Plasma and its Uses One of the most important things in space travel’s future is the development of a cold plasma. You might ask the question why? The answer is we need a cold plasma for protection from radiation, for propulsion, and other things. Some scientists have been working on trying to build a shield for spacecraft using cold plasma. The idea is to be able to build a shield which weighs practically nothing and yet offers radiation protection. We know lead can shield from radiation but it is very heavy and not practical to use in spacecraft. Even if we could use lead that way, who would want to sit inside a ship with toxic lead all around them? The progress in developing plasma into a useful component for spacecraft is agonizingly slow. It was just announced Rice University physicists have just discovered a way to create a magnetic bottle which can hold this plasma. Their plasma is only one degree above absolute zero which is -272 degrees Celsius. This is -571 degrees Fahrenheit. Hopefully when plasma is perfected it will not need to be this cold. Outer space is about -455 degrees Fahrenheit. This may be sufficient for some future plasma. Before we get too excited about how scientists figured out how to contain this very cold plasma, the containment only lasted a very short time. Before I go any further, I probably should explain what plasma is. It is not the same as the plasma in your blood which is a clear liquid. This plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter. It is neither a solid, liquid or gas. Some scientists believe there is also a fifth state of matter which has to do with condensed matter physics. We already have some plasma in common objects. Its used in some televisions for example. I had a plasma television at one time. Neon signs have been using it for years. Plasma can be created by lightning strikes. Plasma is an important part of a nuclear fusion reactor. Plasma comes from the sun and even sometimes fire. Static electricity is an example of plasma. We also find it in the ionosphere. Plasma rockets have been an idea for a long time. The reason for this is a plasma rocket has a higher impulse speed than a regular chemical rocket. This means the rocket would travel much faster over a period of time. The top speed of a plasma rocket is expected to be about 34 miles per second while the top speed of a chemical rocket is about 3.04 miles a second. You can see from this it would be a big time saver to use a plasma rocket to fly to another planet. It is estimated it could reach Mars in about 39 days. We have to realize this is still far too slow, but it is much better than using a chemical rocket. The solar wind which is mentioned every once in a while, comes from the sun and is composed of plasma. As the earth moves around the sun it is plowing through plasma and sometimes there are shock waves. It has often been mentioned as a means of travel in space. The idea is to use it in the same manner as using a sailboat on the ocean. The wind blows the sailboat and the solar wind would blow on a spacecraft with a proper sail created for the purpose. One of the scariest forms of plasma is the plasma ball. It is also called balled lightning. People have reported this all over the world. It doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does it is hard to explain. It has been said to get into houses and float around, even locked houses. How does this happen? I don’t think anyone really has an answer to that question, but if we find out, we may be able to put this attribute to use. Can you imagine if we had the ability to move through objects such as walls? Could plasma have other abilities we have yet to figure out? Experimentation is ongoing into plasma physics and who knows what scientists might discover in the years ahead. As with almost all research, there are always scientists and engineers who look at an object and decide if it has any uses as a future weapon and plasma is no exception. There was talk of a plasma being used in Iraq. It was said to have been attached to tanks. It was horrible indeed if the stories were true. It was said it shot out something similar to a lightning bolt and everything it hit was devastated. When it hit a human people said it left a shrunken corpse which was only a fraction of the size of a normal human. When you check online most people will tell you plasma weapons don’t exist and either don’t know about Iraq, don’t believe the stories, or don’t know about them. I can tell you this, these people are wrong and to prove it Popular Mechanics ran a story which stated we have been testing plasma weapons for at least 25 years. When a laser is fired it heats the air around it forming plasma. The U.S. military has been trying to develop a laser weapon since the late 1950’s. As many of us know, laser weapons are coming into their own as more of them are being fitted on ships, planes and even a hand held weapon which is supposedly non-lethal. Scientists figured out how to use the plasma from a laser to increase the deadliness of a laser. A normal laser burns a hole in what it is aimed at, but the ones which utilize the plasma effect blowup the objects because the plasma explodes. The military has a laser mounted on a Humvee named the PASS laser. It was created to control a crowd and is known as the Plasma Acoustic Shield System or PASS. It works by creating a series of exploding sounds and a wall of very bright lights. The bangs can go over a rather large area. Eventually the device was dismissed as not being powerful enough and the only functional part of the device which was considered a benefit was the wall of light since it protected troops from being seen. There are quite a few laser weapons which employ plasma as part of their effectiveness being developed. I have only talked about the ones in the United States, but you can bet other countries are hard at work on their plasma and laser projects.
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