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economical space travel

Abstract

A traveling-field, magnetic propulsion system and operating method is provided for achieving economical space travel. The system is based upon designing the vehicle in the form of a single-stage streamlined circular toroidal airfoil containing a thin-walled superconducting solenoid. It is initially launched vertically off the earth's surface into a vacuum environment at 125 km using conventional rocket propulsion. It is then accelerated along a high-inclination trajectory by a traveling repulsive magnetic field generated by ejecting an easily ionizable low-density gas cloud in the vehicle's magnetic field and transmitting a high-power, plane-polarized, microwave beam at the cloud tuned to the electron cyclotron resonant frequency. The transmitter is constructed horizontally on the earth's surface as an electronically-steered, phased array several hundred meters in diameter energized by a large superconducting energy storage system. The transmitter will be able to transmit a...

Patent number: 6193194
Filing date: Sep 1, 1998
Issue date: Feb 27, 2001
Inventor: Michael A. Minovitch
Magnetic propulsion system and operating method - Google Patents


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