An autophage rocket engine that consumes its plastic fuselage for fuel has been built and fired by engineers at Glasgow University in Scotland. The autophage engine uses waste heat from combustion to sequentially melt its own plastic fuselage as it fires. It then feeds the molten plastic into the engine’s combustion chamber as additional fuel to burn alongside its regular liquid propellants. The term autophage comes from the Latin word for ‘self-eating’. The concept of a self-eating rocket engin...