MIT's Ion-drive sustainer takes flight

That looks pretty sweet!Â* No rotors below to chop you up should you fall
off.Â* But, is that a fast breeder reactor that he's standing on?Â* It
would be great to be able to sell the excess plutonium to the
utilities.Â* Talk about "off the grid"!

On 11/23/2018 5:32 AM, teck48 wrote:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....fL._SY445_.jpg

--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, November 23, 2018 at 10:13:29 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
That looks pretty sweet!Â* No rotors below to chop you up should you fall
off.Â* But, is that a fast breeder reactor that he's standing on?Â* It
would be great to be able to sell the excess plutonium to the
utilities.Â* Talk about "off the grid"!

On 11/23/2018 5:32 AM, teck48 wrote:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....fL._SY445_.jpg

--
Dan, 5J

Local communities might become independent and 'off the grid' using thorium reactors (developed at Los Alamos) but AFAIK, the NRC has not made deployment possible in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoriu..._nuclear_power

So a solution that has LiIon batteries AND 40,000 volts flying
around: what could possibly go wrong?
I'm guessing the currents involved are very low?
Would a human being survive the encounter?

On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 10:50:25 +0000, Dave Walsh wrote:

So a solution that has LiIon batteries AND 40,000 volts flying around:
what could possibly go wrong?
I'm guessing the currents involved are very low?
Would a human being survive the encounter?

Currents won't be low for a full-size aircraft even if the claimed
efficiency of the ion-drive, in terms of thrust/watt, is much higher than
a modern jet engine, i.e. 5-10 times better.

A good idea of the power needed to fly a commuter jet is shown by a joint
Rolls Royce/ British Aerospace project. This will convert a BA.146 to
partial electric power. This involves replacing two of its jet engines
with electric ducted fans, which will initially be powered from a 2MW gas
turbine generator installed in the rear fuselage, which shows that the
power requirements of a regional jet is a few megawatts. Now assume that
the electric ducted fan has a similar efficiency to the jet engine it
replaces. IOW replacing with an ion-jet rig drops the power requirement
by a factor of 10, but its still in the several hundred kilowatt
ballpark.

My point? Even if voltages are in the KV region, so are currents when
hundreds of kilowatts are involved.

What we *really* need is the traditional Science Fiction Thruster unit -
and the Rotax-sized fusion reactor that powers it.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

What we *really* need is the traditional Science Fiction Thruster unit -
and the Rotax-sized fusion reactor that powers it.

Got it, Martin!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlhgFaB89Y

On Thursday, November 22, 2018 at 9:33:17 AM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-11-...ver-plane.html

Has anyone quoted or attempted to assess efficiency?

John F

On Saturday, November 24, 2018 at 11:11:04 AM UTC-5, john firth wrote:
On Thursday, November 22, 2018 at 9:33:17 AM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-11-...ver-plane.html

Has anyone quoted or attempted to assess efficiency?

John F

Look at the links posted by Luke Scharf above

On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 06:44:55 -0800, markmocho53 wrote:

What we *really* need is the traditional Science Fiction Thruster unit
-
and the Rotax-sized fusion reactor that powers it.

Got it, Martin!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptlhgFaB89Y

Yep - though I'd been thinking more of the pics on the covers of old SF
mags. You know the ones I mean - where all buildings had streamlined
cooling fins and the spacegirls all carried blasters (with fins on them)
and wore bikinis under their transparent space suits. Larry Niven's
"Ringworld" and his 'Known Space' stories hit that spot too.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org