RE: NASA Tether (was SA's latest issue)

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "John H. Couture by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <couturejh-at-worldnet.att-dot-net>


Ed -

The NASA tether experiment is a true "currents thru conductors circuit" as
compared to Hertzian waves (electromagnetic radiation) thru dielectrics. The
emf is generated by moving a wire thru a magnetic field. The interesting
part is how the electrical energy transfer at each end of the tether to
ionosphere is accomplished. NASA does it with an electron gun and sphere.
High voltages are necessary because of the high resistances. Tesla coilers
perform a similar experiment every time they test their coils for sparks
from the secondary. The secondary coil is the tether with an emf induced by
a primary coil. The spark is the current thru the surrounding atmosphere to
ground instead of the ionosphere.

I believe the capacitance between the ionosphere and ground is a minor
factor in Tesla's "wireless" system because Hertzian waves are not involved.
Note that wireless does not mean conductorless. Tesla said that he had
worked out the details but did not divulge what he had in mind. However, we
can get a hint of what he was thinking by understanding the fact that the
world's lightning system uses currents in the ionosphere, ground, and
atmosphere. Very high voltages, high resistances, and low currents are
involved. Apparently Tesla finally concluded that the system's overall
efficiency was too low in spite of the fact that the ionosphere efficiency
was high.

I do not agree that Tesla had "feet of clay". On the contrary, Tesla had a
clear understanding of what was necessary for his "wireless" system.
However, he had great difficulty in getting people to understand the
differences between electrical energy transfer by currents thru conductors
compared to Hertzian waves thru the media. This confusion still exists
today.

John Couture

------------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 6:40 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: SA's latest issue


Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
>
> Original poster: "John H. Couture by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <couturejh-at-worldnet.att-dot-net>
>
> Note that the spac
e shuttle tether experiment uses the ionosphere as the
> return conductor.

	Think it was no where near that simple!

> I understand this produced about 5000 volts at one amp or
> 5000 watts. The ionospere is a colosal electrical conductor with
negligible
> losses at high voltages.

	Think you will find that the conductivity is really quite low.

> Tesla planned to use the ionosphere and the earth
> as the two necessary conductors for his world electrical system providing
> power with minimum losses.

	Can't find any place in his publications where he considered the
capacitance between the ionosphere and ground, or calculated the
attenuation/power loss due to the resistance of the ionosphere and that
capacitance.  Think that it's far more than allowable to achieve his
claimed efficiency numbers or anything within many orders of magnitude
of them!  That seems kind of strange for someone who normally paid
meticulous (sp?) attention to details, and calculated almost
everything.  He surely knew enough to calculate that capacitance from
first principles, but not sure how he would have estimated ionospheric
conductivity.  In this matter I'm afraid our boy had feet of
clay,,,,,,,,,,,,

> He said this was not using Hertzian waves.

	That he did (say); made quite a point out of it.  On the other hand,
however, anecdotes aside, he never demonstrated anything useful in the
way of high-efficiency power transmission.

> Tesla was also interested in wireless transmission for communications
using
> Hertzian waves (electromagnetic radiation) which do not require
conductors.
> Tesla's dual circuit patents covered both of these methods of electrical
> energy transmission.

	In that area his patents were complete and inclusive.  He demonstrated
that he knew what he was talking about.

>
> John Couture

Ed