Secrets of flying saucers discovered!?

[Carpe Occasio]

One of the things that makes flying saucers so fascinating is that they clearly use some crazy alien technology to zip around. No human-built planes can maneuver like that! If only! Well, now it looks like someone has figured out the secret to flying saucers: ionized air.

Engineering professor Subrata Roy of the University of Florida figured it out, and he plans to make a prototype showing off his discovery. How's it work?

The surface of the saucer-shaped craft will be covered with electrodes that, when powered by a battery or other power source, will ionize the surrounding air to create plasma. When charged with an electric current, the polarized plasma will repel the non-polarized air, creating lift and thrust. Such an aircraft would have very stable flight characteristics, with the pilot controlling it by diverting the electrical charge to different parts of the surface.

His initial prototype will be six inches in diameter, but he thinks its scalable to larger sizes. Just think, in 10 years we could all be scooting around in our own UFOs. Let's make this happen.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/07/secrets_of_flyi.php

http://io9.com/5023170/flying-saucer-power-source-discovered-ionized-air



I don't know about this. Mythbuster's did a show about antigravity machines and they built a small device that ionized the air around it. It created downward thrust but the device could only rise about a foot off the table. The thrust lost it's effect as it gained distance from a solid surface.

 

[Lindley]

I don't know about this. Mythbuster's did a show about antigravity machines and they built a small device that ionized the air around it. It created downward thrust but the device could only rise about a foot off the table. The thrust lost it's effect as it gained distance from a solid surface.

Sounds like a repulsorlift to me.....

 

[Carpe Occasio]

^ Yeah, that's what the thing in the link sounds like to me.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

If such tech as this actually was to work then we'd be able to go into space as easy as pie. There would be no more worrying about where to bury nuclear waste and we'd have colonies on the moon and Mars quicker than you could say 'shazam'!!! Once we've got a quick easy safe way to get into orbit we're totally sorted.

 

[Zachary Smith]

Clearly, it won't work outside of an atmosphere. Have saucers been coming from Earth all along?

 

[Timo]

In technological terms, we've had this sort of "easy access" to space all along. If we don't sweat payload mass, we can basically orbit stuff simply by floating it up on a conventional helium-filled airship. In fact, there's a commercial attempt ongoing for doing so: http://www.jpaerospace.com/

The ionized air propulsion system would appear incapable of outperforming the fancy two-stage airship. Plus a floating pseudo-orbital fortress sounds much cooler than stupid flying saucers...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Carpe Occasio]

Well, they proved with SpaceShipOne that a commercial, non-governmental entity can put something into space for a relatively low cost. Give Scaled Composites and Paul Allen a little more time and they might just make something that can break free of earth orbit (or at least hit geosynchronous orbit).

 

[Paxil]

First they will have to build something that can go into earth orbit at all.

 

[Timo]

...And the problem is that SS1 is not a step towards that goal. It's a fine suborbital vehicle, with growth potential for bigger suborbital vehicles, but it addresses none of the problems of reaching orbit and then reentering. Something conceptually different would have to be strapped on the bellies of the White Knights to make orbit.

What is in shortest supply is robustness: a design that can be scaled up or down tenfold, a design that can haul up stupid water and hyperexpensive nanosatellites alike. The amazing electric flying saucers, orbital airships, suborbital bullets and expendable rockets address parts of the need, but none can be readily adapted to the whole spectrum of missions of interest.

Something like a space elevator would be the end-all solution for all surface-to-orbit-and-back problems. But whether now is the time to pursue an end-all solution is a different matter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Carpe Occasio]

...And the problem is that SS1 is not a step towards that goal. It's a fine suborbital vehicle, with growth potential for bigger suborbital vehicles, but it addresses none of the problems of reaching orbit and then reentering. Something conceptually different would have to be strapped on the bellies of the White Knights to make orbit.

What is in shortest supply is robustness: a design that can be scaled up or down tenfold, a design that can haul up stupid water and hyperexpensive nanosatellites alike. The amazing electric flying saucers, orbital airships, suborbital bullets and expendable rockets address parts of the need, but none can be readily adapted to the whole spectrum of missions of interest.

Something like a space elevator would be the end-all solution for all surface-to-orbit-and-back problems. But whether now is the time to pursue an end-all solution is a different matter.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, but a space elevator would require a whole new level of engineering and construction, not to mention a new kind of building material.

Don't sell Scaled Composites short. A lot of people didn't think they would make it into space. That feather/shuttlecock method of returning that Burt Rutan came up with is amazing. The holy grail of space tourism is an orbiting hotel and they're the ones who just might pull it off eventually. And what about the teams competing for the Google X-Prize, getting a privately funded rocket to the moon? Now that would be something.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Clearly, it won't work outside of an atmosphere.

Well erm no but it would certainly get a craft into a low orbit and once the craft is there it's a lot easier to get the craft into space.

 

[Zachary Smith]

Clearly, it won't work outside of an atmosphere.

Well erm no but it would certainly get a craft into a low orbit and once the craft is there it's a lot easier to get the craft into space.

Would it? I can agree that something like this might get a payload off the ground, but obviously the thinner the atmosphere (i.e. the higher up you go), the less effective this drive would be because of less medium to push against. The question becomes then; would this get you 500 ft off the ground, 10,000 feet, etc. You can fairly argue that every inch off the surface is one less inch that a rocket must propel the payload to reach orbit, but really HOW much would a system like this save? It's essentially an electronic booster and, unlike, say, the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, this system actually LOSES effeciency the greater altitude you achieve.

 

[Lindley]

Well, that's a common problems for airplanes. The question is whether this system can get you higher.

 

[Meredith]

Clearly, it won't work outside of an atmosphere.

Well erm no but it would certainly get a craft into a low orbit and once the craft is there it's a lot easier to get the craft into space.

Even if it only works from 0ft to 100,000ft as long as you can accelerate to the right speed when you hit 100,000ft then you can let inertia take you the rest of the way into orbit.

If the acceleration is too much for human bodies to take then you still have a nifty robotic cargo vehicle.

 

[Hofner]

Clearly, it won't work outside of an atmosphere.

Well erm no but it would certainly get a craft into a low orbit and once the craft is there it's a lot easier to get the craft into space.

Would it? I can agree that something like this might get a payload off the ground, but obviously the thinner the atmosphere (i.e. the higher up you go), the less effective this drive would be because of less medium to push against. The question becomes then; would this get you 500 ft off the ground, 10,000 feet, etc. You can fairly argue that every inch off the surface is one less inch that a rocket must propel the payload to reach orbit, but really HOW much would a system like this save? It's essentially an electronic booster and, unlike, say, the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, this system actually LOSES effeciency the greater altitude you achieve.

(For those who may not know.) When launching into orbit gaining altitude is not nearly as much of a problem as attaining orbital speed. Most of the energy used to launch a rocket into orbit is used for horizontal acceleration.

For example (pulling up some data lying around in my nerdy bookmarks) the Apollo 9 launch. At orbital insertion with a speed of about 17400 mph it had reached an altitude of 103 miles and had traveled downrange over 1300 miles. That shows roughly how muuch more they're accelerating horizontally as opposed to vertically.

Actually the spacecraft had reached that altitude some time before orbital insertion. In the last couple minutes of the launch, they're simply maintaining altitude while increasing horizontal velocity.

Robert

 

[Zachary Smith]

Well erm no but it would certainly get a craft into a low orbit and once the craft is there it's a lot easier to get the craft into space.

Would it? I can agree that something like this might get a payload off the ground, but obviously the thinner the atmosphere (i.e. the higher up you go), the less effective this drive would be because of less medium to push against. The question becomes then; would this get you 500 ft off the ground, 10,000 feet, etc. You can fairly argue that every inch off the surface is one less inch that a rocket must propel the payload to reach orbit, but really HOW much would a system like this save? It's essentially an electronic booster and, unlike, say, the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, this system actually LOSES effeciency the greater altitude you achieve.

(For those who may not know.) When launching into orbit gaining altitude is not nearly as much of a problem as attaining orbital speed. Most of the energy used to launch a rocket into orbit is used for horizontal acceleration.

For example (pulling up some data lying around in my nerdy bookmarks) the Apollo 9 launch. At orbital insertion with a speed of about 17400 mph it had reached an altitude of 103 miles and had traveled downrange over 1300 miles. That shows roughly how muuch more they're accelerating horizontally as opposed to vertically.

Actually the spacecraft had reached that altitude some time before orbital insertion. In the last couple minutes of the launch, they're simply maintaining altitude while increasing horizontal velocity.

Robert

So you are suggesting then a drive of this nature could attain orbital INSERTION speed at a lower altitude and then essentially coast on inertia into orbit, correct?

 

[Hofner]

Would it? I can agree that something like this might get a payload off the ground, but obviously the thinner the atmosphere (i.e. the higher up you go), the less effective this drive would be because of less medium to push against. The question becomes then; would this get you 500 ft off the ground, 10,000 feet, etc. You can fairly argue that every inch off the surface is one less inch that a rocket must propel the payload to reach orbit, but really HOW much would a system like this save? It's essentially an electronic booster and, unlike, say, the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, this system actually LOSES effeciency the greater altitude you achieve.

(For those who may not know.) When launching into orbit gaining altitude is not nearly as much of a problem as attaining orbital speed. Most of the energy used to launch a rocket into orbit is used for horizontal acceleration.

For example (pulling up some data lying around in my nerdy bookmarks) the Apollo 9 launch. At orbital insertion with a speed of about 17400 mph it had reached an altitude of 103 miles and had traveled downrange over 1300 miles. That shows roughly how muuch more they're accelerating horizontally as opposed to vertically.

Actually the spacecraft had reached that altitude some time before orbital insertion. In the last couple minutes of the launch, they're simply maintaining altitude while increasing horizontal velocity.

Robert

So you are suggesting then a drive of this nature could attain orbital INSERTION speed at a lower altitude and then essentially coast on inertia into orbit, correct?

No. Not 'could' but 'would have to' which I find hard to swallow. The thing would have to be going faster than orbital speed, faster than Mach 23, within the atmosphere in order to 'coast' into orbit. Yes, I find it hard to believe.

Robert

 

[Timo]

...That's the main idea of the orbital airship proposal: first take the payload into space by floating it up there, and then attain orbital speed by virtue of there being less air resistance at those heights than at the lower atmosphere. A rocket would prefer to do it that way, too, only a rocket cannot spend precious time and fuel going up before already having to start going horizontally. An airship can afford all the time in the world for the vertical part as no fuel is spent in ascent.

The electric flying saucer would be similar to an airship in that it wouldn't need to burn great weights of fuel (or more exactly, it wouldn't need to expel any propellant) to attain height. It could be powered by a nuclear reactor or a microwave beam or, if the efficiency ratio is right, even by solar cells, affording a slow, constant-mass ride to orbital height wherein orbital speed could then be cheaply attained either by a conventional rocket or then by adjusting the thrust vector. The horizontal acceleration to orbital speed could again take weeks or months, as there would be no worries about running out of fuel or having to observe an optimal rate of mass change.

A fuel-less or at least propellant-less propulsion system always has this inherent advantage of being able to afford a degree of slothiness. Over all those weeks, it may end up spending far more energy than a rocket would have done within its precious few flight minutes. But the costs may still be lower, the technological challenge lesser and the performance in kilograms to orbit greater.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JustAFriend]

Hardly new, kiddies.

Experimenters have been using ultra-high voltage 'electric wind' as propulsion for decades.

Here's one example: http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/lftphv.htm

But the vehicle weights are measured in GRAMS because the effect is NOT powerful enough to do anything useful.

 

[Triskelion]

The act of creating a "Flying Saucer", by whatever means, in a way that would show some verifiable physical functionality of any ship of this design - would give more credence and compelling support to UFO reports through the ages.

Or perhaps it would be a psychological phenomenon: humans realizing their mythos.
Hmmmm.