Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Antimatter Space Drive

Posted by michael on from the eee-equals-emm-cee-squared dept.

sckienle writes "Space.com has an article on using anti-matter for propulsion in space. It isn't true Star Trek warp stuff, in fact it is a variation on an fusion based pellet design I saw in the late 70's, but interesting concept. The concept is still somewhat of a dream, as stated in the article: 'The real hub is the storage [of antimatter]. There's a lot of technology between here and there.' Later on it also mentions that we can't produce a lot of antimatter efficiently yet. Still it might be worth the effort if the theoretical acceleration proves out." The BBC has a story about studying antimatter in a lab.

3 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. The cost of antimatter... by hpa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think anyone is arguing that antimatter would be just unbelievably useful to spacecraft, but the cost needs to be taken down by something like nine orders of magnitude -- the currently going rate for antiprotons is something like a million dollars per nanogram.

    The cooling ring only helps you once you have antiprotons to cool down to antihydrogen. Right now the production of antiprotons itself is just too expensive.

  2. Space.com math by Rupert · · Score: 5, Interesting
    About 40 times about 5 equals about 250.

    Would it kill them to be a little more precise on:
    • the distance from the Sun to the Oort cloud (about 250AU)
    • the distance from the Sun to Pluto (about 40AU)
    • the ratio of those two distances (apparently about 5)
    ?
    --

    --
    E_NOSIG
  3. Re:Interesting by man_ls · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is the basis for the "containment field" of Star Trek fame.

    In a DS9 novel, they talk about transferring antimatter between holding tanks by using tightly confined magnetic field beams and piping the antimatter through their magnetic pipes from one place to the other.