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New Lab Consolidates Propulsion Research Areas

Posted by timothy on from the until-there's-dilithium-crystals dept.

zoid.com writes: "Nuclear-fusion drives, anti-matter protons and solar sails? NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center broke ground on a new administration and lab building for the Propulsion Research Center today. This lab will will be used to develop new propulsion concepts and techniques for the future of space exploration."

1 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Fortunately, we don't *need* star trek. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Fusion reactors and anti-matter drives sound cool, but do the math ... assuming these drives can propel a craft at one-tenth the speed of light, which is a speed of approximately 66.9 Million Miles Per Hour, it would still take 30 years to reach the nearest star.

    Even if we don't reach the nearest star (and 10 percent of C is very optimistic for any drive built in the near future), we'd be able to reach anywhere in the solar system with much, much better transit times and fuel to mass ratios than we currently can. This is what we'd need to do widespread exploration/colonization.

    Assuming we _can_ get to 10% C, it would _definitely_ be worth it to send probes to nearby systems. We know we can build craft that last that long, and it's very unlikely we'd find a better drive in only 30 years.

    In short, advanced drives would still be very, very useful.