sci.physics.particle

At least Robert Clark isn't against our use of ions for thrust, and of
notions for storing enough of such ions for creating a fairly
substantial amount of volume sustained thrust if given the necessary
energy for accelerating such ions is part of the package deal. Of
course, I've had to correct those usual robo-moderated words as having
been run together, so that a normal key word search would even turn up
this "Stored ionized gas for ion drives" contribution of his, stating
that such ion exhaust/exit shouldn't have any difficulties in
obtaining 10,000 km/s. Whereas I'm thinking the 16.7e3 km/s of the
natural 5.6 MeV radium alpha/ion particle itself is perhaps not half
of what a electrostatic boosted and magnetic focused Rn222 ion could
muster, therefore its potential exit velocity of 34,000 km/s (that's
better than 0.1'c') seems entirely doable, and of the much greater
mass of the Rn222 ion should by rights benefit the thrust potential
without ignoring any of those laws of physics.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.policy/browse_frm/thread/1097aea2c8e51f5b/c746ba78d45e7e1b?hl=en&lnk=st&q=ion+radium#c746ba78d45e7e1b
From: Robert Clark
Date: Sep 28 2007, 4:53 pm
Subject: Stored ionized gas for ion drives.
To: sci.space.policy, sci.astro, sci.physics, sci.physics.relativity,
sci.physics.fusion

On Sep 20, 4:47 pm, Robert Clark wrote:
> This page gives a formula for the exhaust speed of an ion engine in
> terms of the charge on the ions and the voltage driving the ion flow:
>
>Ionthruster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Energy_usage
>
> The exhaust speed increases with the charge on the ions and decreases
> with their mass. You would think then that a light gas like hydrogen
> would be ideal since heavier gases even when fully ionized would still
> contain approximately equal numbers of neutrons as protons which would
> not contribute to the charge but would approximately double the mass.
>
> Yet it is the heavier gases like cesium and more recently xenon that
> are used. The explanation is that of the energy it takes to ionize the
> gas used as fuel. The figure on this page shows the energy to ionize a
> light gas such as hydrogen is relatively high compared to the heavier
> gases:
>
> Ionization Energies.
> http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/ionize.html
>
> The figure gives the energy per mole which is high in itself. It is
> even worse when you consider this on a per mass basis since the mass
> amount of hydrogen would be so small compared to the amount of energy
> needed to ionize it.
>
> So could we instead store the hydrogen or some other light gas
> already in ionized form so we would not have to supply power to ionize
> the gas, only to accelerate it?
>
> If you used ionized hydrogen, so you would be accelerating protons,
> then using 6 x 10^18 protons to make one 1 Coulomb, and a mass of 1.6
> x 10^-27 kg for a proton, and V representing the voltage in volts, the
> speed on the ions (protons) would be about (10^4)sqrt(2*V) in meters/
> second.
>
> If we made the voltage be 5,000 V we would get 1,000,000 m/s speed
> much higher than any currentiondrive. Also, there are power supplies
> that convert low voltage high amperage power into high voltage, low
> amperage power, even up to 500,000 V. Then we could get 10,000,000
> m/s = 10,000 km/s exhaust speed.
>
> The question is could we get light weight means of storing large
> amounts of ionized gas? Note that is this for space based propulsion
> not launch from Earth. You would have a possibly large energy
> generating station that remained in low Earth orbit to supply the
> power to ionize the gas once the spacecraft was placed in orbit. The
> power generator would be left behind in orbit. Then the volume of the
> gas container could be large to keep the density of the gas low. This
> would allow very thin container walls. Note the low density would also
> allow the electrostatic repulsion of the positively charged ions to be
> more easily constrained.
>
> A possible problem though is the charged ions contacting the walls
> could lead to a loss of ionization. You might be able to use a low
> level magnetic field to prevent the ions contacting the walls. Low
> density of the gas would insure the strength of the magnetic field
> required would be low. It might even be accomplished by thin permanent
> magnets so you would not need to use extra power.
>
> Some questions: what would be the electrostatic pressure produced by
> a low density highly ionized gas? What strength magnetic field would
> you need to contain it?
>
> Note that with an exhaust speed of say 10,000 km/s, by the rocket
> equation we could get the rocket itself up to relativistic speeds with
> acceptable mass ratios.
>
> Then this would provide a means of testing relativistic effects on
> macroscopic bodies.
> Bob Clark
>
>
> There is a lot of research on containing charged particles of only
> one charge, that is, all positive or all negative, because of fusion
> research. These are called "non-neutral" plasmas.
>
> There is a limit on the number of charged particles you can contain
> in a magnetic trap based on the strength of the magnetic field called
> the "Brillouin limit."
>
> However, some researchers have argued it is possible to exceed
> This limit:
>
> Confinement Of PureIonPlasma In A Cylindrical Current Sheet.
> http://www.pppl.gov/pub_report//2000/PPPL-3403.pdf
> Bob Clark

Perhaps others might care to ponder and subsequently offer their best
swag(scientific wild ass guess) as to our getting the most out of ion
thrust, not that Ra226->Rn222 need be the one and only alternative.
However, with that nearby and gamma saturated moon of ours might
actually suggest there's a good amount of Radium to behold, and at a
$1M/gram seems entirely worth going after, more so than whatever 3He.
(why the hell not accomplish extracting both?)
. - Brad Guth


On Feb 8, 7:59 am, BradGuth wrote:
> A good source of thruster ions that'll keep coming is from the likes
> of Radium that creates the Radon (Rn222) gas. Radium is somewhat
> rare, but it is not as an element uncommon. However, of what's most
> uncommon is any public disclosures or education about Radium.
>
> Apparently the element of Radium is officially taboo/nondisclosure
> rated, especially as far as to who has what and at whatever current
> market value. Essentially, this need-to-know market price of Radium
> is at least a thousand fold more government cartel hocus-pocus price
> fixed than anything of fossil fuels or even of yellowcake, though the
> formal extraction process of obtaining roughly 100 milligrams per
> yellowcake tonne is essentially a robotic task from start to finish.
> For the most part, Radium is actually another one of those discarded
> elements within spent nuclear fuel, as well as found at less
> concentrations within most mineral tailings or otherwise given as a
> slight part of most all fossil fuels, that which the fossil energy
> industry as a whole do not bother to extract or otherwise divert this
> element from the subsequent CO2/Nox laced combustion soot, much of
> which simply goes either directly into our atmosphere or if in full
> clean-air compliance merely gets relocated into various landfills
> that'll eventually end up eroding and/or blending back into the
> general environment. Of course none of the valuable 3He has been
> collected either, so what the hell.
>
> Naturally-occurring radioactive materials (NORM)http://www.eoearth.org/article/Naturally-occurring_radioactive_materi...)
> A great amount of Radium and subsequently Radon comes into our
> surface environment though fossil fuel extractions and subsequent
> usage, and much of whatever's initially kept from being
> atmospherically dispersed as CO2 and NOx contaminated soot that's
> laced with a slight trace of Radium is simply buried in relatively
> shallow graves or in some cases utilized as fill for open pit mining
> site recovery. In other words, most all of the mined elements of
> radioactive fuel that used to be safely sequestered far enough
> underground, essentially away from our frail DNA and surface
> environment, has been systematically and artificially reintroduced
> into our life sustaining environment, along with as little public
> education as possible so that folks are simply snookered into being
> unaware of these surrounding concentrations and dosage levels that we
> all have to cope within.
>
> Radon gas; "reportedly causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in
> the United States alone."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon
> If that be the case, then by any global/world standard could be
> looking at as many as 400,000 Radon gas related deaths per year, if
> not an all-inclusive 500,000 in radiation contamination related deaths
> per year (keeping in mind that fewer than 500 pandemic deaths per year
> would become a world health alert with multiple quarantines imposed).
> Therefore, rounding up as much of the spare/surplus Radium as possible
> seems like a perfectly good sort of task worth doing, so that it can
> be either put safely away or at least properly utilized in a manner
> that doesn't further traumatize our frail DNA and badly failing
> environment any more than absolutely necessary. Like U238 yellowcake
> of 80% grade, whereas perhaps the 100 mg/tonne of 90~97% extracted
> grade of this refined Radium ore doesn't amount to all that much by
> volume, but clearly what there is of it has become extremely valuable
> as well as humanly lethal if continually ignored as is, not to mention
> what adverse affects are imposed upon all other plant, animal and
> microbe forms of life that surrounds and benefits us, and in one way
> or another gets involved and/or consumed by us humans.
>
> Radium is roughly 60 fold more radioactive than Uranium, is also of at
> least 6 million fold greater worth per equal weight, and obviously the
> extremely active Radon(Rn222) decay element is flying right off the
> charts.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_Colorado
> "Although no more than a trace of radium was present in the ore, newly
> discovered medical applications had made radium worth $100 per
> milligram, making the radium in the carnotite ore worth much more than
> the vanadium or uranium." (however, we're also talking of those
> extremely old dollars worth better than twenty fold of our current
> dollar that's not exactly floating)
>
> As of 1940, Radium was made artificially worth as little as $25/
> milligram, and as of today our American medical cartel inflated value
> of pure Radium metal is always floating closer to whatever the market
> or cancer patient will bare, such as $175/milligram (that's actually
> relatively dirt cheap compared to what it used to cost in those old
> hard earned dollars of nearly a century ago), and with the market
> price of yellowcake about to reach $1000/kg within this next decade is
> only suggesting that the rare element within of Radium will likely be
> in hot pursuit of exceeding the $1000/milligram mark. In the World
> there's roughly 100 kg of medical Radium hording (not including secret
> amounts held by various governments and of private speculation
> hording), and because this Radium salt or metallic alloy can be
> utilized over and over thousands of times, and also because of its
> given artificial cartel market value is why this element is most
> always fully recovered per usage, and as such there's way more than
> enough to go around for medical applications, along with more on its
> way for those capable of paying the price, because it can be extracted
> on demand.
>
> Radium chloride (bromide salt) is less costly to produce or extract
> from spent nuclear fuel, than having to create a pure metallic Radium
> alloy, but because so many NRC and the medical cartel folks like to
> live large, it'll likely still costs you about $500/milligram and even
> if need be marked up from there so that their normal 10:1 profit
> margins don't suffer. (actually that profit margin is in excess of a
> 1000:1 if you take into account how many times the same substance gets
> reused and thus resold over and over)
>
> http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9A01E5DD1E38E6...
> The previous Radium cartel market price had once upon a time been as
> great as $160,000/gram, and again that was in old 1930 dollars that
> were actually worth something.
>
> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,758086,00.html
> Monday, Aug. 09, 1937 "A rich radium deposit is one which yields 90
> to 120 milligrams (.00315 to .0042 oz.) nearly pure radium bromide
> salt per ton of concentrated ore (50 tons of crude ore). From ore
> bodies of such richness in northwestern Canada the refining plant is
> able to extract one gram of commercially pure radium from 550 tons of
> mined ore. A San Diego mining engineer and chemist named F. S.
> Kearney, now working in Mexico, assayed Mrs. Bishop's ore at 130
> milligrams of radium per ton. This high figure, Mrs. Bishop said, was
> confirmed when she sent a sample to the Institut de Radium in Paris
> (once presided over by the late Marie Curie). Present price of radium
> is $25 per milligram, $25,000 per gram, $700,000 per ounce. Mrs.
> Bishop suspected for years that she had radium ore on her property,
> kept it quiet until her claim was cleared in the courts. Last week the
> excited little woman did not know just how extensive her deposit was,
> but she and her lawyers laid plans for a thorough survey and hoped to
> write a new chapter in the shifting course of world radium
> production."
>
> Just another interesting matter of a good ion generating fact about
> smoke detectors: "one Am-241 emitted alpha particle will produce
> 150,000 ions", so perhaps other than Radium-226 that'll gradually
> yield to becoming Rn222, as such can instead be put to good use on
> behalf of feeding large scale ion thrusters.
>
> There's actually quite a good amount of Radium226 to behold (because
> it's what ever so gradually makes Radon gas, and there's lots of Rn222
> to go around), although most of this Radium has not been
> systematically collected or much less isolated from our environment,
> even though it's extremely valuable. Never the less it's still not
> getting officially rounded up at more than 1% of what's otherwise
> getting artificially diverted into our badly failing environment, and
> perhaps that's the real reason why so little information is published
> as to the natural and artificially established inventory of Radium,
> much of which is held within existing inventories of yellowcake, in
> weapons grade and spent nuclear fuel that no one on Earth seems to
> want anything to with unless getting paid hundreds of billions of our
> hard earned loot up front. Via fossil fuel explorations, extractions
> and various forms of consumption is where much of the naturally
> occurring Radium has found its way into our polluted surface and
> oceans of growing dead zone environments, and oddly there's still no
> technical plan or even spin of action for collecting this element of
> Radium that's associated within such fossil fuels and various mineral
> tailings. Much like our FEMA in action, the lethal and whatever
> valued energy related aspects of Radium is only getting studied to
> death, though mostly on behalf of product hording and cover-thy-butt
> protecting, for making damn certain that no one in government or
> corporate whatever can ever be held accountable. (perhaps they'll end
> up blaming everything on Marie Curie, if not Muslims).
>
> At any rate, the extremely active element of Radium is quite
> interesting and valuable in far more ways than most realize or are
> being allowed to learn about. Whenever I mention the use of Radium is
> when the Usenet lights usually go out, and I can here that door
> slamming shut. It's almost as taboo/nondisclosure rated as for asking
> where the hell that planet Venus was hiding throughout all of those
> NASA/Apollo years. Go figure.
>
> Since the Ux U3O8 (aka yellowcake) was recently worth nearly $310/kg
> as of June 2007, and is currently hovering at the subsidized mark ...
>
> read more >>