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>a kind of electric propulsion, but instead of just emitting charged
>particles (and by the way, a "plasma" is nothing more than a stream
>of charged particles), we accelerate those particles using a
>magnetic field. Plasma drives are just one type of what we call
>electromagnetic propulsion, whereas ion drive are one type of what
>we call electrostatic propulsion. But please understand that
>neither of these drives is anything like a nuclear-fission powered
>drive. Both of these thrusters, the plasma and the ion drives,
>produce very small thrusts at very high Isp's. You would only want
>to consider electric propulsion for a very small subset of space
>missions, basically very long-duration, long-distance missions.
In what circumstance would one pick a plasma drive on top of an ion drive? You make it sound like as tho they have almost equal performance specifications.
I was under the impression that plasma drives used a magnetic fields to thrust out the ionized/charged propelant as you pointed out above but i also thought that in addition to that, the ionized/charged propelant was heated with a nuclear core too to give additional thrust. My mistake! :)
> I really think what you are wanting is a nuclear fission drive,
What about a plasma drive? I was also under the impression (from reading some where) that you could integrate the plasma drive with a nuclear plant and use the strong magnetic field and charged propelant exiting the exhaust vent to generate eletrical power for the space craft.
Which gave me an idea, could a nuclear powered plasma drive be used to generate lots of eletrical energy for the ion drives in a ion/plasma drive hybrid type space craft? Or is it not possible to integrate nuclear technology with the plasma drive? I cant seem to remember where i saw this documentary talking about a plasma type drive that could also generate eletrical power because it deals with charged particles and magnetic fields. I was pretty certain they were also talking about using a nuclear core to integrate with it so the nuclear energy can be converted to electricity for the space craft. perhaps you can clear this up for me if this all sounds familiar or not.
Oh one last thing, i did email some one in the deep space 1 project, cant remember who it was, but, he or she said that a nuclear and ion drive hybrid has already been considered but at the time of the email Mr Clinton was the president of USA so there wasnt much consideration going into it then. Would this make any sense to you?
>as I outlined above. I think the confusion is probably nothing more
>than your using one term when you mean another. NERVA (an
>expendable drive) is the only prototype nuclear-fission drive that
>has ever been built. A concept called CERMET (an advanced reusable
>NERVA) has been proposed, but to my knowledge has never built. Deep
>Space 1, as you correctly pointed out, uses electric propulsion, but
>I don't think that is what you really want to use for the missions
>you have in mind. If you have an engineering background, I'd be
>happy to refer you to some papers that might help you design your
>nuclear fission drive in Orbiter, just let me know!
AFFIRMATIVE! Send them my way! J
I'll get cranking! :)
Yours, David Ong