Re: The dreaded UFO topic
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2023 7:45 pm
Paul, bits of Townsend tech are leaking into the public, now. To quote myself from my old blog:
Professor J. Reese Roth of the University of Tennessess, published: Electrohydrodynamic Flow Control with a Glow-Discharge Surface Plasma in the year 2000, his work in the field of EHD was highly classified and he was found guilty of failing to protect his research and given received a four year sentence for (willfully) allowing secrets to fall into the hands of the People's Republic of China.
What the Chinese have done with said information may be deduced from the 2010 publication of Numerical Investigation of Plasma Active Flow Control out of the School of Jet Propulsion at Beijing University.
EHD has been the open secret of propulsion research for some time. This excerpt from an Air Force Research Lab press release, AFRL Proves Feasibility of Plasma Actuator, describes the applications of it for propulsion purposes:
AFRL is laying the groundwork to develop revolutionary hypersonic aerospace vehicles. Researchers are examining the feasibility of replacing traditional mechanical actuators, which move like wing flaps to control an air vehicle's flight control surfaces, with plasma actuators that require no moving parts and are more reliable.
As part of its Boundary Layers and Hypersonics program, AFRL conducted a wind tunnel test to evaluate the feasibility of using plasma actuators for airframe flight control. The Boundary Layers and Hypersonics program is developing the knowledge of fluid physics to facilitate future revolutionary aerospace vehicle designs."
Another applied variant of EHD principles led to an ion propulsion (IP) method, ideal for in-spaace propulsion (as opposed to hypersonic flight within the earth's atmosphere). Apparently this technology has been known to be feasible since the first working ion thruster engine was developed by Harold Kaufman at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center in 1960.