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Space Technology

Magnetic Field Thruster Developed 257

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the thrust-in-the-right-direction dept.
ndverdo writes "There are reports of a working magnetic field engine prototype based on Alfvén waves designed by Austrian scientists. According to the reports fuel savings in rocket engines of 90% could be achieved. Other benefits include enhanced durability due to the nozzle forming outside the engine."
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Magnetic Field Thruster Developed More

Magnetic Field Thruster Developed

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  • Yeah but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:34PM (#13805199)
    Is this economically/technologically feasible? I've been quite the sceptic lately with all these new "breakthroughs" that don't quite break through anything.

    • Re:Yeah but... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Beouwulf of cluster, these imagine!

    • Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cheesybagel ( 670288 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:35PM (#13805500)
      The article seems to be pretty thin in technical detail. But it appears they are talking about an MPD thruster [wikipedia.org].

      They usually have problems with erosion, not to mention the low thrust-to-weight ratio (which means you cannot get off the Earth's surface with one). Also, they take a lot of juice, so you likely need something like a nuclear reactor or friggin huge solar array (we are talking MW here) to generate enough electricity to power one of these babies.

      • Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Informative)

        by cheesybagel ( 670288 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @05:29PM (#13805753)
        I found an article abstract on this:

        MOA: Magnetic Field Oscillating Amplified Thruster

        Mr. Norbert Frischauf, Booz Allen Hamilton, Austria
        Mr. Tobias Bartusch, University of Augsburg, Germany
        Dr. Andreas Grassauer, Green Hills Biotechnology, Austria
        Mr. Manfred Hettmer, Manfred Hettmer Datenverarbeitung, Austria

        Abstract - It was in 1942, when the later Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén [wikipedia.org] published a letter, stating, that oscillating magnetic fields can accelerate ionised matter via magneto hydrodynamic interactions in a wave like fashion. These waves were later called "Alfvén waves [wikipedia.org]", in honour of their discoverer. Although the evidence for Alfvén's hypothesis came already rather early with the observation of certain plasma phenomena, such as being connected with high solar wind Wolf-Rayet stars, more than 60 years had to pass by before a technical implementation of Alfvén waves for propulsive purposes was proposed for the first time.

        The name of the concept, utilising Alfvén waves to accelerate ionised matter for propulsive purposes, is MOA - Magnetic field Oscillating Amplified thruster. Alfvén waves are generated by making use of two coils, one being permanently powered and serving also as magnetic nozzle, the other one being switched on and off in a cyclic way, deforming the field lines of the overall system.

        It is this deformation that generates Alfvén waves, which are in the next step used to transport and compress the propulsive medium, in theory leading to a propulsion system with a much higher performance than any other electric propulsion system.

        Based on computer simulations, which we conducted to get a first estimate on the performance of the system, MOA is a highly flexible propulsion system, whose performance parameters might easily be adapted, by changing the mass flow and/or the power level. As such the system is capable to deliver a maximum specific impulse of 13116 s (12.87 mN) at a power level of 11.16 kW, using Xe [wikipedia.org] as propellant, but can also be attuned to provide a thrust of 236.5 mN (2411 s) at 6.15 kW of power.

        Although a dual-use system, space propulsion is expected to be the prime application for MOA. As MOA works best in high-power mode and with ionised matter, utilisation concepts range from a high-efficient Nuclear Electric Propulsion System, to an 'afterburner' for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Systems. This wide range of applications makes MOA a unique accessory for any nuclear propulsion system to overcome specific concept drawbacks, allowing a full-fledged hybrid nuclear propulsion system, with attune able thrust / specific impulse parameters, perfectly suited for nearly all types of space missions.

        This article will be presented on Friday, October 21 2005, 08h30m at the 56th International Astronautical Congress [iac2005.org] in Fukuoka, Japan.

    • Formerly NASA's Adavnced Space Propulsion Laboratory (Recently privatized to get more money) has indeed developed a working VASIMR based fusion rocket engine that HAS run off of what is generally agreed to be the exhaust from a fusion reactor with very promising results. By Very promising I mean Mars in a month if the engine is fed the power output of a nuclear submarine's reactor. Only problem: Getting said reactor to space.
      • Most of the weight of a reactor are in the ancillary components and shielding. In space if you mount the reactor on a long boom you need only shield the aft end at the top of the boom, just before the working capsule (cargo, passengers, etc.). Also, I don't think you'll be wanting to be using a pressurized, light-water reactor design in space. Not a good idea at all! I'd be thinking more along the lines of the liquid sodium (metal) designs we started playing with back in the '60's. We have much better

    • top eight implications (Score:4, Funny)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @05:21PM (#13805708)

      This has loads of implications:

      1) longer lived satellites, which by weight are 50% fuel
      2) heavier payloads for rockets.
      3) smaller more robust rockets--no more shuttle fuel tank explositions
      4) launch the ISS in 10x fewer launches, making pH of acidified atmosphere 1 pH unit higher, closer to breathable.
      4) ten times fewer mobile ballistic missiles to hide and still be able to destroy the earth
      5) perhaps a return trip from mars.
      6) my personal rocket car will get better fuel milage than my hummer.
      7) New distance record for rocket propelled pumpkin toss
      8) Jet pack, baby!

      By the way, When will these be available for my este's rocket and bong lighter ?

  • Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jim Starx ( 752545 ) <JStarxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:35PM (#13805207)
    That is such a bad translation...

  • Its pure babel (Score:4, Informative)

    by JustOK ( 667959 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:36PM (#13805211) Journal
    Just thinking that it woulda saved me a headache ifn I'd noticed it was a babelfish translation earlier.

  • Did They interview Yoda? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kid_Korrupt ( 464945 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:36PM (#13805213)
    "with satellites the fuel up to 50 per cent of the weight constitutes, because on it also the life span depends. Without drive cannot be maintained the accurate position finally"
  • Mr. Crusher... Thursters ahead. Engage!

  • Obviously (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jedi1USA ( 145452 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:39PM (#13805232)
    This will lead to more efficient transportation of eels via hovercraft.

  • Cannot believe I the good use ability of this ingine. Change to better all space travel it will.
  • One, score for rocket lovers! Much increased efficiency of rockets is making space elevator needed less.
    • He said, grass-sourly.

      I think you'll find that this effect has a fairly small thrust/mass ratio, so it won't really be suitable for heavy lifters. While we're at it what does efficiency mean in this context? Why don't they quote a specific impulse?

      Anyway, it sounds like a good thing.

  • the soviet joke (Score:3, Funny)

    by geekpuppySEA ( 724733 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:47PM (#13805270) Journal

    With the help of one on "Alfven waves" of based plasma propulsion the thrust of a rocket can be drastically reduced increased, at the same time the fuel consumption, so the idea.

    In das Soviet-Russeland, der Rocketfuelconsumption reduces increases YOU! So.

  • Perfectly understandable... (Score:5, Informative)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#13805275)
    ...and it was not "Chinglish"; it is the inevitable byproduct of using a machine without experience or intelligence to translate between two dramatically different languages. Grammatical errors are going to happen.

    This sort of thing has been in the works forever and there's entire university physics and astrophysics texts written on it as well as related disciplines including plasma and ion propulsion. That the superheated reaction products of a rocket are ionized and thus subject to magnetic fields is well known. What is not well known is when we might make some use of this.

    We do know that various superconductors are in that state when subjected to the cryogenic temperatures of liquified oxygen and hydrogen and using the fuel and oxidizer to cool such magnets would be an interesting thing. It would have to be in the line before the liquified reactants reached the nozzle cooling section but if it worked it might well dramatically reduce the size and thus mass of the nozzle and thus the cooling requirements as well. It depends on the tradeoff of field generating power equipment, coils, and so forth.

    Ultimately the basic research being done here will be contributory to the future of space propulsion in its own small way.

    • Re:Perfectly understandable... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Nefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:28PM (#13805471) Journal
      Thank you Suitepotato, for the first post that isn't a tedious whack against German sentence structure and Babelfish.

      A studied response, that - but will the fuels of an upper-stage necessarily be cryogenic, especially at the low fuel pressures at the latter life of the fuel supply? I'd be interested in seeing how much of the energy goes into keeping the magnetic post-nozzle configuration alive past that point. But I like the idea, and would be a little surprised if it couldn't be scaled up to main engines. Any efficiency gains at the heavy end of the trajectory would pay off handsomely.

    • it is the inevitable byproduct of using a machine without experience or intelligence to translate between two dramatically different languages. Grammatical errors are going to happen.

      99% of the problem is that babelfish, systran, and all the others, don't even try to move the verb where it should be.

      Babelfish supports many languages that I don't know anything about. However, I can say with certainty, it would be trivially easy to compile a few wordlists for English and German, and write a script to move th

  • Come On Editors (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:49PM (#13805280) Journal
    I know it's Sunday, but lets think a little. Why the heck link directly to a Babelfish translation making the poor fishy run the page through the translator for every Slashdot visitor?

    USE CORAL CACHE and create a Fish-friendly copy [nyud.net]!

    It's not ignorance anymore editors, it's pure arrogance. "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Yeah, so you direct the tsunami that is Slashdot. Ooh, aah, wow. Altavista doesn't even get any ad-generated revenue. This is what will make people block specific referrers. I know if I was the webmaster for Altavista, Babel would not allow references from slashdot.org anymore.
    • Why the heck link directly to a Babelfish translation making the poor fishy run the page through the translator for every Slashdot visitor?
      Because it needs the practice :)
    • I wish people would stop touting that stupid coral cache as if it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. The article link worked fine. Coral cache took forever to load and then gave me an error:

      Error decoding translated text.

      We're sorry we've encountered an error with your request.
      If you think this is a bug we should know about send us e-mail and let us know the following:

      * What browser you were using.
      * The operating system you are on.
      * The type of translation you were trying when this error occurred.

      The

    • This is what will make people block specific referrers.

      Already happened. Bugzilla already blocks people coming from Slashdot, and at least two stories this past cfortnight have redirected Slashdot visitors to a Goatse site. Having what amounts to a denial of service attack aimed at you without warning is considered to be extremely unwelcome by some people.

      • The primary motivation for creating a webpage is to make it available to the world. If someone goes through the process of writing text, formatting and uploading it, he surely wants others to read their text and have some benefit of those efforts. If I made a page that was slashdotted, I would be pleasantly surprised to have created something interesting for a lot of people, sorry for those who can't read the page anymore and embarassed to not have taken proper measures against a server overload or bandwidt
        • then why don't you put up a page of interest to slashdot visitors, and do what you can to get the link on the front page?

          then, if the page gets put on slashdot.org or digg.com, you can shit a brick when you see your bandwidth bill exceed $17,000 in just four hours.

          You are naive. I think that whole uppety attitude of yours will die away quickly if this happens to you.
          • Hey, how about this idea - if you run a web site that gets hit by slashdot, just make your homepage into a coral redirect for all slashdot users. That way everybody is happy, and you can even track hits!

        • Pages are put up to be read, so you can't complain if someone does.

          Yes, but there's a difference between normal access to a website and thousands of Slashdotters all requesting the same resource at the same time. And if the website isn't a money-spinner, the extra bandwidth bills could easily have the effect of shutting the site down completely for weeks if not permanently.

          In any case, the nobody is complaining about the visitors themselves. People are complaining that the Slashdot editors are we

    • Re:Come On Editors (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @07:59PM (#13806370) Journal
      It's not ignorance anymore editors, it's pure arrogance. "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

      I hear people screaming at the editors over and over, telling them they should link to Coral/Mirrordot/Wayback/etc. As nice as it sounds in theory, every time somebody posts a comment with a link to any of those web caches, they go down much more quickly than the linked website itself.

      One benefit of linking to websites directly is that they're each only serving up the contents for one story. If the editors used any of those caches, they'd be responsible for serving up the traffic for ALL slashdot stories. They'd close-up shop permanently after maybe 2 days of that.

      If you've got some actual, viable alternative, let us all know about it.
    • USE CORAL CACHE
      When I read /. at work, if I click on a Coral Cache link I'll get Websense instead, you insensitive clod!

    • Re:Come On Editors (Score:3, Informative)

      by brianerst ( 549609 )
      Maybe because a lot of us are stuck behind firewalls and NATs that don't allow us to hit port 8090? Coral has been claiming they'll move to port 80 for a long time now - the 8090 was supposedly just something they used during beta testing. How hard can it be to change the port? If you're going to use a cahce, use Mirrordot - it's plain old port 80.

      Firefox users can just install the Coral Cache extension [coralcdn.org] and save the bother of typing ".nyud.net:8090" to the URL and the obligatory "why not use Coral?!?!" re

  • googling for a readable story (Score:5, Informative)

    by slicer622 ( 579305 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:51PM (#13805293)
    The basic idea of how this works is like a railgun, except you're trying to get the gun to move, not the projectile. Two parallel bars, with a third across the two, and massive current going through the system. The third bar experiences terrific force. In this system, the perpendicular bar is actually a conducting gas.

  • Ah, Randseed! His eyes uncovered! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Randseed ( 132501 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:51PM (#13805295)
    My God, that's the worst translation of an article providing next to no information I've ever seen.

  • It would be simpler... (Score:4, Informative)

    by The Master Control P ( 655590 ) <ejkeever@nerdNETBSDshack.com minus bsd> on Sunday October 16, 2005 @03:58PM (#13805325)
    To learn German than try and untangle that horrible babelfish translation. The funny part was that I read about 4 paragraphs before realizing it was a Babelfish translation, and the whole time wondered what incompetant wrote it :P

    Anyway, here's a better(or at least another) translation [homelinux.com] done by ImTranslator [paralink.com].

  • General info for (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:09PM (#13805393)
    Good explenation of MPD [waynesthisandthat.com]
  • ... a chipmonk who is an expert in magnetohydrodynamics.

    I guess the singing career didn't work out in the end.
     

  • Seems simple enough... (Score:3, Funny)

    by John Harrison ( 223649 ) <johnharrison@@@gmail...com> on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:19PM (#13805436) Homepage Journal
    You just add sour grass to the existing fuel mix, right?
  • The Fish burbles:
    ""with satellites the fuel up to 50 per cent of the weight constitutes, because on it also the life span depends. Without drive cannot be maintained the accurate position finally ", so project co-ordinator Andreas grass-sourly."

    "Up with this I shall not put." - Winston Churchill
    • What? It's just English, but with correct German grammar. Still tough to get through though, and I speak both English and German.

      It'd be like trying to run one language through another language's interpreter. Oh, wait, that sounds like Parrot/Perl6. :)

      • Re:BabbleFish (Score:3, Informative)

        by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
        And "up with this I shall not put" is English with correct English grammar, lampooned by Churchill. Maybe the Fish is on to something...

  • NASA Plasma Propulsion (Score:4, Informative)

    by nigelvthomas ( 908973 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:28PM (#13805475)
    Further implications of magnetic nozzle control can be found http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/magbeam/NIAC20 05/NIACmagbeam2005.ppt [washington.edu]
  • This is just an improvement to chemical rocketry. Wake me up when we have real field propulsion.

  • Alfven waves and velocity (Score:3, Informative)

    by whitehatlurker ( 867714 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:35PM (#13805504) Journal
    Not being familiar with Alfvén waves [wikipedia.org], I am not sure how the velocity of the exhaust is increased. Could these waves be forced via magnets to form a constriction in the flow, forcing the vented material through a smaller "exhaust port"? (This would be in keeping with the separation of combustion from the nozzles.)
  • Come on ppl. This is plasma propulsion, this is not magnet whatever thruster! It is also not much different from fusion plasma propulsion (You need an energy source to ionize gas, duh!!!) Plasma propulsion has been around for a while. Do you think these sorry excuses for editors would approve this article for slashdot news? http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-propulsion 2.htm [howstuffworks.com]. Of course not, because this is just encyclopedic... meaning it is not breaking news!

  • Another better translation (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16, 2005 @04:41PM (#13805537)
    I just wasted 20 minutes of my life. Here is the result:

    The idea is 20 years old and was conceived by Manfred Hettmer, president of the austrian mars society. A new plasma-engine based on "Alfven-waves" could increase the thrust of a rocket while at the same time drastically reducing its fuel consumption. At least that is the theory.

    And in practice, in tests the plasma-engine achieved fuel savings of around 90%, which is no small thing: "A sattellites weight is 50% fuel, because its fuel determines its life time. Without engines the sattellite could not keep it's exact position", says project coordinator Andreas Grassauer.

    The basis of the development is a discovery by nobel prize winning physicist Hannes Alfven in the year 1942. Alfven was researching, among other things, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), which describes the interaction between an electically conductive fluid with electic and magnetic fields, and also the propagation of waves in the fluid - now known as "Alfven-waves".

    Now, for the first time, there is a technical implementation of the "Alfwen-waves", that, in Grassauer's words, "could be the start of a new era in rocket engine technology". The main feature of the technology is a ten times higher escape speed, that can otherwise only be achieved by a fusion engine, which doesn't exist yet. The measurements were taken on a prototype engine in a vacuum chamber. Also, corrosion of the engine is avoided since the thrust is achieved using the magnetic jet on the outside.

    Economically, there has been some interest in the project already. Besides Grassauer and Hettmer the experimental physicist Norbery Frischauf, system engineer Tobias Bartusch and Otto Koudelka of the TU Graz are also involved. On the 15th of October the plasma-engine will be shown for the first time at the convention of the Internation Aeronatic Federation (FAI) in Japan.

    • There was a 1960s project called NERVA that used fission to superheat exhaust gasses at higher-than-chemical speeds. Though the German author says only a nuclear fusion (Kernfusionstriebwerk) engine could achieve the exhaust gas speeds of this plasma mhd thang, I think a fission engine (uber-NERVA) might suffice. Since NERVA was cancelled, obviously no working nuclear engine uber or otherwise exists.

      • Re:what about NERVA? (Score:5, Informative)

        by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @06:32PM (#13806023) Homepage
        Though the German author says only a nuclear fusion (Kernfusionstriebwerk) engine could achieve the exhaust gas speeds of this plasma mhd thang, I think a fission engine (uber-NERVA) might suffice.
        No purely thermal system can achieve these exhaust velocities. There are no materials that can withstand the temperatures.

        These guys have come up with a way to accellerate a plasma with just magnetic fields: no electrodes need be exposed to the plasma.

    • Re:Another better translation (Score:4, Funny)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @06:19PM (#13805964) Homepage
      Now, for the first time, there is a technical implementation of the "Alfwen-waves", that, in Grassauer's words, "could be the start of a new era in rocket engine technology".


      Bah. Like every other revolutionary invention in space propulsion, this one is sure to be bought out and crushed by the powerful vested interests of the Space Elevator lobby.

    • nice translation, no need to AC, imo.

      a little googling would have yielded this:
      http://www3.inspi.ufl.edu/space/program/abstracts/ 1146.pdf [ufl.edu]

      text:

      MOA: Magnetic Field Oscillating Amplified Thruster and
      its Application for Nuclear Electric and Thermal Propulsion

      Norbert Frischauf1), Manfred Hettmer2), Andreas Grassauer3), Tobias Bartusch4)
      1)BAH - ESA/ESTEC
      Raiffeisenstrasse 31-33/6/2, 2322 Zwölfaxing, Austria
      Tel:+ 43 1 706 15 99, Fax:+ 43 1 706 15 99, Email: Norbert.Frischauf@cern.ch
      2)Manfred Hettmer Datenvera

  • My oscillation overthruster will put your magnetic thrusters to shame.

  • You know what shocks me? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by otomo_1001 ( 22925 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @05:26PM (#13805729)
    Not the article, which is actually quite readable once you know a bit of German. But most posters reaction to this awful machine translation.

    One second, time to climb on the soapbox. There we go.

    Jokes about different languages being "messed up grammatically" or just wrong, or the (very old and not really relevant anymore) jokes about German's reallylongwordsthatneverend are lame.

    Do you know what purpose words like those are for? Do you realize how incredibly useful that linguistic feature is?

    I admit that German verb structure is uncanny at first. Especially those damn separable verbs. But even they aren't that bad. There are reasons verbs come at the end of some German sentences. EG a modal verb in the first position.

    This really is no different than trying to use some wacky translator to translate smalltalk directly into c. It won't look pretty because of the differences in "grammar".

    Bad analogy but I am continually shocked by my own geek friends who think it is weird that I like to learn other human languages. They aren't that different than learning another computer language, and the power they allow can be infinitely more useful.

    And from my own experience, there are LOTS more women that learn French than German. Sooooo.... Learn some French and get laid. I think, actually stay away I like my odds right now.

    And I am done, time to get off the soapbox.

    Pick apart the English grammar/spelling if you want, I didn't proofread this at all.

    To quote mister Mark Twain himself about German orthography:
    Since long, my gentlemen, have I the passionate longing nursed a speech on German to hold, but one has me not permitted.

    Even funnier if you understand German grammar. Just had to vent, sorry if I pissed anyone off, but these jokes are really boring after the 1000th time reading them.

    PS: bonus for learning German, really hot intelligent German/Austrian/Swiss/Luxembourg women will adore you. Very few europeans even expect an American to know a tiny bit of any language other than English. Did I mention blonds? I am pretty sure I did.
    • Speaking french will not get you laid by french women. At least, that was my experience. Its not like japan. French women actually prefer french men.
      • OK, are you implying that learning Japanese will get me laid by Japanese women? This is really important - I'm getting ready to sign up for French classes and I need to know if I should switch.

        BTW I've already discovered that knowing English will not get you laid by English women.

    • I won't pick apart your spelling or grammar, but since you took a swipe at my dumb joke (my best humor! dude!) I will pick apart the sense and tone of your post, which was modded... insightful?!

      Jokes about different languages being "messed up grammatically" or just wrong, or the (very old and not really relevant anymore) jokes about German's reallylongwordsthatneverend are lame.

      ...these jokes are really boring after the 1000th time reading them.

      Gah, no they're not. First of all, the slashdot-standard jo

  • Applicable to launch vehicles? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Manhigh ( 148034 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @05:28PM (#13805747)
    We already have ion propulsion that offers specific impulses 5-10 times higher than those of chemical propulsion. The problem is, the thrust magnitude is very low (= 1N) and the physics of those thrusters prevents them from operating in the atmosphere.

    Now the key difference appears to be this: Ion propulsion gains efficiency by having a dramatically higher specific impulse. Some performance of ion propulsion systems is sacrificed due to its low thrust/mass ratio, but the high Isp usually more than makes up for that.

    The article states "The most substantial characteristic of the technology is ten times a higher flow-out rate, which otherwise only by a nuclear fusion engine - which (still) does not exist - is attainable." This makes it sound as if they are working on the fuel efficiency problem from the other part of the equation. If this technology does infact yield a very high flow rate, its possible it has a thrust level adequate for launch vehicles. Is there any word on whether or not this technology has any limitations to being used in such an application?

    • Re:Applicable to launch vehicles? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by J05H ( 5625 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @10:35PM (#13806941)
      From what the better translations on /. seem to say, this system could find an application as a different nozzle for a NERVA or VASIMIR nuclear fission drive. The NERVA is probably impossible politically, but this kind of nozzle would enable true space-Ships - vehicles capable of lifting hundreds of tons into orbit. Some of the NERVA engines (Timberwind) proposed were capable of LEO launch, this kind of magnetic "afterburner" (an excellent analogy) would greatly add to the efficiency of that rocket. In space it would add to or replace the accelerators in a VASMIR nuke. From the description it could be used in a theoretical Zubrinite saltwater steam rocket or a solar-thermal rocket, the Alven wave properties work on any conductive fluid. This can be either a mid-low thrust magnetic drive (compare to a Hall thruster) or a boost added to a nuclear rocket. I'm not sure if it would be good as a station-keeping thruster as suggested above, but it'd open the inner solar system up to us - it could easily allow non-conjunction flights to mars and other bodies. Regular VASIMIR would too, but this is a very cool addition - it might be something the VASIMR already does. It'd make a great third-stage engine or space-tug engine.

      At first I thought this was another article about M2P2, this is much different and very interesting. It'd be funny to combine the two.

      Josh

  • Breakthroughs are a dime a dozen nowadays (Score:3, Informative)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Sunday October 16, 2005 @07:35PM (#13806272) Homepage
    Of all the millions of electric propulsion breakthroughs you can read about on the internet, the most promising one is magnetoplasmadynamic propulsion because it's simple, it can use plentiful hydrogen instead of expensive Xenon, and it makes enough thrust to actually do something useful.

    Unfortunately, no electric propulsion breakthrough has done a thing for getting off of Earth. They're all for maneuvering in space and they're all roughly the same in terms of benefit.

  • The basic problem is with the term "fuel". This doesn't do anything about energy efficiency of fuel use. It merely does something about "fuel" as raw reaction mass. You still have to get the energy into the reaction mass somehow and for that you don't have any good solutions other than the existing solutions. It remains the bottleneck for most all space activities.
  • Plasma dynamics are very complex and there are a large variety of "wave modes". When it comes to Alven waves, one way to think about it is to consider the magnetic field lines as strings of tension and the ionized particles as the mass along the strings. Since the particles are constrained to spiral along the magenetic field lines if you induce large scale wiggles (larger than the gyro orbits of the particles) of the magenetic field lines the particles will be pulled with the field and those large scale w

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