Re: Wireless Power & NASA Tether

To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: Wireless Power & NASA Tether
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 23:36:59 -0500
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

From: 	Dave Bell[SMTP:dbell-at-bayarea-dot-net]
Sent: 	Sunday, July 27, 1997 6:22 AM
To: 	Tesla List
Subject: 	Re: Wireless Power & NASA Tether

Greg:

  Except that the tether experiment(s) used a single wire conductor,
from the orbiter to the tethered satellite. No return path... Also,
if a pair of conductors *had* been used, there would have been
(virtually) no net current induced in the (parallel) pair of wires,
as the enclosed area would have been essentially zero. As I understand
the experiment, the return path was intended to be the ionized gas
surrounding the satellite and orbiter...

Dave

> From: 	Greg Leyh[SMTP:lod-at-pacbell-dot-net]

> >   Tesla also said his wireless system would use the ionosphere. NASA is
> > using the ionosphere in their shuttle tether experiments. This system does
> > not use Hertzian waves but does use currents that flow in the ionosphere.
> 
> Actually, I believe that the NASA tether simply used Lenz's Law, whereby a 
> conductor develops an EMF if it cuts through magnetic field lines -- in this 
> case the Earth's magnetic field.  A conducting ionosphere was not required
> for this experiment.