NASA Ground Tests Ion Engine

herda05 writes "New Scientist reports from a press release by NASA on a successful ground test of the HiPEP (High Power Electric Propulsion) ion engine, which is the first 'major milestone' for Project Prometheus. Also some pictures and more info on the HiPEP engine."

Comments

Re:Am I interpreting this correctly?

[Leroy_Brown242]

That's a good point.
Space is massivly huge. Nothing like Star Treck of Star Wars ever illustrated very well.
Years and years and years of vast nothing.

A slow burn over days or weeks would build a pretty good speed though.

Nuclear power in space

[dido]

What they really should be doing is coupling ion engines to nuclear reactors. Then you'd have a power plant capable of producing a large quantity of energy for a long time, and keep going for many, many years.

I remember reading somewhere that nuclear-powered ships could keep going and going for 20+ years or more. The only reason why such nuclear aircraft carriers eventually must return to port is other supplies like food and water for the crew, not fuel. Same thing goes for ballistic missile submarines, which can stay submerged for years on end, using the power from the nuclear reactor to produce drinkable water and breathable air for the crew. A typical deterrence patrol for an Ohio class SSBN only lasts for two months only because that's probably how long a crew can stay cooped up in a very small space without going crazy. :)

Only thing is there are all these groups that seem to be afraid to put anything nuclear in space for some reason. If anyone's still really serious about doing manned space exploration, we'll have to do this eventually, I think. Solar just won't be able to produce the kind of power required to provide extended life support and reasonably fast travel at the same time. It's no good to be cooped up in a space capsule for eight months to get to Mars, and back again... These ion engines could probably produce a lot more thrust with the kind of juice a nuclear reactor onboard could put out, possibly even enough to accelerate the ions to relativistic velocities, and then we could have some real serious speed, to make interstellar travel, at least by machines, a realistic possibility.

As for radiation shielding, that's something you'll have to deal with anyway, nuclear reactor or not. Even a small coronal mass ejection could produce far, far more radiation than the power plant would.