From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Mon Jun 09 1997 - 18:10:18 MDT
E. Shaun Russell wrote:
>
> Though I am by no means well versed in technology or engineering, I
> have been giving a bit of thought lately to the advent of ionic propulsion
> drives. Does anybody know about the current technological progress of ipds
> and how they are projected to be used? Even a layman's explanation of a
> theoretical ipd would be nice.
>
>
Different types are currently being used in various projects, which
roughly break down into groups as: pure Ion drives, Plasma thruster, and
Arc-jet thruster. They vary in Isp and thrust between 600-3500 Isp and
.0001 lb up to 5 lb of thrust. These two vary inversely, so you can go
for "high" thrust, or high efficiency, but not both. The Air Force's
Phillips Labs is developing an interorbital tug that uses a thermal
solar electric generator and an Arc-Jet propulsion system. They hope to
have it up and operating by late 1998-99. This will allow 100 day
transfer times between LEO and Geosynch orbits at 1/10th of the cost of
a current chemical propelled upper stage. Each tug will have enough fuel
to do 10 missions before needing refueling. Current transfer costs range
from $10-20 million for a 10,000 lb payload.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com
Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/
Mikey's Animatronic Factory
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------------------------------------------------------------
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&S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}
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