QED engines

Andrew · Senior Member

QED engines

John · Senior Member

I've seen something this before but thanks for posting links to these articles. The will depend on polywell being developed. This is a controversial issue within the fusion community. I think that give all the talk about private initiatives this is one are for them. Since it would be comparatively inexpensive compared to government funded mainstream projects such as ITER, it would be good for some of these "progressive" tycoons like the Google founders, our the Virgin guy, etc. to fund the next step on polywell. I'm not as convinced as you are that Bussard really had it right but given his accomplishments it would sure be worth checking it out!

Andrew · Senior Member

From what I understand, these rocket system may use other energy sources, as long as the input is the same. And there is already a tread about Polywell. What can be told about the engines?

GoogleNaut · Guru

Andrew--

I just wanted to ask if there is a different link to those papers--because TinyURL dumped those links you posted.

Back when I was taking physics in college we had a guy who was really into ionic wind propulsion, and he brought in a really nice balsa wood, aluminum and gold leaf model--the thing looked like a cross between Orvil and Wilber Wright's "Kitty Hawk" and a weather satellite--actually it was quite beautiful. Anyways, he used a couple of old tube-type color TV flyback high-voltage transformers for a cheap, reasonably high powered (about 100 Watts) HV powersupply (about 40,000 vdc as I recall.) He connected the output of the high voltage power supply by a couple of very thin copper wires that he had very carefully sprayed with several coats of silicone insulation--each was about three feet long. The ends of those wires were connected to the gold leafed balsa-wood 'accelerator grid' inside the balsawood box-truss structure of the 'wing.' With a soft hissing-buzz and the metallic tang of ozone, the flyer lifted off from the granite lab countertop and hovered happily six or seven inches above the table.

There have been various reports of people "rediscovering" this method of propulsion, inadvertently, thinking they had somehow invented some kind of antigravity device. This demonstration that I saw in a physics lab at a community college years ago was amazing--but you could feel the small breeze of the 'wind' rushing across the table. The high-voltage was causing a corona discharge which accelerated the air itself. What was so interesting was his idea of creating a much smaller, compact high-voltage power supply. Using solar cells, his idea was to create a solar powered flyer that was propelled by ionic wind--almost a perfect fit for something like a Mars global flyer! No propellant needed, no moving parts, and using the sun itself for energy. Pretty cool!

-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 13:58, 2008-01-30

Andrew · Senior Member

Here are the full URLs:
http://www.askmar.com/Fusion_files/Inertial-Electrostatic-Fusion%20Propulsion.pdf
http://www.askmar.com/Fusion_files/The%20QED%20Engine.pdf
http://www.askmar.com/Fusion_files/QED%20Space%20Transportation.pdf

As for the "ionocraft", well, I've heard it before. Essentially, you would then create an inefficient solar wind sail. Nothing drastically new. Also, using solar cells might not be a that good idea, considering that solar cells do not take well to radiation.

The Ionocraft is nothing new (there are even youtube videos about it), here is a bit of its origins: http://www.davidszondy.com/future/Flight/whoosh.htm

The problem is, that the thing relies on atmoshpere to work, as it needs to ionize something. Solar wind is a piss-poor medium. The thing would be both dangerous and rather worthless for practical use, never mind vacuum.

To quote:t was a bit like observing that dandelion seeds fly when you blow on them, then designing an aircraft that operates by blowing on it really hard. - David Szondy
(look around his "Tales of Future Past" section, it has some pretty funny and amazing stuff).