The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the Solar System and Beyond

Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So... by lovemenot on Wednesday January 10, 2018 @11:53PM (#16121474)

Might regenerative braking at the destination star be possible? If so, nearly all of the stored energy could be depleted in acceleration, leaving just enough to bootstrap deceleration.

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Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So... by ben_w on Thursday January 11, 2018 @12:40AM (#16121647)

Yes, but. Yes, you can get energy out of slowing down with any conductor passing through a magnetic field, but spaceflight uses so much energy that current electrical energy storage is essentially as irrelevant to propulsion as clockwork would be.

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Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So... by lovemenot on Thursday January 11, 2018 @01:09AM (#16121747)

So I think you are saying that only nuclear has the required energy density for acceleration.

Even so, it would be nice to carry much less of the stuff, or a faster decaying material, if regenerative braking provides enough power to almost completely power the magnetosphere upon arrival.

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Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So... by ben_w on Thursday January 11, 2018 @05:34PM (#16128715)

Mainly I’m saying batteries currently suck. If you can make a nuclear battery (Hafnium isomer, perhaps), that would work, but it would probably also make M2P2 obsolete.

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Re:The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the So... by seanmcdirmid on Thursday January 11, 2018 @12:23AM (#16121569)

How would regenerative braking work in space without friction?

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