Difference between revisions of "Talk:Reaction engine"

Revision as of 02:42, 3 March 2015

Move to 'Liquid Fuel Engine'

calling them 'rocket' engines is ambiguous, it could mean either liquid or solid fuel engines. Thecoshman (talk) 10:12, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Image broken

I broke the picture trying to make it clear the picture was from before 0.18. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GregroxMun (talk • contribs) 18:50, 2 July 2014‎ (UTC)

The reason was, that {{version}} does add a link on it's own and the caption was already a link. So there was then a link within a link.— xZise [talk] 12:08, 3 July 2014 (CDT)

Wikipedia says reaction includes jet engines...

Our terminology is wrong. So says the Wikipedia article on Reaction engines.

From the article (emphasis added):

A reaction engine is an engine or motor which provides propulsion (thrust) by expelling reaction mass, in accordance with Newton's third law of motion. This law of motion is most commonly paraphrased as: "For every action force there is an equal, but opposite, reaction force".

Examples include both jet engines and rocket engines, and more uncommon variations such as Hall effect thrusters, ion drives, mass drivers and nuclear pulse propulsion.

This article starts with “...an engine that generates thrust solely through the use of onboard propellant.” Wikipedia's article on rocket engines starts with defining them as using “only stored propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet”. The KSP engine types also match with Wikipedia's list of rocket engine types. Really, this article's contents should be in “Rocket engine”.

Currently, this article includes RCS thrusters. They do qualify as rocket engines for using only onboard propellant. But because KSP organizes them separately from “Engines” under Command and Control, I'd suggest keeping all RCS info in one place in the Reaction Control System article and just linking to it under a heading in this article.

Jet engines are reaction engines, but not rocket engines. Obviously, they should stay in their own article.

We could still have a Reaction engine article, but it would logically have to list rocket engines, jet engines, and I'd suggest listing RCS engines as a separate sub-category of rocket engines.

Meanwhile, our Engine article lists rover wheels as a type of engine. It's technically correct, but awkward; KSP doesn't list them in the "Engines" parts tab. They're non-reaction engine "engine", but by the same logic the SAS torque is an engine; you can flip-walk things across terrain! I don't know what the best approach to this one is. --Brendan (talk) 20:42, 2 March 2015 (CST)