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Magnetic Field Thruster Developed
ndverdo writes "There are reports of a working magnetic field engine prototype based on Alfvén waves designed by Austrian scientists. According to the reports fuel savings in rocket engines of 90% could be achieved. Other benefits include enhanced durability due to the nozzle forming outside the engine."
Is this economically/technologically feasible? I've been quite the sceptic lately with all these new "breakthroughs" that don't quite break through anything.
That is such a bad translation...
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
Just thinking that it woulda saved me a headache ifn I'd noticed it was a babelfish translation earlier.
rewriting history since 2109
"with satellites the fuel up to 50 per cent of the weight constitutes, because on it also the life span depends. Without drive cannot be maintained the accurate position finally"
Mr. Crusher... Thursters ahead. Engage!
A bullet sounds the same in every language. So stick a fucking sock in it...
This will lead to more efficient transportation of eels via hovercraft.
My old sig was REALLY stoopid.
Cannot believe I the good use ability of this ingine. Change to better all space travel it will.
One, score for rocket lovers! Much increased efficiency of rockets is making space elevator needed less.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
Apparently the real breakthrough here isn't this new technology in rocket science, but rather that someone still uses Babelfish/Altavista.
:)
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
With the help of one on "Alfven waves" of based plasma propulsion the thrust of a rocket can be drastically reduced increased, at the same time the fuel consumption, so the idea.
In das Soviet-Russeland, der Rocketfuelconsumption reduces increases YOU! So.
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
...and it was not "Chinglish"; it is the inevitable byproduct of using a machine without experience or intelligence to translate between two dramatically different languages. Grammatical errors are going to happen.
This sort of thing has been in the works forever and there's entire university physics and astrophysics texts written on it as well as related disciplines including plasma and ion propulsion. That the superheated reaction products of a rocket are ionized and thus subject to magnetic fields is well known. What is not well known is when we might make some use of this.
We do know that various superconductors are in that state when subjected to the cryogenic temperatures of liquified oxygen and hydrogen and using the fuel and oxidizer to cool such magnets would be an interesting thing. It would have to be in the line before the liquified reactants reached the nozzle cooling section but if it worked it might well dramatically reduce the size and thus mass of the nozzle and thus the cooling requirements as well. It depends on the tradeoff of field generating power equipment, coils, and so forth.
Ultimately the basic research being done here will be contributory to the future of space propulsion in its own small way.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I know it's Sunday, but lets think a little. Why the heck link directly to a Babelfish translation making the poor fishy run the page through the translator for every Slashdot visitor?
USE CORAL CACHE and create a Fish-friendly copy!
It's not ignorance anymore editors, it's pure arrogance. "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Yeah, so you direct the tsunami that is Slashdot. Ooh, aah, wow. Altavista doesn't even get any ad-generated revenue. This is what will make people block specific referrers. I know if I was the webmaster for Altavista, Babel would not allow references from slashdot.org anymore.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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The basic idea of how this works is like a railgun, except you're trying to get the gun to move, not the projectile. Two parallel bars, with a third across the two, and massive current going through the system. The third bar experiences terrific force. In this system, the perpendicular bar is actually a conducting gas.
My God, that's the worst translation of an article providing next to no information I've ever seen.
To learn German than try and untangle that horrible babelfish translation. The funny part was that I read about 4 paragraphs before realizing it was a Babelfish translation, and the whole time wondered what incompetant wrote it :P
Anyway, here's a better(or at least another) translation done by ImTranslator.
http://webtranslation.paralink.com/webtarget.asp?u rl=http%3A%2F%2Fdiepresse.at%2FArtikel.aspx%3Fchan nel%3Dh%26ressort%3Dws%26id%3D512951%26lp%3Dde_en& dir=de%2Fen&dic=general&auto=
Can Babelfish translate English to English?
Good explenation of MPD
You just add sour grass to the existing fuel mix, right?
Lasers Controlled Games!
I'm sure it reads better in the original Klingon.
Further implications of magnetic nozzle control can be found http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/magbeam/NIAC20 05/NIACmagbeam2005.ppt
This is just an improvement to chemical rocketry. Wake me up when we have real field propulsion.
Not being familiar with Alfvén waves, I am not sure how the velocity of the exhaust is increased. Could these waves be forced via magnets to form a constriction in the flow, forcing the vented material through a smaller "exhaust port"? (This would be in keeping with the separation of combustion from the nozzles.)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Come on ppl. This is plasma propulsion, this is not magnet whatever thruster! It is also not much different from fusion plasma propulsion (You need an energy source to ionize gas, duh!!!) Plasma propulsion has been around for a while. Do you think these sorry excuses for editors would approve this article for slashdot news? http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-propulsion 2.htm.
Of course not, because this is just encyclopedic... meaning it is not breaking news!
I just wasted 20 minutes of my life. Here is the result:
The idea is 20 years old and was conceived by Manfred Hettmer, president of the austrian mars society. A new plasma-engine based on "Alfven-waves" could increase the thrust of a rocket while at the same time drastically reducing its fuel consumption. At least that is the theory.
And in practice, in tests the plasma-engine achieved fuel savings of around 90%, which is no small thing: "A sattellites weight is 50% fuel, because its fuel determines its life time. Without engines the sattellite could not keep it's exact position", says project coordinator Andreas Grassauer.
The basis of the development is a discovery by nobel prize winning physicist Hannes Alfven in the year 1942. Alfven was researching, among other things, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), which describes the interaction between an electically conductive fluid with electic and magnetic fields, and also the propagation of waves in the fluid - now known as "Alfven-waves".
Now, for the first time, there is a technical implementation of the "Alfwen-waves", that, in Grassauer's words, "could be the start of a new era in rocket engine technology". The main feature of the technology is a ten times higher escape speed, that can otherwise only be achieved by a fusion engine, which doesn't exist yet. The measurements were taken on a prototype engine in a vacuum chamber. Also, corrosion of the engine is avoided since the thrust is achieved using the magnetic jet on the outside.
Economically, there has been some interest in the project already. Besides Grassauer and Hettmer the experimental physicist Norbery Frischauf, system engineer Tobias Bartusch and Otto Koudelka of the TU Graz are also involved. On the 15th of October the plasma-engine will be shown for the first time at the convention of the Internation Aeronatic Federation (FAI) in Japan.
Formerly NASA's Adavnced Space Propulsion Laboratory (Recently privatized to get more money) has indeed developed a working VASIMR based fusion rocket engine that HAS run off of what is generally agreed to be the exhaust from a fusion reactor with very promising results. By Very promising I mean Mars in a month if the engine is fed the power output of a nuclear submarine's reactor. Only problem: Getting said reactor to space.
here is the orginal link in german of course. But who can't read that ;-) ?
This has loads of implications:
1) longer lived satellites, which by weight are 50% fuel
2) heavier payloads for rockets.
3) smaller more robust rockets--no more shuttle fuel tank explositions
4) launch the ISS in 10x fewer launches, making pH of acidified atmosphere 1 pH unit higher, closer to breathable.
4) ten times fewer mobile ballistic missiles to hide and still be able to destroy the earth
5) perhaps a return trip from mars.
6) my personal rocket car will get better fuel milage than my hummer.
7) New distance record for rocket propelled pumpkin toss
8) Jet pack, baby!
By the way, When will these be available for my este's rocket and bong lighter ?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Not the article, which is actually quite readable once you know a bit of German. But most posters reaction to this awful machine translation.
One second, time to climb on the soapbox. There we go.
Jokes about different languages being "messed up grammatically" or just wrong, or the (very old and not really relevant anymore) jokes about German's reallylongwordsthatneverend are lame.
Do you know what purpose words like those are for? Do you realize how incredibly useful that linguistic feature is?
I admit that German verb structure is uncanny at first. Especially those damn separable verbs. But even they aren't that bad. There are reasons verbs come at the end of some German sentences. EG a modal verb in the first position.
This really is no different than trying to use some wacky translator to translate smalltalk directly into c. It won't look pretty because of the differences in "grammar".
Bad analogy but I am continually shocked by my own geek friends who think it is weird that I like to learn other human languages. They aren't that different than learning another computer language, and the power they allow can be infinitely more useful.
And from my own experience, there are LOTS more women that learn French than German. Sooooo.... Learn some French and get laid. I think, actually stay away I like my odds right now.
And I am done, time to get off the soapbox.
Pick apart the English grammar/spelling if you want, I didn't proofread this at all.
To quote mister Mark Twain himself about German orthography:
Since long, my gentlemen, have I the passionate longing nursed a speech on German to hold, but one has me not permitted.
Even funnier if you understand German grammar. Just had to vent, sorry if I pissed anyone off, but these jokes are really boring after the 1000th time reading them.
PS: bonus for learning German, really hot intelligent German/Austrian/Swiss/Luxembourg women will adore you. Very few europeans even expect an American to know a tiny bit of any language other than English. Did I mention blonds? I am pretty sure I did.
We already have ion propulsion that offers specific impulses 5-10 times higher than those of chemical propulsion. The problem is, the thrust magnitude is very low (= 1N) and the physics of those thrusters prevents them from operating in the atmosphere.
Now the key difference appears to be this: Ion propulsion gains efficiency by having a dramatically higher specific impulse. Some performance of ion propulsion systems is sacrificed due to its low thrust/mass ratio, but the high Isp usually more than makes up for that.
The article states "The most substantial characteristic of the technology is ten times a higher flow-out rate, which otherwise only by a nuclear fusion engine - which (still) does not exist - is attainable." This makes it sound as if they are working on the fuel efficiency problem from the other part of the equation. If this technology does infact yield a very high flow rate, its possible it has a thrust level adequate for launch vehicles. Is there any word on whether or not this technology has any limitations to being used in such an application?
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
These guys have come up with a way to accellerate a plasma with just magnetic fields: no electrodes need be exposed to the plasma.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Why bother? It would only be stolen.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Of all the millions of electric propulsion breakthroughs you can read about on the internet, the most promising one is magnetoplasmadynamic propulsion because it's simple, it can use plentiful hydrogen instead of expensive Xenon, and it makes enough thrust to actually do something useful.
Unfortunately, no electric propulsion breakthrough has done a thing for getting off of Earth. They're all for maneuvering in space and they're all roughly the same in terms of benefit.
And "up with this I shall not put" is English with correct English grammar, lampooned by Churchill. Maybe the Fish is on to something...
--
make install -not war
Nice article. I recall that you can drive these waves about 4 times faster than sound waves. Since kinetic energy goes like velocity to the square, this means up to 16 times more power (in theory). So this means in theory you can save 1/16 of the fuell (assuming the same kind of fuel for normal and magnetic propulsion), and possibly even more because you need less energy to drive the lighter rocket. Saving only 90% seems to be a conservative estimate. BTW, please do also provide links to the original article if you use babelfish. Most people prefer to read the original if they can.
This is Babelfish translating back into German then into French and then into Spanish and then in English...
The idea is 20 years old and comes from Manfred Hettmer, President Oesterreicher March society: To the aid on "Alfven it moves" of the founded plasma order that can be radically reduced the push of a greater rocket, at the same time the gasoline consumption, if the idea periodically. And really, in agreement with tests the plasma order leads a fuel economy of near 90 % - and that one is not thing little: "with the satellites that the fuel to 50 % of the weight determines, because he it life surge also depends." Without the order, finally the precise point of view mantienese ", therefore the coordinator of project Andreas Gras-sauer cannot." This Austrian development could lead too considerable modifications with the future space projects therefore. The base of the development is a discovery in 1942 of the physics of noble winner Hannes Alfven. Employee he himself Alfven among other things of Magnetohydrodynamik (Magnetohydrodynamik) that electrically describes to the mutual effect of a liquid electrical and magnetic leader with, gathers. Thus for example the propagation mentions by waves in this liquid - "Alfven moves today" periodically. "Now there is periodically" "a new era in the sector of the technologies of order in the universe" could present/display, if with acidity a technical conversion for the first time "Alfven." The most considerable quality of the technology is 10mal, above the type fliessen-heraus than it is only different possible more than by an apparatus of nuclear fusion - that (still) does not exist -. it finishes to the mass on the base a prototype in an emptiness sector. In addition, the corrosion was avoided, since the push takes place on the magnetic tip outside the object. On the part of the economy the interest by the project already, next to the grass that and Hettmer is acidities also that, physical experimental Norbert freshon, system to engineer Tobias combustible Bartusch as well as is indicated to Koudelka de Graz participate TO DO. October of 15 the plasma order is represented that in Japan on congress an association international level aeronautischen for the first time (FAI).(
Well, I finally figured out why someone was using bablefish to translate Austrelian.