extraterrestrial tesla coils

["Jim Lux" <jimlux-at-jpl.nasa.gov> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

This talk of TC's in outerspace brings up the interesting question: Has
anybody thought about running a TC in some sort of homegrown chamber which
you can fill with gases other than air?  Perhaps something nailed up out of
2x4's and poly sheeting?  If you were brave, you could try flammable gases
(e.g. propane) (Don't try this in the garage, kiddies...), but perhaps even
something as mundane as CO2 or Argon (both of which are fairly cheap:
around $10/fill of 200-300 cu ft at STP) might be interesting?  Neon or
Krypton would be interesting (color wise), but a bit pricey.... Argon
ionizes a nice purple color at low pressures, even at atmospheric, it has a
low ionization potential.  It might be cheaper to get long sparks this way
than fooling with ever better spark gaps, etc.

If you had access to a big steel or aluminum tank that you could pull a
vacuum on, you could try running a small coil inside it, especially
backfilling to a torr or so with interesting gas.. (Essentially a king
sized plasma globe, I guess).

I think the arcs/sparks will always be blue (just because they are
radiating as a blackbody at a given temperature), but the glow discharges
might be different colors....