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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
>
>