Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Propellantless propulsion

    High Frequency Low Energy principle to propellantless propulsion

This is a model of this principle of propellantless propulsion. Of course in reality, the frequency of the pulses may be too high but I am sure that there are ways to engineer this problem away eg. increasing the size of the "model atom to something usable".

1. Assume that the model atom is the size of a hydrogen atom, but with only one proton and one electron. The mass of the electron is 1/10000 the mass of the proton. The diameter of the atom is approx 1 x 10 ^ -10 meters.

2. Say that when the first pulse hits the atom surface, the electron orbit shifts upwards by 1% of the diameter of the atom. This means that the centre of mass has shifted upwards as well. Since the electron is 1/10000 of the mass of the proton, the centre of mass has shifted upwards by ((1 x 10 ^ -10 m) X 0.01 ) / 10000 = 1 x 10 ^ -16 m. This actually means that the whole system has shifted upwards.

3. Taking into account the velocity of light at 300,000,000 m /s, it will take about 1 x 10 ^ -19 seconds to pass through this model atom. Therefore, the frequency of these pulses, to keep moving the atom upwards should be about 1 x 10 ^ 20 hz. (Actually somewhere along the line I estimated it to be about 1 x 10 ^ 32 Hz).

Implication 01: d = (1 x 10^-16m) / (1 x 10 ^ -19 s) = 1000 m/s = velocity

Implication 02: a = 1000 m/s^2  ie this means that it is 100 times gravity.

4. Each pulse must be of low energy eg. say a slice of infrared light. Higher energy EM will rip the atom apart.

5. The frequency problem may be resolved using the different velocity of propagation of materials and using longer travel paths. This may also be a way to slice up a longer wavelength into shorter pulses or alternatively some clever music....

Heres something and something else from someone credible...

Added on 3rd August 2011

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon

Momentum of zeptosecond photon = h/lambda = (6.62068 x 10^-34 * 1 x 10 ^ 21)/  299,792,458 = 2.21 x 10^-20 mkg(s^-1).

In 1 second the total amount of momentum exchanged assume 100% transfer (excuse my poor physic vocab) is 2.21 x 10^20 x 10^21 = 2.21 mkg(s^-1).  In other words this means something of 2.21 kg will move 1 meter in 1 second. Note that it does not speak about the surface area of the thing.

Added on 20/08/2011

Something from Professor Woodward: His article on propellantless propulsion here. From my reading, he is talking about the same thing as the diagram model above.

Added on 21/01/2011

Implications of this technology:
1. 5 hour trip to the moon for everyone on the planet
2. 3 week trip (one way) to Mars
3. 5 week trip to Jupiter
4. Mining and almost unlimited material resources of the solar system
5. End of poverty on Earth
6. Recovery of Earth's biosphere - Eden
7. Economic growth for thousands of years?
8. End of pollution

How to create a series of pulses and control frequency


John Fenley said...

the momentum carried by light is so small that to lift a significant body would require an extreme amount of energy. this is not to say it will not work, but just a bit differently than you propose.

this is the principle behind solar sails, and there was even a light rocket proposed that would create light for reaction "mass" using a nuclear reactor.

both of these propellant-less craft would be suitable only outside of a gravity well because of their low specific impulse.

I hope this helps.

Michael Chin said...

Hi John. Not true. It would depend on the 'number of photons' hitting the surface of the object. A low energy but high intensity beam will do nicely

Mike Lorrey said...

This is not propellantless. The model atom in your drawing is the propellant, the em waves propelling it are emitted by your spaceship engine. This is essentially how the Hall Thruster works.

Brian said...

Don't take any guff from those crackpots on the NASA Spaceflight forum. Scientific reasoning doesn't exist there anymore than free speech. If you disagree with the honchos there you will get removed and your posts will get scrubbed.