Ion drive

Many satellites are currently running on nuclear power. They use a
different reactor design is all. Ion drives have a larger exhaust speed
than chemical rockets but very little mass is ejected at once so the impulse
is small.
"|-|erc" wrote in message
...

how do these engines work and what are the limitations,
in particular what is the exhaust speed compared to chemical rockets.

also, I'm just guessing that nuclear power is impossible in space, some
probes used small 'batteries' converting the radiation, but to get
fission power plants need so many tonnes of water each day. i.e.
there's no way to dissipate heat in space.

Herc


--
http://www.google.com/groups?q=herc+genius 578 results and counting

"bluherron" wrote in ...
Many satellites are currently running on nuclear power. They use a
different reactor design is all. Ion drives have a larger exhaust speed
than chemical rockets but very little mass is ejected at once so the impulse
is small.

They aren't using reactors though, they're just converting the radiation
from a small radioactive sample. Like putting a solar cell next to an
old glow in the dark watch. i.e. they're making watts not megawatts.

Herc





"|-|erc" wrote in message
...

how do these engines work and what are the limitations,
in particular what is the exhaust speed compared to chemical rockets.

also, I'm just guessing that nuclear power is impossible in space, some
probes used small 'batteries' converting the radiation, but to get
fission power plants need so many tonnes of water each day. i.e.
there's no way to dissipate heat in space.

Herc


--
http://www.google.com/groups?q=herc+genius 578 results and counting

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|-|erc wrote:
| how do these engines work and what are the limitations,
| in particular what is the exhaust speed compared to chemical rockets.

Sorry if this seems like a blatant plug, but the staff of my website
(www.nukenet.com) write reports on just such things as this. Visit this
particular report which will tell you all you want to know about
alternate forms of spacecraft propulsion:
http://www.nukenet.com/reports/04072000_space.html

Just to quote it, ion propulsion is a type of spacecraft propulsion that
uses beams of ions for propulsion, accelerated by passing them through
highly-charged grids . This acceleration is very efficient, and ion
thrusters can deliver performance several orders of magnitude greater
than traditional rocket engines. Ion thrusters have two major problems.
One is that it is difficult to ionize materials, meaning that the total
amount of mass they can accelerate tends to be very small. Second, the
ions often hit the grids on their way through the engine, which leads to
the decay of the grids, and their eventual breaking.

- --Brandon Siegel
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Man should use the objects in space to explore our solar system.
Putting robot equipment on a comet(if possible) would give us a platform
to view close to the sun and further out than Pluto. I can see lots
of uses for this idea. Bert

G=EMC^2 Glazier wrote:

Man should use the objects in space to explore our solar system.
Putting robot equipment on a comet(if possible) would give us a
platform
to view close to the sun and further out than Pluto. I can see
lots
of uses for this idea. Bert

Well, if you want to "gently" put your spacecraft on the comet, so
that it would not be smashed into a million piececs, you'd have to
match the orbit of the comet and hence you could visit all of those
places anyway without the comet. Plus comets and their vicinity tend
to be full of dust and perhaps other stony/icy matter that could
potentially damage even a gentle approach, disrupt communications,
and maybe even corrode your spacecraft.
The only reason I can think of to risk all this and approach a comet,
is to study the comet itself, or maybe eventually to get at the ice
and other possibly useful materials.

--
Regards
Fred

Remove FFFf to reply, please

Fred It can do both give us a good look of a comet(for years),and
traveling through the solar system(in and out) for hundreds of years is
the way to go. NASA can only do one thing at a time.(and not good)
Bert