[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: starship-design: Plasma rocket engine makes space flight muchfaster - 1...



In a message dated 3/19/00 12:43:53 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca writes:

> "L. Parker" wrote:
>  > It may not be warp speed, but a new rocket engine concept in design at 
the
>  > Oak Ridge Centers for Manufacturing Technology could make space flight a
>  > much faster business than it is already. That would be good news for
>  > astronauts facing long stretches away from home on interplanetary 
missions.
> 
>  > 
>  > ORCMT?s Radio Frequency (rf) and Microwave Technology Center at the Oak
>  > Ridge Centers for Manufacturing Technology is collaborating with NASA to
>  > develop a high-powered plasma rocket engine prototype, a concept NASA 
will
>  > consider for high-speed interplanetary propulsion. The system is being
>  > designed as proof-of-principle for the Variable Specific Impulse
>  > Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR.
>  > According to Stan Milora of ORNL?s Fusion Energy Division, where the 
ORCMT
>  > center is located, a gas with a low molecular weight, probably helium, 
> will
>  > be ionized, heated with rf waves and expelled from the rocket engine.

L. Parker
Glad to find you backed of your previous enthusiastic claim such a device had 
been test fired.

>  Sounds good but for 2 things.
>  1)  Still no source power for said engine.
>  2)  Is not helium going to be the first chemical element that we run out
>  of
>  around 2010?

Only two? I see four proplems with their pricnciples stated that my plasma 
rocket engine has overcome for interstellar flight.

1.> a gas with a low molecular weight, 

Low molecular weight means low exhaust mass giving low payload velocity from 
the equation (mass time velocity) of payload= (mass times velocity) of 
exhaust.
My plasma rocket engine uses water for propellant with higher molecular mass 
and therefore velocity.

2. >probably helium, 
> will be ionized, 

Ionizing gas for a plasma leaves positive and negative atom parts with no way 
of ridding the craft of the electrons. An electric charge builds up and when 
the craft lands the resulting lightning discharge from different electric 
potentials will in all probability abort (crash and burn) the landing and 
prevent relaunch. My design expels all positive, negative and neutral atom 
parts out the exhaust port. In addition electrolysis can convert part of the 
propellant to payload oxygen requirements and the propellant can be used in 
part to supply payload with water requirements. Waste water can be returned 
to the propellant tanks be ejected as exhaust.

3. >heated with rf waves and expelled from the rocket engine.

What ever supplies the heat source works at a very low efficiency design of 
no more than 20% including atomic electric producing reactors so the added 
mass and waste products (sound, heat waste products) give many velocity 
limiting disposable problems.

My design overcomes the problem by using a plasma created by Americium above 
critical mass whose heat "directly" expands and fissions and ejects the 
liquid propellant with no intervening steps.  Any sound, heat radiation, and 
waste products not tapped by thermocouples to provide electricity and heat 
for payload requirements are carried out the exhaust port.

4.>>The system is being designed as proof-of-principle test

That's a lot of money wasted needed for the proof of principle (for VASMIR)
If VASMIR the best NASA can do, then I have nothing to worry about with my 
competitors.

With my design, I need only only place 20 pounds or so of Americium241 in a 
1' dia hole 10' deep drilled in a three mile arctic ice sheet to prove my 
principle and allow other to see and measure my engine exhaust.  Obtained 
free from recycled smoke detectors (1/2 gram of americium 241 for rocket or 
bomb use) per detector); the only significant cost would be the travel 
expense for me and those verifying witnesses and the heated ice auger needed 
plus camera film. 

Since the China principle is well known and understood and proven to my 
satisfaction, to save in even that expense I will probably just sit and wait 
for the first atomic reactor complete meltdown. When this "dirty" exhaust 
going out and up from the reactor is described, It is only a manner of time 
before other independently invent my engine by noticing the rocket exhaust 
potential of the matter going up out of the hole for a long time with great 
velocity (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). I will 
step in with my legally documented prior invention claim preventing their 
economic benefit without my license fee. ''=)

Regards,
Tom Jackson





>  > 
>  > "People do love to go to weird places for reasons we can't imagine -- 
> mostly
>  > because they have too much money."
>  >                             - Freeman Dyson
>  
>  -- 
>  "We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
>   We borrow it from our children."
>  The Lagging edge of technology:
>  http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/woodelf/index.html
>  
>