Plasma Weapons?
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:55 pm
[quote=Wikipedia]At present, plasma cannons are only hypothetical weapons, as the amount of power that they need is currently beyond the capacity of any handheld device. Plasma rifles might not be possible, as the concept of plasma-firing weapons is scientifically difficult, for various reasons:
* The plasma shot out of a plasma rifle tends to dissipate in the surrounding environment within about 50 centimeters from the gun, from thermal and/or electric pressure expansion, called blooming, unless the magnetic confinement bottle is extended all the way to the target (as it was in the games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2), or the particles are fired at high enough speed to reach a target before blooming occurs. This is then a particle beam more than a plasma beam.
* The technology to create plasma toroids and particle beams is presently far too bulky for anything man-portable. In such a high-performance design, the plasma would have to be stored and created in highly focused magnetic bottles, such as those used in NASA's VASIMR rocket: this design has been suggested as a potential weapon design for future real human-engineered plasma weapons. For simpler designs based on plasma cutting torches, a designer could get away with using an arcjet to heat the plasma, if his power source is strong enough.
* Using current technology, if a plasma beam was fired in a planetary atmosphere, it would quickly be stopped by atmospheric resistance and would make a short hot flame like a blowtorch
* One virtually universal characteristic of plasma weaponry is its tendency to overheat, thus being sometimes impractical even within the context of science fiction.[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_rifle
I remember someone posting something about plasma weapons that were "supposedly" being developed a while back. Could anyone give me some information on this or on some realistic energy weapons that could possibly be developed?
Just something I would like to read up on.
* The plasma shot out of a plasma rifle tends to dissipate in the surrounding environment within about 50 centimeters from the gun, from thermal and/or electric pressure expansion, called blooming, unless the magnetic confinement bottle is extended all the way to the target (as it was in the games Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2), or the particles are fired at high enough speed to reach a target before blooming occurs. This is then a particle beam more than a plasma beam.
* The technology to create plasma toroids and particle beams is presently far too bulky for anything man-portable. In such a high-performance design, the plasma would have to be stored and created in highly focused magnetic bottles, such as those used in NASA's VASIMR rocket: this design has been suggested as a potential weapon design for future real human-engineered plasma weapons. For simpler designs based on plasma cutting torches, a designer could get away with using an arcjet to heat the plasma, if his power source is strong enough.
* Using current technology, if a plasma beam was fired in a planetary atmosphere, it would quickly be stopped by atmospheric resistance and would make a short hot flame like a blowtorch
* One virtually universal characteristic of plasma weaponry is its tendency to overheat, thus being sometimes impractical even within the context of science fiction.[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_rifle
I remember someone posting something about plasma weapons that were "supposedly" being developed a while back. Could anyone give me some information on this or on some realistic energy weapons that could possibly be developed?
Just something I would like to read up on.
