Re: What to do with microgravity?

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Pyrotrons-at-aol-dot-com>

Hi Keith.

My father has taken a ride in the KC-135 jet, popularly known as the vomit 
comet. You're going to be sick for awhile (and I mean really sick), so get 
ready for it. They distribute "barf bags" and "sick sacks" before the flight.

If I were you, I'd take a small twin Tesla coil up there and run it. I think 
it's possible that efficiency (sparklength vs. input power) could be 
increased significantly due to the lack of convective air currents 
surrounding the arc. It would be very interesting to see. It could all be 
contained inside a plastic or glass enclosure, with thin wire mesh on the 
inside to act as a faraday cage. No RF ground would be needed, as the twin 
coil's I've seen don't require them.  

I'm not sure what would happen to an arc influenced by an outside magnetic 
field. An arc is nothing more than a conductor (alhough somewhat resistive) 
that has current flowing through it, and should therefore posess a magnetic 
field. And we're thinking this magnetic field can interact with an external E 
field to repel or attract the arc itself. You know, I think this is the 
essence of a particle accelerator (maybe something else)? Because of it's 
high temperature, plasma inside the big metal tube can't touch the walls or 
it will melt down. So this plasma is controlled with "field coils", to keep 
it running down the middle, away from the walls. Well the arc off of an NST 
is surely plasma, correct? 

A fantastic opportunity, going up in the 135. Taking a coil or NST up there 
is only one in a thousand cool things you could do with high voltage in 
microgravity. I know I would research the crap out of it, to find the 
absolute "coolest" experiment to do.

Take care, good luck.

Justin Hays
KC5PNP
Email: pyrotrons-at-aol-dot-com
Webpage: www.hvguy-dot-com