Claims of an unusually large thrust level, from a low power electrical input, using a water plasma arc.
The story seems to be using AI as a diversion.
The story seems to be using AI
Further to the story, a presentation on May 27, Amsterdam, 495 euro
"The patented Poseidon™ thrusters use pulsed electrostatic acceleration, a virtual cathode, and pressure drops to create thrust from water vapor using a novel propulsion method. No neutralizer is needed as the exhaust is inherently neutral. In-space testing shows market-leading performance:.
Further to the story
From Creating Software To Building Plasma Powered Thrusters With Miles Space | Space Bandits
2023 Patent
"An ion fusion engine for spacecraft having a water vapor ion-based thruster, and a boron vapor injector which injects boron vapor into an exhaust region of the ion thruster causing proton-boron fusion to occur and thereby provide additional afterburner thrust."
US20240018950A1 - Fusion Thruster - Google Patents
US20240018950A1 - Fusion Thruster - Google Patents
By "using AI as a diversion" I was wondering if the tale about using AI to help design the device was an excuse to avoid citing certain prior art, i.e. a bit like how Stan Meyer claimed he was given his ideas by god.
was given his ideas by god.
Heinrich Hora is more of a scientist...
but journalists use the idea. of "holy grail"
there is nothing holy about laser assisted fusion
"The patented Poseidon™ thrusters are energy waste units that also produce thrust with use of pulsed electrostatic acceleration,
About the first water thrusters :https://www.researchgate.net/p…ater-vapor-propellant.pdf
Agree that using water vapor as properllant is the way.. Especially on Moon or Mars avoiding the necessity of CH4 production onto it.
It already exists NASA studies in this way.
I'm a bit dubious of the boron-hydrogen fusion claims by the company (which only turn up in some stories, and not others). The energy gain certainly caused some consternation amongst the commenters on the SpaceNews article (which doesn't mention boron, or fusion).
If these thrusters have an anomalously high performance, then good. But then the task should be to understand the anomaly - and not to carry on producing (and patenting) a product whilst making currently unsupportable assumptions over how it works.
REQUEST: please can some kindly admin here move the original post and comments about these thrusters into their own thread?
Rocket fusion from. Sabine
The above posts moved into this dedicated thread at the request of Frogfall
Many thanks Alan.
I think there are aspects of this story that could do with closer inspection - so comments need their own thread.
Rocket fusion from. Sabine
Interesting - but, as usual, this is a rather simplistic take on the topic. Old space-geeks like me have been reading about nuclear fusion (and fission) space propulsion since we were kids - and there are lots of concepts. This is a bit off-topic for discussion here, but I'd like to make a couple of honourable mentions (for reasons that will be apparent later):
Firstly, there was Project Orion. This was a scheme to power a space vehicle by throwing small nuclear bombs out of the rear of the craft, with the shockwave from each explosion impinging on an ablative "pusher plate" that reduced the shock loading on the main craft through sprung suspension.
The bombs could be conventional fission or (preferably) thermonuclear (fusion) devices. Clearly it was never built, but the designs were treated quite seriously in the 50's & 60's.
The second was the British Interplanetary Society's "Project Daedelus" - which proposed using external nuclear fusion pulses, from fuel pellets triggered by electron beams, and directed using a magnetic nozzle. The original propulsion concept was developed by Friedwardt Winterberg. I remember this project quite well, as I was a member of the society back then, and still own a copy of the original project report.
I'm mentioning these "rockets" as they are both using a form of external propulsion - and the "Poseidon" thrustors, at the start of this thread, are claimed to use a form of external "fusion reaction" to augment their thrust. However, even if Poseidon's claimed reaction is feasible (which I doubt), there are still problems with the claimed augmentation mechanism. More on this later...
