posted 11-17-2001 02:44 AM            

Honestly, I'm way out of my depth here but I can tell you that the military is experimenting with generating plasma fields for applications ranging from advanced propulsion to visual invisibility to microwave weapon shielding. My own feeling is that the advanced radar applications being discussed are only a small part of the larger picture.

I think if you re-read Clifford's report, a lot of answers will present themselves. For instance;

"An alternative interpretation of a plasma is that of an electrically conductive gas. In this case, the 'gas' employed is the atmosphere. An artificial ionosphere has been, in effect, created within the lower atmosphere. It may also help to mention that a neon, or fluorescent light, is a familiar visual example of plasma physics."

I think the point that Mr. Carnicom is trying to make is that the atmosphere is being altered to make it more electrically conductive. Could this increased conductivity be related to the 'fluorescent light' observed in Eyesopen's video? I don't know, but something sure as hell is... and isn't the result of any afterburner.

Everything I've seen on the subject seems focused on creating a plasma field a good deal smaller than, say, our entire atmosphere, but I'm certainly willing to entertain the possibility that atmosphere has been altered enough to be more conducive to creating such a field on a smaller scale.

"It is of more than passing interest that the plasma frequency of a solid metal is also related directly to its 'transparency' with respect to the electromagnetic frequencies to which it is subjected."

A somewhat enigmatic and thought-provoking statement. Transparent to what? Radar? Perhaps other wavelengths? This is heading back to Scalar EM and it's getting late so we'll save that one for later...

posted 11-17-2001 08:19 AM            

Let's grant him this, Chem:

It may also help to mention that a neon, or fluorescent light, is a familiar visual example of plasma physics.

But what do neon and flurorescent lights have in common? That's right, a glass tube. It keeps the plasma in and the atmosphere out. Otherwise the abundant gases of the atmosphere would interact with the plasma, and the plasma would be gone. As I understand it, plasma can be produced and maintained in an open system at very low pressure, but (once again) that would describe the ionosphere, not the lower atmosphere.

posted 11-17-2001 04:01 PM            

"Although less than 1% of the upper atmosphere becomes ionised the charged particles make the gas electrically conducting, which completely changes its characteristics."
http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/opps/introduction.html

I'm not real sure what Mr. Carnicom has done to incur your wrath, 3T3, but I do know that he has done as much to bring awareness of this issue as anyone that posts on this or any other message board.

posted 11-17-2001 04:30 PM            

lol...I heard here the other day that NASA was having to cut back on some of the mars global surveyor experiments because of a shortage in *hair-perm solution*...

grins...

posted 11-17-2001 04:48 PM            

And before this thread drifts any further, a little reminder that the topic of discussion is the phenomena depicted in Eyesopen's video and the USAF's interest in plasma based applications:

posted 11-17-2001 05:22 PM            

Listen-

I did not start this thread to give people the opportunity to air their grievances (legitimate or otherwise) with Mr. Carnicom. It would be nice if we could at least look at each others research without getting into these devisive conflicts.

If someone wants to start a 'Clifford Carnicom is a bad scientist' thread, be my guest. But that is NOT the topic of this particular thread.

Perhaps I am making a mistake by trying to have an intelligent conversation regarding the possible connection between plasma based research and observed phenomena in this particular section.

Oh well.

posted 11-17-2001 06:49 PM            

and also chem you asked 3t3 what her reasoning was about carnicom, she answered, therefore you initiated the off-topic discussion....

chem lighten up

btw did you read toxdoc's link ?

posted 11-17-2001 07:08 PM            

And like I said, I'm sorry I asked about your reference. Let's move on.

Invulnerable and invisible

The U.S. Air Force allocates some $10 million a year for research geared toward satellite protection. Of that amount, $2 million is dedicated to low-temperature plasma studies...

Poke a finger inside Laroussi’s tabletop plasma-generating apparatus and all you’ll get from the bluish, pilot-light-like ionized gas is a slight tingle. But the harmless sensation is misleading, since it doesn’t give a complete picture of plasma’s power. Depending on how a plasma is "tuned," or how it is made more dense by increasing its frequency, it could ward off microwave bursts and discharges from ground-based, energized sources of potential damage and disruption.

Swirling in and around one another, a plasma’s charged particles interact constantly, giving rise to localized attractions or repulsions. External energy splashing against the plasma --- say, from a potentially disabling, concentrated burst of microwaves, or perhaps even from certain varieties of particle-beam weapons fired from military bases on Earth -- could be caught up within the plasma’s complex electromagnetic fields to be dissipated completely or deflected into space.

"In theory, a plasma could deflect a particle beam or laser attack," Laroussi says. "It depends on what you’re shooting at it and how high you can tune the plasma frequency. That doesn’t mean it’s easy or practically achievable, particularly with a cold plasma. It’s a tough requirement to meet at present."

Cloaking mirrors

A nearer-term application is cloaking. With the proper adjustments, a plasma can be made into a kind of energy mirror, reflecting back or away incoming electromagnetic waves, such as those emitted from ground-based radars. In essence, any spacecraft outfitted with this kind of plasma field would be completely cloaked from the probing attentions of radar operators.

"The idea is to deflect or absorb the energy completely," Laroussi said. "If you absorb the energy --- completely dissipating it within the plasma --- the radar doesn’t see anything. Nothing reflects back."

posted 11-17-2001 07:14 PM            

NICK COOK JDW Aerospace Consultant
London

The Phantom Works, Boeing's prototyping organisation, has raised the possibility of plasma-based directed-energy weapons equipping a future breed of hypersonic aircraft platforms, such as those favoured for research and development by the Bush administration.

George Muellner, vice president and general manager of the Phantom Works, said that it should prove feasible to "skim off" some of the plasma that forms naturally around a M8.0 aerospace vehicle for use by an onboard directed-energy weapon.

Plasmas are ionised gases found naturally in lightning discharges and are commonly used in neon light tubes. They also build around the nose and leading edges of hypersonic vehicles and space re-entry systems as the air in front of them is shocked to high temperature.

Muellner's remarks are evidence of growing US interest in plasmas for a variety of aerospace applications. Russian designers have touted the benefits of plasmas for years, but officially their claims have been greeted with scepticism by the US aerospace establishment.

Russian companies and research institutions that have applied plasmas to aircraft have reported sizeable reductions in aircraft drag and the delayed onset of shock waves. "We've been doing work with the Russians and we've been doing plasma work on our own and we have seen considerable improvements in drag and sonic boom attenuation," Muellner said.

He downplayed US enthusiasm for other plasma benefit claimed by the Russians - a means of drastically reducing an aircraft's radar signature. "There's no way to effectively engineer it," he said, adding that the power and weight penalties imposed by plasma-generators would most likely outweigh the stealth benefits. Despite this, Russian engineers claim to have developed 'bolt-on' plasma-generators that dramatically cut an aircraft's radar cross-section while preserving its aerodynamic qualities; something, they say, that cannot be said of first-generation US stealth aircraft like the angular F-117A.

Muellner said that the use of naturally forming plasmas on a high-Mach aerospace vehicle could, in the long term, be applied "as a huge energy resource" to a directed-energy weapon for self-defence purposes. Observers have pointed out that such weapons could also be used offensively.

There are two possible engineering approaches. One is to divert the plasma into a chamber, excite it, introduce a laser-critical gas such as argon and direct the resultant energy through high-power optics as a laser beam. The other is to wrap small compact rings or 'toroids' of plasma energy in intense magnetic fields and fire them from a weapon as 'bullets' at air or ground targets.

In the early 1990s, the US Air Force was preparing tests at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, designed to lead to a ground-based plasma-weapon in the late 1990s capable of firing plasma bullets at incoming ballistic missile warheads. The enabling technology was a 'fast capacitor bank' called Shiva Star that could store 10 million joules of energy and release it instantaneously. Officials anticipated firing bullets at 3,000km/sec in 1995 and 10,000km/sec - 3% of the speed of light - by the turn of the century. The tests absorbed little more than a few million dollars of annual funding (Jane's Defence Weekly 29 July 1998).

posted 11-17-2001 07:28 PM            

this is old but interesting...

http://www.fas.org/news/russia/1995/tac95060.htm

In the opinion of our scientists the experiment could cost around $300 million. This by the way is four orders of magnitude less than what was planned in the USA's budget for creation of its own plasma weapon. Russia doesn't have this kind of money now. That's why our country suggested to the United States back in 1993 that we join efforts to create a global ABM system. Experts also feel that were the USA to continue working on this problem on its own, the expenses would total $30 billion, with no firm certainty of success. As far as we know, Bill Clinton hasn't yet communicated with Boris Yeltsin regarding the "Trust" experiment. Possibly because the Russian plasma weapon is based on discoveries in several areas of science that are deeply developed in Russia but have not yet been sufficiently studied in the USA. And no politician or scientist likes to show his ignorance.

posted 11-17-2001 08:44 PM            

Recent advances in plasma-generating technology allow for a much more cost-effective solution, but you can see how serious both Russia and the US were about developing these apps by the numbers they were throwing around a few years ago.

$30 BILLION budgeted for development of our own plasma weapon and the Russians could pull it off for a measly 30 mil.

It sure sounds like someone found a way of creating a plasma field that exists outside of a glass container...

P.S. I've always been a stuffy SOB, T/S. You've just gotten used to being able to goof-off at will during my abscence.

Or as somebody once said:

I have come to kick ass and chew bubble gum.

posted 11-17-2001 08:48 PM            

Air Force Office of Scientific Research Funds Laser Plasma Thruster...

posted 11-17-2001 10:45 PM            

here's another " I take these glasses off, and your ok, I put them on...formaldehyde face"....

cool stuff here :

http://www.mission.com/MRC-ATD/ATD%20Area2.html

posted 11-17-2001 11:40 PM            

The Mission Research Group is funneling it's plasma shield research to another working group, MAGIC, who in turn is funded by (you guessed it) the USAF...

http://www.mrcwdc.com/Magic/

posted 11-18-2001 08:50 AM            

Are you saying that the chemplanes are actually spraying plasma for some offensive or defensive purpose?

posted 11-18-2001 09:28 AM            

You will notice that one of the trails in the Eyesopen's video displays some rather unusual spurts while the plasma effect manifests itself. I can only surmise that there is some sort of connection between the two.