Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So...
by foxylad on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @11:20PM
(#16121367)
I agree. Tacking requires "levering" against a fulcrum (the the centerboard on a water yacht and the skates on an ice yacht. Imaging trying to tack on a frictionless surface - you'd simply get swept away from the wind.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So...
by hinkley on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @11:57PM
(#16121486)
Anything we can get out of our gravity well will have an orbit around the sun. If it didn’t you wouldn’t bother with a high impulse/low thrust engine like this.
Your momentum is what you’d be pushing against.
Specifically, using a force vector with a substantial component (greater than 50%) in the opposite direction of travel. It would push you out but also slow you down.
This kind of vectoring should be straightforward with a solar sail because it is flat. But if a magnetic field is perfectly spherical then there aren’t any angles. You’d have to make a fairly flat magnetic field to pull that off.