Anti missile machine. Always alert to military tactics, de Seversky believes that Ionocraft could be used as missile interceptors.  Normally the craft would hover at high altitudes, scanning the horizon for a 700 mile range.  As so on as it spotted and identified a hostile missile through an infrared detection system, the Ionocraft would hurl itself at the enemy rocket on a collision course and blow it out of the air.
When practical craft are built, their designers expect to have a choice of several power supply systems now under development for NASA's space program.  Some of these include:
Gas turbine generators.  Several firms, notably General Electric and Allis Chalmers, have come up with compact, lightweight, kerosene fueled turbines, originally intended as power sources for spacecraft.  These may be used to gener ate electricity aboard Ionocraft.
Fuel Cells. These are chemical reactors producing electricity like a storage battery, but drawing their chemicals from external supply tanks.  NASA is currently testing fuel cells converting hydrogen and oxygen to electricity, with drin king water as a byproduct.
Solar Cells, directly converting sunlight to electricity-the present energy source of most satellites.  When high-efficiency solar cells are available, they may keep Ionocraft aloft for indefinite periods.
 


Power from Boiling Mercury


 


Sunflower- a code name for another project aimed at deriving electric power directly from sunlight.  It employs an umbrella like reflector that focuses the sun's heat to boil mercury, which expands through a turbine and drives an electric generator. (Solar power supplies would be back-stopped by other kinds of power generators to take over whenever no sunlight is available.)
Microwave radiation. Concentrated beams of high frequency radio waves may transfer energy from ground stations to the Ionocraft if the craft is to be used as a hovering platform in fixed position.
Raytheon has pioneered this type of energy transmission through it Amplitron tube and has recaptured as much as 72 percent of the radiated energy at the receiver site.  High power laser beams may be similarly used for transmission.
Experimental hardware has already been produced for each of these off-beat power-supply systems.
None of the men working on the Ionocraft will be pinned down to any production timetable.  "It's a pretty wild project," admitted technical director Bruno, a veteran of 20 years in the missile business.  "But that's what t hey said when we started working on rockets."
Major de Seversky, whose own career goes back to the beginnings of aviation, views his invention in historical perspective:  "We are exploring an entirely new principle of flight.  We're just at the spot where the Wright Brothers were i n 1903.  We are just beginning to see the possibilities.
Page 1
Page 4
Page 2
Page 5
Page 3
Page 6