Ion Space Travel Thrusters

If you had a tremendous counterwieght on one end, the forces on the cable and ground station would be enormous! The earth rotating would slingshot this thing into space. This project does not seem to likely to me that it could be accomplished.

Did you read the link I posted? You should, it pretty much addresses almost every concern.

Amorymeltzer got this reply from the company that is planning on building a factory dedicated to this purpose.

The simple answer is that the basic ribbon is built on earth, then sent

aloft in bundles. Dr. Edwards guesstimate is seven Shuttle flights or

that many Delta IV launches to accomplish the taks.



Assembled in orbit. The near end is 'lowered' to ground while the

bitter end unreels to, and past GEO. Now we've got a ribbon that is

capable of supporting itself, but sending tons of cargo up is going to

be iffy.



The first several hundred lifters are construction bots. They add

layers to the ribbon, providing taper and strength. The lifters end up

at the far end to add to the counterweight.



All of this is subject to more study and revision of course, but I would

be surprised if the finally deployment plan differed much from that

outlined.



--

Brian Dunbar

System Administrator

Liftport

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 30-5-2005 by sardion2000]

I read it, still can't belive it can be done. I could understand the cables being set up at most, that's about it. I doubt that the actual mechanical componets can be installed at altitues of 30,000 feet to low orbit, planes can't go into a hover, too low for the shuttle, too high for helicopters and human workers.

Originally posted by sardion2000
Did you read the link I posted? You should, it pretty much addresses almost every concern.

Amorymeltzer got this reply from the company that is planning on building a factory dedicated to this purpose.

The simple answer is that the basic ribbon is built on earth, then sent

aloft in bundles. Dr. Edwards guesstimate is seven Shuttle flights or

that many Delta IV launches to accomplish the taks.



Assembled in orbit. The near end is 'lowered' to ground while the

bitter end unreels to, and past GEO. Now we've got a ribbon that is

capable of supporting itself, but sending tons of cargo up is going to

be iffy.



The first several hundred lifters are construction bots. They add

layers to the ribbon, providing taper and strength. The lifters end up

at the far end to add to the counterweight.



All of this is subject to more study and revision of course, but I would

be surprised if the finally deployment plan differed much from that

outlined.



--

Brian Dunbar

System Administrator

Liftport

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I simply dont believe that it takes only 7 -10 shuttles. Even the tinnest ribon from nanotubes would weigth much more than that. I think is only PR stuff or some mistake.

Okay, lets see your numbers then. I'm personally too tired to crunch them right now, but when I hear hardcore Physist's talk about this as if it is an inevitablity(sorry no link, personal conversations can't be linked to ) then I'll give em the benefit of the doubt.

Heres Liftports FAQ page...it will probably answer all your questions.
and if it doesn't, you can ask him a question...because he actually will respond, as long as it isn't allready covered in the facts page.

Liftport FAQ

oh, and a kinda funny thing about that site...look at the top right corner.
talk about a long distant deadline.

Thanks Murc, you just saved me a whole lotta time & effort

If you want to put things in earth orbit: 1st you need to accelerate whatever it is at a little over 9,8m/s/s. Say 10 for a round number. This is just over one G so even your old Grandmother could stand this. 2nd. you wish to use electricity because it is light in comparison to convention rocket fuel. [Plutonium is , I believe, quite heavy. But you get an awful lot of juice for your Kilo!!] Ion drive won't cut it becauseeven if you throw them backwards at near c, you still don't get the Ooomph required.

SOLUTION: use a looped induction rail and pulsed pairs of reaction electro magnets. Works a treat and from outside the box it looks like magic too!! If you arrange 3 opposing pairs on a fixed cube [to whatever it is you are trying to move], then you can vector any way you like. The amount of change in v over time is determined by normal Newtonian physics. It boils down to how much ppower is available and what your mass is. OR even further: How good are your conductors and your insulators! HAve Fun!!

ps
I posted here a year ago with the hypothetical scenario of accelerating at 1G for a number of months. I you see what I'm getting at....

you chose an excellent name: odd fellow, because i'm clueless to what your trying to describe...any link or pics that would help.

Yes but what would you use to power your propulsion system?

jumping back to that elevator, it couldn't work... physics wouldn't allow it. the amount of wind resistance that would be on the thing would be enormous. we'd be talking many atmospheres' of pressure against the sides of this thing. it would have to be miles under the ground not to knock over. not to mention the resonance of the building. it could collapse just by a little wind resonating it also, something of this magnitude wouldn't be held up by the ground. Hong Kong has a "sky City in the design stages, and according to that, it is 3 ultra-pillars, which are only 3 times the height of the Eiffel Tower, now, this elevator will be a lot higher, therefore some dam strong materials would be needed, probably that don't even exist. therefore, the weight of this thing would be in the millions if not billions of tonnes in weight. no matter what u make it of. and what energy will it use to get the stuff up there? and i say it's not allowed, cos elevators knock me ill

jumping back to that elevator, it couldn't work... physics wouldn't allow it.

Really are you a physist?

You are not dealing with simple structual stresses anymore. Your dealing with planetary stresses! It's like getting a long hair, sticking piece of lead shot on the end and spinning around at high speeds.

Also long strands of Carbon Nanotubes are NOT light. They are lighter and stronger then steel metal for sure. But that much cable will wiegh alot!

Carbon nanotubes ar comprised of buckministerfullerine segments. One Mole of buckministerfullerine [C60] has alot of mass.

~ Atomic Mass of carbon nanotubes based on C60 molecules = 12.0 * 60 = 750g/mol
Mass of iron cables with same quantity of atoms as the C60 = 55.9 * 60 = 3354 g/mol

Carbon Nanotubes are much lighter than a iron cable but still rather heavy and will take up around the same amount of space.

Heavy stuff in large quantities. Also the thick cables will NOT fit in spools on the space shuttle in that quantity, in so few missions.

That spacelift garbage is just another X-Prize like cashgrab for people investing in it. If it works or not, they are getting rich off it.

[edit on 5/31/2005 by GoldEagle]

Originally posted by Longy4eva
jumping back to that elevator, it couldn't work... physics wouldn't allow it. the amount of wind resistance that would be on the thing would be enormous. we'd be talking many atmospheres' of pressure against the sides of this thing. it would have to be miles under the ground not to knock over. not to mention the resonance of the building. it could collapse just by a little wind resonating it

also, something of this magnitude wouldn't be held up by the ground. Hong Kong has a "sky City in the design stages, and according to that, it is 3 ultra-pillars, which are only 3 times the height of the Eiffel Tower, now, this elevator will be a lot higher, therefore some dam strong materials would be needed, probably that don't even exist. therefore, the weight of this thing would be in the millions if not billions of tonnes in weight. no matter what u make it of. and what energy will it use to get the stuff up there? and i say it's not allowed, cos elevators knock me ill

you relize that its a ribbon right? it will probably be around 3 feet long...but paper thin, and both sides (attached to a floating station on earth, and something very heavy in space) will be pulling, making it very tight.

your clueless on the concept...it shows.

You seem to be thinging its a normal elevator, which obviuosly wouldn't work, and would be very dumb. the actual elevator cart thing would have its own prolusion, and would have 2 tank-like wheels, the more force applied to the cart, the more the 2 wheels (which are on opisite sides of the cable) push tighter together...making sure it wouldn't slip.
Its not like there a huge motor in space that is winding the cable up?

sorry, but we were on the subject of Ion Thrusters weren't we? it just seems to have gone onto the Space Elevator thing,

as has already been said, Ion Drives would be useless for shorter distances, such as Earth to The Moon, whereas even an Earth to Mars Journey would make it more worthwhile, the saved space and mass on board an inter-planetary ship, would be able to store more supplies, and even a lander module or something,

this is my first post and i'm not a physics person, i'm studying Architecture at University (just finished my fist Year) please correct me if i'm wrong about anything

Originally posted by Vox
sorry, but we were on the subject of Ion Thrusters weren't we? it just seems to have gone onto the Space Elevator thing,

as has already been said, Ion Drives would be useless for shorter distances, such as Earth to The Moon, whereas even an Earth to Mars Journey would make it more worthwhile, the saved space and mass on board an inter-planetary ship, would be able to store more supplies, and even a lander module or something,

this is my first post and i'm not a physics person, i'm studying Architecture at University (just finished my fist Year) please correct me if i'm wrong about anything

ok, I will.

I'm assuming you have never heard of SMART-1, its a ESA (European Space Agency) probe...and it came from earth, and went to the moon.
The reason they chose a ion engine is money, although it took a long time to reach the moon, it made it, and is orbiting the moon as we speak.
ESA SMART-1

I just want to point out that i'm not a fan of ESA, because they dont release enough info on what there doing. and the SMART-1 pictures are unimpressive, and very few in quantity, and there high-res images a still small.
While Nasa reports it all right away, like landing a probe on another planet, the Mars rovers...the showed live coverage of it for hours and hours, and you got to see the images broadcasted by there web site (for free) and you could see how happy everyone inthe control room was that it was a success. ESA landed probe on Titan (saturn moon) and didn't take many pictures, and they were very slow to come, and in poor quality.

I am suspicious by nature, So when a probe is going to land on another planet I watch to see its findings...right away, otherwise you dont know if what you see has allready being looked over and altered for classified purposes.

Originally posted by Murcielago
I just want to point out that i'm not a fan of ESA, because they dont release enough info on what there doing. and the SMART-1 pictures are unimpressive, and very few in quantity, and there high-res images a still small.
While Nasa reports it all right away, like landing a probe on another planet, the Mars rovers...the showed live coverage of it for hours and hours, and you got to see the images broadcasted by there web site (for free) and you could see how happy everyone inthe control room was that it was a success. ESA landed probe on Titan (saturn moon) and didn't take many pictures, and they were very slow to come, and in poor quality.

they showed the pictures as they came in, here on BBC2, it was a late night thing, but they showed the pictures when they first arrived, it must be one of those, rest of the world is screwed type things.

also as for the ion drives, the mass of the SMART-1 probe is probably nowhere near as much as a typical passenger carrying spacecraft. so if it took a long time for a probe to get there, it would take ALOT longer if the mass is increased by 100x, let alone anymore,

all it's doing is pushing ions out of the back at high speeds, and the conversion of momentum means that the probe has to move aswell, how much more Ions need to be ejected per second to move a passenger ship faster?

Ion engines could use ions from space. Using and electromagnetic scoops system to scoop up stray atoms. But you would need heavy shielding to protect the crew due to electromagnetic field.

Finally back to the ion thrusters. I would just want to know if it is possible for ion trusters to preform in our atmosphere? Could they be used on lets say, airliners and jets? Would it be to dangerous for the enviorment or not work at all because the acceleration problems? I think it may be possible to use them for next generation spacecraft.

no, they are far, far, far, far, far to weak for that.

Next gen spacecraft?...what kind? specific mission?