10/16/2026
I've often been asked how the concept I'm researching would work in space, and here's the answer.
In aerodynamics, there is a fundamental paradox: conventional engineering fights the medium, pushing for ever-greater engine power to brute-force through the sound barrier and drag. But what if we transformed the atmosphere itself from an obstacle into a hydrodynamic accumulator and source of propulsion?
Biomimetic fluid dynamics offers a radically different paradigm—a propulsion kinematics similar to the undulatory motion of a fish.
The efficiency of fish reaches 90% and it has been experimentally shown that Oscillatory propulsion cannot be described as a simple pushing of the medium, but requires taking into account the phase separation of the processes of cavity generation and the subsequent use of the energy of its collapse as thrust. It is this energy of the collapsing wake vortices, ejected by the fish as a jet stream (Karman trail), that is the reason for such efficiency.
By pushing the water, the fish forms a kind of vacuum tunnel that sucks it in, pushing it in the desired direction thanks to the hydrodynamic memory, which forms a virtual jet engine. In this way, energy is spent only on work, and the movement occurs with zero drag.
This mechanism turns dense atmospheric layers into an effective working medium for extreme acceleration. It establishes a theoretical foundation for single-stage-to-orbit architectures capable of accelerating through the upper atmosphere to hypersonic speeds, ascending into ultra-low Earth orbits, or executing inter-atmospheric planetary hops by leveraging fluid collapse dynamics rather than carrying mountains of chemical propellant.
