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Ion-propelled planes are here!

Old 12-30-2018 | 08:29 AM
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Thumbs up Ion-propelled planes are here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IorDYGI1uqc
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Old 12-30-2018 | 08:46 AM
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Plasma thrust is great for (unmanned) spacecraft which are in no hurry to get there...

Typically very, very low thrust but extremely high specific impulse so over days, weeks, months, years, you can get a very, very large velocity change out out of a very, very minuscule amount of fuel.

I'm frankly very surprised that they've built a thruster which has both enough thrust to move an aircraft against drag and is still light enough to be carried by said aircraft. If you asked me yesterday I would have said it was technically impossible. Impressive.
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Old 12-30-2018 | 10:47 AM
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Fanscinating indeed! But will it fly on a treadmill?!?!
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Old 12-30-2018 | 12:21 PM
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Originally Posted by rickair7777
If you asked me yesterday I would have said it was technically impossible. Impressive.
Yep... now that the concept is proven it's simply a matter of increasing efficiency and scaleability.
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Old 12-30-2018 | 01:27 PM
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Originally Posted by SonicFlyer
Yep... now that the concept is proven it's simply a matter of increasing efficiency and scaleability.
I am however pretty confident that it's a long way off to power big jets... 2-3 orders of magnitude.
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Old 12-30-2018 | 05:26 PM
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I guess we should keep an “eye on” on this technology.
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