Jolly Roger wrote: (edited)
Thanx for the links, Jolly Roger. I’d been under the impression that ion thrusters wouldn’t work in the atmosphere.
Technically, the PHP is a plasma thruster, not an ion thruster. Ion thrusters won’t work in the atmosphere because they are high speed, but low thrust. The PHP by itself may not have enough thrust, but in the engine I envision, it is used instead of jet fuel to heat air, which provides the actual thrust.
Think such an engine could do runway to escape velocity?
Maybe. Put liquid N2 tanks where the jet fuel used to be, some injectors in front of the HPH, and we just might have us an honest-to-goodness Space Plane! However, in that configuration we would still be spinning the compressors, which would be a waste of energy at high altitudes. It would be better to install additional thrusters exposed directly to space.
The SR-71 Blackbird engines are a tiny section deep within each nacelle. Most of the nacelle was used to switch airflow between the turbine and ramjet sections. This could solve the wasted energy snag, but it may be mass-prohibitive. Otoh, we can make the bird’s electricity the good ol’ fashioned way by spinning the turbines.
Space Planes always make the cover of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics- even the imaginary ones.
Could we get sufficient thrust by using the thruster’s high velocity to throw a “heavy” propellant?
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