anti grav! yay!

[Darthwing Teorist]

Justin is correct that none of this is anti grav. The ionic craft is really nice for atmospheric flight. It does look like a UFO, in the sketches. .

[Darth Rock&Roll]

yeah, it's not antigrav, but that's what it is looking like.

the last thing i posted the lifter vid specifically shows that it is in fact likely a gravity well and not ion wind.
This is demonstrated.

so, while elctrons/ions are at play in the cause and effect of this phenomenon, it is not a wind that propels up, but rather it is a field that is created that wants to be in it's own placement of time and space above the ground.

all cool stuff and i like the sound of "anti grav" even though, gravity itself is still debatable as a force!

we use it (gravity) in many models though despite it's elusiveness.

[JustinCobb]

http://www.blazelabs.com/l-vacuum.asp

That is just one of many such experiments. Lifters have yet to pass any functional test in a vacuum. Speculation that there is a propulsive effect beyond ion wind is just that, speculation. All evidence points to it being merely ion wind.

You can make an "ioncraft" for interstellar flight - there are several proposed ideas and ion-jets/thrusters notwithstanding they require a sail or collector array many thousands of miles in diameter. All use some reaction mass, be it interstellar hydrogen or high-velocity particles ejected from the sun. You just can't break the third law of motion with any known practical means. Lord knows I wish you could.

The reason people keep looking to electromagnetic ideas for antigravity is because of this, which relativistically couples with gravity. Physics has banged its head against that relationship for more than 100 years, and largely fruitlessly. For antigravity to exist, some mechanism of fundamentally changing spacetime itself needs to be found.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

lol @ "merely ion wind".

merely? really?

I don't even think humans have known about ions for all that long relatively speaking and to develop technologies that use it is hardly "mere".

[JustinCobb]

lol @ "merely ion wind".

merely? really?

I don't even think humans have known about ions for all that long relatively speaking and to develop technologies that use it is hardly "mere".

Yes, merely. Ion wind is well-understood. I am as hopeful as anyone that antigravity/reactionless propulsion may be developed, but you can't discount the empirical reality based on your own hope-filled biases.

[shawnsegler]

I'm STILL holding out for cold fusion.

S-was at the university of utah union pool hall when that thing was announced.

[JustinCobb]

I'm STILL holding out for cold fusion.

The principle of it still stands, even if publicly saying so is heresy. People are still working on it, quietly. DARPA and the Air Force recently started refunding projects working on it as a new (as well as cheaper and decentralized) source of Tritium for nuclear warhead maintenance.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

hope filled bias and accidents is how progress occurs.

all is mind afterall.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Space flight and atmospheric flight are different things, IMO. While it is possible to make a space faring craft that is capable of some atmospheric flight (mostly takeoffs and landings), I think that such a craft would probably not excel in either one mode or the other. Even worse, if we consider other planets than our own, atmospheres vary immensely from extremely dense to almost non-existent. Different applications for atmospheric and space flight make sense in this case, if we want craft that are performant at what they do. Therefore an atmospheric ionic propulsion system is awesome, even if it doesn't take you to Mars and back. It may improve our transportation system, if well implemented.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

we'll overcome all physical barriers eventually and go back to traveling the universe the way we were intended to.

Within the vast space that exists in mind.

mind travel! You can go and be anywhere for as long as you like!

[ashe]

damn that's a lot of cool shit.