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Re: Wireless Power & NASA Tether
From: Greg Leyh[SMTP:lod-at-pacbell-dot-net]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 1997 1:24 PM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: Wireless Power & NASA Tether
Tesla List wrote:
> > > Tesla also said his wireless system would use the ionosphere. NASA is
> > > using the ionosphere in their shuttle tether experiments. This system does
> > > not use Hertzian waves but does use currents that flow in the ionosphere.
> > > -JHC
> > Actually, I believe that the NASA tether simply used Lenz's Law, whereby a
> > conductor develops an EMF if it cuts through magnetic field lines -- in this
> > case the Earth's magnetic field. A conducting ionosphere was not required
> > for this experiment.
> >
> > -GL
> Except that the tether experiment(s) used a single wire conductor,
> from the orbiter to the tethered satellite. No return path... Also,
> if a pair of conductors *had* been used, there would have been
> (virtually) no net current induced in the (parallel) pair of wires,
> as the enclosed area would have been essentially zero. As I understand
> the experiment, the return path was intended to be the ionized gas
> surrounding the satellite and orbiter...
>
> Dave Bell
The 'return path' was provided by charged particle emitters on the tether end,
as well as the shuttle end. Again, this experiment took place in a near vacuum,
high above the ionosphere.
-GL