Professor J. Reese Roth of the University of Tennessess, published: Electrohydrodynamic Flow Control with a Glow-Discharge Surface Plasma in the year 2000, his work in the field of EHD was highly classified and he was found guilty of failing to protect his research and given received a four year sentence for (willfully) allowing secrets to fall into the hands of the People's Republic of China.
What the Chinese have done with said information may be deduced from the 2010 publication of Numerical Investigation of Plasma Active Flow Control out of the School of Jet Propulsion at Beijing University.
EHD has been the open secret of propulsion research for some time. This excerpt from an Air Force Research Lab press release, AFRL Proves Feasibility of Plasma Actuator, describes the applications of it for propulsion purposes:
AFRL is laying the groundwork to develop revolutionary hypersonic aerospace vehicles. Researchers are examining the feasibility of replacing traditional mechanical actuators, which move like wing flaps to control an air vehicle's flight control surfaces, with plasma actuators that require no moving parts and are more reliable.
As part of its Boundary Layers and Hypersonics program, AFRL conducted a wind tunnel test to evaluate the feasibility of using plasma actuators for airframe flight control. The Boundary Layers and Hypersonics program is developing the knowledge of fluid physics to facilitate future revolutionary aerospace vehicle designs."
Another applied variant of EHD principles led to an ion propulsion (IP) method, ideal for in-spaace propulsion (as opposed to hypersonic flight within the earth's atmosphere). Apparently this technology has been known to be feasible since the first working ion thruster engine was developed by Harold Kaufman at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center in 1960.
And all of this relates to Townsend, how?
Well, in the summer of 1953, Townsend was in Cleveland, reportedly reviewing the newly uncovered notes of Charles Fuller Brush. .That autumn, he called upon GE to make a presentation of what has been presumed to be Wintherhaven....never mind that I think the Winterhaven document that is in public domain was a decoy for counterintelligence purposes. Anyway GE found something or another of such value in his work that they turned it over to their Washington office to push through. (summation of Townsend correspndence with Jo of that year)
Now I'm not saying that any of this is connected but by the time we launched our first satellites 4 years later, GE was the prime contractor for the CIA/NRO satellite contracts and Brush Materials of Cleveland, the manufacturer of composites that would be used for re-entry vehicles.
"Radar Material," that stuff was called when it was first appended to the name of the Atlantic Fleet Radar school back in 1941. Scientists were just then discovering that properly engineered material could bend, absorb, and reflect the pings of incoming radar. They had no idea that it could also be used in more active applications.
Townsend Brown was the handpicked head of that school back then . Its name changed, first from the Atlantic Fleet Radio School to the Radar School to the Radar and Materials school with just a few months. And then Townsend 'left' the navy and moved right down the street from the Army Radar Command on Wonderland Ave. Sometimes chains of coincidences aren't.
