Ion wind and its future in space technology

[RedAlert]

Ion Wind research: Click Here.

 

I found this after doing some research, and I think it shows some potential. We could use Ion Wind to make space craft move up to 300,000 ft. and then the space craft could switch to the normal solid fuel rocket engines. It would be sort of like a "hybrid" space craft....and that would leave a lot more energy to reach higher speeds in space...

 

Tell me what you think.

[5614]

Well (s)he seems to think that they've got cold fusion happening in front of them, but as far as the floaters, ionic wind, lifters (whatever you want to call it) goes the site seems quite good.

 

The technology is currently being developed, it's a case of getting it:

to lift a rocket (+ fuel) [heavy],

to that height [very high!],

without putting in massive amounts of energy [which would make it not worth while].

[swansont]

Tell me what you think.

 

I think they are not not only not lifting a payload like an SRB, they are not even lifting their own power source.

[RedAlert]

Because it is being currently develpoed. Eventually thought it may be possible.......

[bascule]

I see substantially more potential in the space plane approach being pioneered by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites. Airplanes are a tried and tested technology, and substantially more efficient than the ballistic missile approach pioneered by NASA which is basically a throwback to the German V2, whereas despite over a half decade of research into lifter technology since it was first pioneered by antigravity crackpot Thomas Townsend Brown, it has yet to materialize into anything more practically useful than Ionic Breeze air filters, which, if you read another thread on these forums, aren't all they're cracked up to be.

 

Now this is what I thought was really cool... Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (M2P2):

 

http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/propulsion.html

[rajama]

'Lifters' have been on the web for a few years now - many claim to have constructed at least table-top devices using TV high voltage supplies...

 

I noticed in several downloaded clips that the initial 'launch' was very rapid but in each instance the 'kite' settled down, moving off to one side.

 

Could this be due to the build-up of charge on the lifter?

 

There doesn't appear to be anything to neutralise the ion flow - I assume this is still required just as in an ion drive, but since we're in an atmosphere, it may not be so clear-cut.

 

Once the ion stream touches down, I would imagine a considerable electric field would be set-up between the lifter and the Earth, pulling it back or preventing it rising further, also making the area around it even more unhealthy than it already is.

 

This would explain the limited altitude achieved in the open air, even when the supply lead is quite long.

 

One exception seems to be when the device flies indoors in a hanger just large enough to contain it...

[bascule]

The bottom line is this: it takes a very large lifter to lift anything of considerable mass. Only once (really wish I could find a link now) have I seen one large/dense enough to lift its own power supply/transformers, and that was something like 50 feet across and could only fly very briefly (5 minutes or so, I believe?) on an entire car battery's worth of juice. And sadly, its only payload was a battery and a transformer.

 

Every other lifter I've seen has been tethered by wires to a transformer/power source on the ground. These things are thoroughly impractical for anything which overlaps with the problem domain of airplanes, which is why no one has ever bothered to commercialize them.

 

Airplanes are simply the most practical approach to this problem domain. This is a role which I think will be filled by carrier planes like the "White Knight" which carried SpaceShipOne up to an altitude of 50,000 feet.

[rajama]

Well, yes, you're probably right - a very large lifter... maybe something with an area like that swept-out by a set of helicopter blades?

 

...and then there's power, well - you'd have to rely on fuel cells [lightweight, of course], the kind of thing the car industry seems to be putting so much money into..?

[RedAlert]

I agree, lifters are useless but interesting.

[rajama]

I just re-read my post #6 above and... well, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense.

 

Lets just say that maybe these devices probably generate a lot of ions that don't get neutralised, and back quietly away from the thread...