Slashdot Mirror
New Ion Engine Enters Space Race
Bibek Paudel brings us a BBC report on the development and testing of an new ion engine by a security firm named Qinetiq. The engine will be used in an ESA spacecraft tasked with mapping the Earth's gravitational field from orbit. Only a handful of ion drives have been used for space missions before, some of which we have discussed. Quoting:
"Cryogenic pumps can be heard in the background, whistling away like tiny steam engines. Using helium gas as a coolant, they can bring down the temperature in the vacuum chamber to an incredibly chilly 20 Kelvin (-253C). The pressure, meanwhile, can drop to a millionth of an atmosphere. Ion engines ... make use of the fact that a current flowing across a magnetic field creates an electric field directed sideways to the current. This is used to accelerate a beam of ions (charged atoms) of xenon away from the spacecraft, thereby providing thrust."
I'll have to keep an ion this.
couldn't they just tie a Roomba to the back of the space craft?
TIE Fighter's, anyone? (Twin Ion Engine, for those of you who are not true geeks)
You mean it's NOT because they're shaped like bow ties?
Darn!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It would be better on the front, but, still, it wouldn't really get into all four corners of space.
rewriting history since 2109
So...you're proposing that we propel spacecraft with baseballs?
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Hmmm... I think I really need to re-watch my episodes of Star Trek TOS... I know they covered the whole Ion Engine thing in one of them... THEN I can come back and comment intelligently on this topic.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
And you're just feeding trolls. :)
They would be called Spaceballs.