Posted on 01/26/2006 5:58:39 PM PST by saganite
On a Wing and a JoltThe crucial thing, says Millis, is whether Goodwin's magnet would produce any net motion at all--it might just sit there and vibrate. "It's a definite possibility that any forces arising from Goodwin's concept will only act within the components of the device itself, resulting in no net force," he says. "There are a lot of unresolved physics issues to address."
by Ian Sample
New Scientist
December 9, 2000
original URL
new NS URL
Yes, there have been a few posts here (by me) about it. The claims are pretty extraordinary though. The current crop of ion engines are already 10 times more efficient than chemical rockets. The claims for this one would mean we have a real deep space tool. Of course, they've got to scale this thing up and eventually get in space. I guess we'll know in ten years time if it meets all the hype.
Why does this engine require a rare gas (xenon) to operate, instead of something more common, and readily available in space, like Hydrogen??
Bear with me if this is a really basic question, but I wasn't one of those people who excelled in High School Chemistry; in fact I got myself permanently booted from Chem Lab for (accidentally) setting it on fire.
[=O=]
In 1984, Hughes Research Laboratories, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corporation, began investigating the use of xenon and found that it offered the highest thrust of all the inert, non-reactive gases. And, because it is an inert gas, it is neither corrosive nor explosive, and therefore does not pose a risk to the life of the satellite or a safety hazard to personnel loading the xenon propellant tanks.
Bump. For later consideration.
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