[HN Gopher] Electrodynamic Tether
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       Electrodynamic Tether
        
       Author : Amorymeltzer
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2021-12-04 11:23 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | halvor wrote:
       | the superior way of accelerating/decelerating stuff in space. if
       | you are fascinated by this mode of propulsion email me at
       | halvor@solstorm.io. we are hiring
        
       | dr_dshiv wrote:
       | I remember reading about this at the time. As a 15 year old
       | obsessed with Nikola Tesla, I thought it was the coolest thing in
       | the world. A 20km tether that generated electricity using the
       | Earth's magnetic field as a dynamo? Wow.
       | 
       | "NASA has conducted several experiments with Plasma Motor
       | Generator (PMG) tethers in space. An early experiment used a
       | 500-meter conducting tether. In 1996, NASA conducted an
       | experiment with a 20,000-meter conducting tether. When the tether
       | was fully deployed during this test, the orbiting tether
       | generated a potential of 3,500 volts. This conducting single-line
       | tether was severed after five hours of deployment. It is believed
       | that the failure was caused by an electric arc generated by the
       | conductive tether's movement through the Earth's magnetic field."
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-05 23:00 UTC)