| From : |
Eric |
| Date : |
2003-07-06 18:48:52 |
| Subject : |
ammount of free particles in space |
You would have to have such a big collector to draw in these few atoms (mostly hydrogen). A powerful magnetic field may be able to do that, but you still have the problem that there are hardly any atoms in space.
On average there are about 1 hydrogen atom per cubic meter of space. So to collect a gram of hydrogen per meter traveled would require an intake 600,000,000,000,000,000 square kilometers. Say that you do not require 1 gram/meter, it can be smaller but your speed must be vastly higher. So it comes down to that you would need such a powerful magnetic field that the power spend producing it will be greater than you could ever hope to recover from the intake, and the power of the field would wipe out any passengers and equipment, or you would have to start off so fast that you would be traveling some decent percentage of the speed of light, in which case you could just coast to the location. Remember at extreme powers magnetic fields affect everything, magnetic or not. Antimatter or fusion rockets will be much easier to make.
I would say that a free flying ramjet engine would require more skills to design and make than most people have. Launching anything into space is beyond the abilities of many countries, let alone building an ion space ramjet for the hobbyist.
Eric
Siva wrote :
>I heard about the Bussard ion collector, but the hydrogen ions are to be used in a fission reactor (which I can't build). I'm going to e-mail a chemistry professor I know about finding an ionizable gas. Thanks a ton for your help. If you have any more input, please e-mail me. Thanks again. |
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ammount of free particles in space
( 2003-07-06 18:48:52)