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Enough energy to heat a gallon of water to boiling, for a measly half a paperclip worth of propellant.
So you can ionize it. Either positve or negative? Suppose positive going in, and at the top negative coming out? At the top you can place a negatve electrode to collect the positive ions from below.
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It would be easiest to create a positive charge probably, protons are easy to direct... though I don't know how you would collect them, you can't simply bang them into a charged plate.
Let me remind you that this is not a practical way to move signifigant masses of a gas, my energy figure is assuming 100% efficency which will not happen, and does not take into account the charge needed to push a hydrogen ion to 11,000m/s, which will be pretty high.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Would a negative electrode at the top collect the positive ones from below?
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Attract yes, collect no. You need some other mechanism to add or remove electrons to the ions, which will in any event be rapidly deteriorated if it is a solid, since anything in the beam path will be corroded.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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What if it is neagatvly charged H2 used as the electrode? Would the H2 corrode?
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No no the hydrogen wouldn't corrode, whatever you use for a collector will. I believe this will happen if you use H- or H+.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Can you use the hydrogen as the collector?
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No, but stop and take a minute to realize that you have another bridge to cross before you get to this one, namely you have to get the gas up there in bulk, which you can't do with a particle accleration scheme. Worry about getting hydrogen from the ground up to altitude first, then think about how to stop it when it gets there.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Going to bed now see you tomorrow. Had a hard day today at work.
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Hey what about placing multiple miniture pumps within the the pipe in many stages. One pump pumps it to the next highest level and so and so on. It would be like a multi stage screw pump that the Egyptians used to pump water up the side of a tall hill.
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Won't work either, the flow will quickly diminish so that there is little or nothing for the next pump to push, not to mention it would take alot of pumps & power, if the tube could support them all in the first place. Also doesn't solve the issue of negligible flow.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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H2 and He also escape Jupiters Atmosphere where gravity does not contain it. The gravity of Jupiter is much more than Earths. How Is this so?
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Here we go again... look, simply because a little bit of gas can escape from a planets' gravity, which will likewise hold back the gas in the tube, does not mean that you will be able to harness this effect in any practical way. Planets are big, they have alot of surface area, but the flow is still fairly small. Your tube is small, having relativly zero cross-section, so therefore your flow will be relativly zero...
The short answer ultimatly to all these four pages of little questions is "no," there is no way to get a signifigant mass of gas out of a strong gravity well besides putting it into a tank and launching it through other means, because gravity will hold back and compress essentially all the molecules reguardless of the scheme used.
Long answer:
Just like here, SOME gas does escape, just not very much. There is no theoretical limit to the speed a molecule can randomly assume except light speed, hence a gas can escape even a Black Hole's pull provided it is short of the event horizon. It can happen, its just not very likly.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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I see you GCNREVENGER!!!,
I've been thinking again!!!
Ok place an empty pipe with an equal amout of vacuum in it as space has. Place a cap on each end of that pipe. Place that pipe through our atmosphere all the way to near sea level,and the other end out in space. Now uncap each end what happens?
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Still not thinking on the micro scale... the solution cannot be any macro-world "physics trick" because gasses are compressable and gravity is unavoidable. The question is how do you push the molecules into orbit, the short answer is you can't because the molecular velocity is much lower than escape velocity... so, the only way to get large masses of fuel into space is to confine the molecules in a tank which you can move and then lift the tank into orbit.
So you want to put an evacuated tube through the atmosphere and then pump in the hydrogen? Nothing would happen, the gas would flow in the bottom and pool there at about the same height that it would attain in the unbound atmosphere, far short of a useful altitude. The same gravity rules apply.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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You are close but not yet? If you simply remove the caps the atmosphere rushes back in the bottom correct? Also,to what altitude?
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To whatever altitude it does in the free atmosphere, which unfortunatly gets too thin before you reach a useful altitude where drag is a manageable problem.
Whatever method used, you need a flow of at least 150-200kg a day, and this simply isn't going to happen even with jacked up temperatures no matter which way you try it. Unless you can confine and push the gas with somthing that is impermiable (like the wall of a fuel tank), then the gas molecules will fall back to Earth no matter what arrangement of tubes/pumps/caps/etc.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Won't the momentum push it up a little higher? Similar to a beach ball being let loose under water?
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What momentum? You can't think of a moving gas like you would a solid or a liquid because its particles are not bound together, so they don't move as a cohesive unit. Again, the velocity of the gas molecules cannot increased beyond their free velocity to the levels required through any macro-scale physics trick. They won't go faster than 3000m/s by pushing, pulling, whacking, or sucking the whole glob of molecules on the macro scale because the added energy will be distributed and accomplish nothing except maybe heating it up.
So "no," that won't help any. In fact, if you lower the pressure on a gas by admitting it into a vacuum, the kenetic energy and the speed of the molecules will infact drop overall.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Any moving mass carries momentum gas, liquid or solid.Right?
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That is correct, but conversely this also means that gravity will still get you. Also keep in mind that the molecules will prefferentially assume a slower speed for a larger number than a higher speed for a few, since there are so many transfers of momentum with each molecule-molecule collision.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Before you reply, i'd like to add that pushing the gas very very fast will cause it to compress and heat up, which would burn the tube immediatly or at least liquify or decompose the gas.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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So if you fill the vacuumed out tube with 7 psig of H2 then let the atmosphere in the bottom slowly. Will it push the H2 out the top? The atmosphere is heavier than the H2, and the H2 should stay on top. As the Atmosphere rushes in from below it should equalize the remaining pressure difference, but do it slowly. Sort of like purging the Hydrogen out the top of a comercial electrical generator.
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You have to stop thinking on the macro scale, because macro scale tricks and practices don't describe whats really going on nor do they apply to extreme conditions like this. Think molecules because molecules are what you really have, not an abstract "aether" fluid you can push and pull.
You ignore the compressable nature of gasses... two volumes of gas of 0.5 pressure can combine to occupy the same volume at 1.0 pressure. Gravity will pull back on both gasses and simply double the pressure, not the volume, at the bottom of the tube. Gravity does permit some seperation of gasses, since lighter molecules move faster and can achieve a greater height before being dragged back down, but you are still limited by the top speed of the hydrogen molecule no matter what you do.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Well, at least the H2 should be at the top of the atmosphere.Correct?
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