Can Lifter Technology work in a vacume??

[Kagiso L]

To be more precise my question is "can an ION LIFTER work in space" and if so then why isnt mankind utilising this for space missions.

Also ION LIFT TECHNOLOGY was doscovered way back in the 1920s and further studied/developed untill the 1960s , so why are we as mankind still using liquid based fuels to run our cars infact why arent we using this technology in someway right now???

[Mez]

My understanding of ION LIFTERS is that they work on the principle that like charges repel. Now, you need a heck of a lot of ions before you get any force between then at all, and ions tend to neutralise whenever they come in contact with anything else. So, it is mighty hard to store ions for any lenth of time and it is very energy consuming to produce them in the first place, as they are not generally naturally occurring (apart from perhaps in lightning storms).

So, the simple answer is that they are not energy efficient.