Novel Lorentz propulsion

On Aug 24, 3:41*am, eric gisse wrote:
Robert Clark wrote :

[...]

*For this reason It would be a good idea to see how these centimeter-
scale probes could be
made to link up. That may give us insight into how the micro/nano
scale probes could be
made to link up.

* Bob Clark

Getting the probe there is half the challenge. Getting it to talk back is
the other half. I have a difficult time imagining how a centimeter scale
probe could have the power source and physical antenna size required to
send anything to Earth.

They might store power from solar cells for burst transmissions to
the bus that brought them, which then relays to Earth.

As for linking them up for optical telescopy, that'd require us to
know how to compare phase information from two images.


Mark L. Fergerson

On Aug 24, 2:27*am, Robert Clark wrote:

Nomen Nescio wrote:

The charge would then be turned off...

That's not exactly easy to do. You can't "turn off" a charge... and if
it was easy to bleed off then you'll have trouble maintaining it.

The guy who invented it said that with current technology we
could get up to a couple of percent of lightspeed...

Any pointer to calculations? I'd like to know at a minimum the
assumptions underlying them.

...and up to lightspeed in the future.

Yeah... pedantically, you can't make it "up to lightspeed". More
pertinently, throwing something small at high speed *anywhere* is
going to be a problem (interstellar erosion is going to be tough for
significant-sized objects... it will be far far worse for very small
objects (square-cube law bites again). 'Course, you can make them
really really cheap and numerous so there's a lot of redundancy in a
"cloud"... but you're not likely to do anything up around relativistic
speeds.

Starship on a Chip.
Big distance, tiny spacecraft.
By Tony Reichhardt
Air & Space Magazine, November 01, 2006
http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exp...-Starchip.html

Mmmm, Space Chips.
Little spacecraft could hitch a ride on Earth's magnetic field to
search for alien life.
By Gregory Mone Posted 08.06.2007 at 2:00 am
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviat...007-08/mmmm-sp...

I'll have to look at those, thanks.

--
Brian Davis

On Aug 24, 6:41*am, eric gisse wrote:

I have a difficult time imagining how a centimeter scale
probe could have the power source and physical antenna size required to
send anything to Earth.

Even from interplanetary space... not to mention the much much MUCH
harder problem of doing it from interstellar distances. You might be
able to power them not with photovoltaics, but beamed power,
illuminating the constellation of nanosats when they are near
something of interest... but in that case you're re-inventing Starwisp
(but with a poorer transmission ability). Personally, Starwisp seems
more plausible.

--
Brian Davis