General note to naysayers: before you present yet another "obvious" argument why Zubrin's proposal can't possibly work, you may want to check how it applies to

General note to naysayers: before you present yet another "obvious" argument why Zubrin's proposal can't possibly work, you may want to check how it applies to this: http://news.mit.edu/2018/first-ionic-wind-plane-no-moving-parts-1121 http://news.mit.edu/2018/first-ionic-wind-plane-no-moving-pa... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9 It's essentially the same thing, except it has to ionize the medium (air) on its own rather than just pick up the ions from its surroundings. (Yes, it does so in front of the vehicle, so on average stripped-off electrons get less work done on them by the electric field than positive ions, but the electrons would carry less momentum than the more massive ions even at kinetic energy parity, with the difference going to the vehicle, as Zubrin correctly says - please let's not beat that dead horse again.)