----- Original Message -----
From: "Standing Bear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
<snip>
Like to see Randall Mills' black light rocket as a real space propulsion
enabler, but have a feeling that behind the gibberish in Marchese's final
report about Ballmer lines is a fact that the rocket when properly
operated
tends to burn up or melt its engine. Just a guess but my gut tells me
that
I am not too far off the mark. No report of thrust in kilonewtons or
thousands of pounds force was given, but something that burns in the
ultraviolet and soft x-rays just has got to have thrust. Now if the
heating
problem can be managed.....
MC: My understanding of the Rowan work was that they had $75,000 for a phase
1 project and worked their tails off trying to set up the necessary
experiment, including buying laboratory vacuum gear off of eBay. They were
looking for critical spectral lines in the glare of the lines from hot
hydrogen when they ran out of money. They wanted to measure thrust directly,
but did not have the funds and NASA declined to fund a Phase 2 project. The
useful force can be small for a deep space probe: what counts is very high
velocity gas output applied continually over extended periods, as in an ion
thruster. Standing Bear is rilght, somesthing as energetic as the BLP
reaction *should* be valuable for a deep space thruster, but that particular
experiment did not make the grade.
When Mills' work becomes more accepted, perhaps this application can be
revisited.
Mike Carrell
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