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Would It be possible to mine the Ionosphere and transport the material gathered to a storage depot in orbit around the Earth? Could huge quantities be collected?
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No.
The air is too thin, and you would have to constantly fight to stay in orbit.
[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 make the ions stick to a wire of opposite charge?
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I see where this is going. Some where we are going to have an electron accelerator so we can create a current to get lift from the earths magnetic field and capture the positive ions. It just doesn’t sound practical. I will let GCNRevenger try and explain/(figure out) why it is not practical.
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
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*Why would you want to mine the ionosphere? ???
Just curious.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Since we are talking about crazy was to capture ions lets me though out another wacko idea. How about mining the solar wind by having a vehicle hover just above the sun. The magnetic fields first focus the ions too cool them and then decelerate them. To focus the ions what you do is pass them though a tube where the magnetic field is along the axis of the tube. The tube gradually shrinks I radius and the magnetic field gradual gets stronger. As the ions pass through the tube the will get closer together and they will spin around the magnetic field faster. This will cause them to get hotter and radiate away more energy. You cave have the tube spiral this will cause the ions to radiate even more energy as they turn about another axis. Anyway the tube must be long enough to give the ions time to through away enough heat and then you expand the tube and reduce the magnetic field. This will cause the ions/plasma to rapidly cool. Hopefully fast enough so that they will no longer be in a plasma state. At the last part of the tube you have cooling loops all around the edge of the tube and at the end of the tube there is a cryogenic pump. Now where is the biggest weakness in such a scheme. Simple, with a hot plasma radiating a lot of energy it will be very difficult to keep your supper conductors, supper conductors.
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*Why would you want to mine the ionosphere?
Just curious.
--Cindy
Good question.
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
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It would make good rocket fuel and it is already there so we won't have to launch it.All we have to do is capture it somehow???
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*Well...I'm not a scientist...but http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/ … ]according to this very brief article the ionosphere accounts for less than 0.1% of the mass of Earth's atmosphere. And considering its role as part of our protection, it doesn't seem a good idea to go mining within it (if that's even possible).
Of course I could be wrong, but all things considered I'd rather err on the side of caution.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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I would think as quick as you remove it it will be replaced by the incoming solar winds energy ionizing new molecules.
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Can you make the ions stick to a wire of opposite charge?
As Cindy mentioned, the atmosphere is too thin at this altitude to be worth trying to capture. Even if you did, much of the gas would be nitrogen and helium, not hydrogen or oxygen you need for rocket engines.
At this altitude, the drag your orbiting gas miner would experience would be very large compared to what it is in a stable higher orbit, and so would require continuous engine burning to push the thing. This also rules out solar pannels or radiators from nuclear reactors since the drag on them would be enough to break them off.
If you draw ions into your vehicle, then your vehicle will achieve a net electric charge of those ions, which will cause the whole vehicle to "short out" and blow all the electronics to heck. "Oops"
[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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