem to be consistent in his terminology, though. He starts out calling them “fuel” depots, and later switches to “propellant.”
Comments are closed.
Perhaps this column was ghostwritten by an aide who wasn’t clear about and/or concerned with the distinction.
If you’ve spent any time on the aeronautical side of the aerospace industry, it is a hard habit to break in referring to any onboard fluid that feeds into your powerplant for combustion as “fuel”. It is only those nutty rocket guys who carry oxidizer in the vehicle, after all. I occasionally slip in my own conversations and refer to “fuel+oxidizer” as fuel. I wouldn’t expect political guys to be hip to the distinction.
“Propellent depot” may be more technically correct but “fuel depot” is probably more easily understood by a general, non-technical audience.
I suspect the author wasn’t sure about his audience, changed his mind about which he wanted to use, then forgot to go back and edit it for consistency.
By the way, every pilot I know refers to jet fuel as “gas” even though it’s not gasoline. If propellent depots become common, I wouldn’t be surprised if they become known as “fuel depots” just to save syllables.