[ExI] Disturbing the Ionosphere

[Adrian Tymes]

I'm not an expert on it, but the ionosphere - even just the F layer this
would operate in - seems to be somewhere over 0.0001% of the atmosphere's
mass, which comes to over 10^12 kg.  2*10^6 kg seems way too low to
seriously disturb this.

You would probably need to at least figure out the degree of ionization
(among other missing data) before full equations could be run.  But, back
of the envelope, even something as large as you propose does not seem
capable of serious disruption to the entire Earth.

On Oct 19, 2016 3:19 PM, "Keith Henson" <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are so many loose ends to tie up before a power satellite
> project can be proposed.  I wrote this about a year ago trying to find
> someone who knows about the ionosphere.  I never got an answer.  Do
> any of the people on these list know an ionosphere expert who might at
> least express an opinion?
>
> Keith
>
>
> > Another possible problem has come up, though in truth I don't know if
> > it really a problem or not.
> >
> > To keep the cost for the LEO to GEO leg down, we propose to use
> > arcjets with an exhaust velocity of 20-25 km/s.  Here is a recently
> > constructed 50 MW arcjet.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Enthalpy_Arc_Heated_Facility
> >
> > They would be powered by orbiting power plants, using space to space
> > microwave transmission, smaller versions of power satellites,
> > operating at ~25 GHz to keep the antenna sizes down.
> >
> > The exhaust velocity is well above Earth escape velocity, _but_ the
> exhaust is
> > ionized to an unknown degree and deep inside the Earth's magnetic
> > field--which contains much higher energy particles in the Van Allen
> > belts.  If the peak construction rate is 2 TW/year, that takes about a
> > million of the 15 ton Skylon payloads.  Of that, about 2 million tons
> > is reaction mass (probably hydrogen) for the arcjets, so it is a
> > serious mass flow into the magnetosphere, from LEO all the way out to
> > GEO.
> >
> > I have been looking for someone over the past few months who can set
> > up a model and see if we have a problem or not.  The electric
> > propulsion people, such as those at Ad Astra Rocket Company, tell me
> > it is an interesting question that has not been considered as far as
> > they know.  At the moment there is no funding available, but I am sure
> > there is a paper in it.
> >
> > If you want to consider working on this (or assigning a graduate
> > student) I would be delighted.
> >
> > If you use Skype, I am hkhenson there, or my phone is 626 264 7560
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Keith Henson
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society
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