Re: Towards the autonomous lifter - electrostatic voltage generators.

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

I'm very skeptical about this line of argument for the following reasons-

1) Vacuum chambers are HEAVY! So I don't think there's any point in trying 
to make an electrostatic generator in a vacuum chamber. The extra weight of 
the chamber would probably more than nullify the extra lift due to the 
higher output. If I were trying to do this I would start with a high 
frequency Cockroft-Walton multiplier running off lithium polymer batteries. 
These batteries are used in radio controlled model airplanes and 
helicopters, and can easily put out enough power to lift their own weight 
when used with an electric motor and propeller.


2) You might be thinking that the whole lifter is designed to fly in space 
so no vacuum chamber is needed for the generator. Lifters can't fly in a 
vacuum because they work by ion wind. What's more, there's practically no 
gravity out there so you don't need lift in the first place!

You could of course supply your own source of propellant, but then you have 
just built an ion engine. These have been used on spacecraft for years now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/exploration/futurespaceflight/ionengines.shtml

If you like, these are the "lifters that made it"

Steve Conner