Slashdot Mirror
Ion-Propulsion Craft Reaches The Moon
Rollie Hawk writes "It ain't warp speed, but it's exciting new technology at work! The European Space Agency put an ion-propelled rocket into lunar orbit today. While not much horsepower is generated, this method of propulsion could be ideal for travel in near-weightless space as it does not require any combustion to occur."
Does anyone know how the trip time compared other expeditions? I realize that the longer the flight, the more efficient and speedy this method would be, but I was just trying to get an idea of how fast this thing moves. Could cryogenics and this propulsion technology together land humans on other planets?
Considering that Apollo 8 made it around the moon in less than a week, and this mission took over a year, we're not dealing with lots of speed here.
I'm interested in seeing some comparisons with project cost, energy consumption, etc.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
man, screw your moon base. Perfect place for a five-star resort. This sounds like prime realty. The europeans should stake a claim to it and auction it off as land for when the moon is colonized. The price this would go for would probably fund a colonization project, oh and a moonbase - somewhere else.
ôó
Although it's called an "ion engine", it's really just the first step in the progression of plasma propulsion. Next up we have the VASIMR which they've been talking about testing on the space station. It can produce slow thrust like an ion engine, or it can produce hard thrust like a chemical rocket. You can power it with solar panels, or you can power it with a nuclear reactor. Eventually, almost the exact same design will be used in fusion rockets, and possibly even antimatter rockets. Then we're in Startrek country with plasma power distribution and ships which you can actually live and work on.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I dont understand why they talk about the probe being (near) weightless in space in the same context as the engine beeing useful in space?
No matter where the probe is, it has got the same mass, and hence the same inertia. Low-thrust engines work good in space because of no friction and often no requirement on quick travel (if it is a non-manned spacecraft). On earth an ion engine would never work for several reasons, one beeing friction against air and ground, but none of them has to do with the weight of the vechile/probe?
Or have I misunderstood something?
So?
So this is crucial on the long haul. With a reaction drive, when you run out of reaction mass, you're done. The craft becomes inert. The trick here is that the saturn V was out fuel within 15 minutes, wheras this craft is still accelerating a year later. Concievably, it could run for another year, or a dozen. (I don't know how much reaction mass it has) An ion drive craft might be made that could with enough reaction mass for an interstellar voyage, where a chemical rocket could not. (esp. considering the mass needed to decelerate at the ead!)
NASA should be working on developing - advanced propulsion technologies - instead of wasting its money on the shuttle and the ISS.
Unfortunately, pork politics and a generally uinformed space enthusiast community keep supporting these wasteful programs, even though almost all scientists and engineers admit both the shuttle and ISS are doing little if anything in helping us further space exploration.
In general, humans are arrogant, self-interested and convinced of their own superiority.
Example: Australia. Landing immigrants once considered the indigenous people nothing more than animals, destroyed their hunting grounds, forced them off their lands, killed them and stole their children (this last thing was still happening in the mid-1900's).
I'm sure I could name a few other terrestrial countries where similar things have happened. In a few hundred years, as a space-faring species, we might be able to name a few extra-terrestrial sites as well - unless we come across a more-powerful adversary who kicks our collective asses back into the Stone Age.
Well of course nobody thinks the US will remain the leading superpower forever. Nobody who gives it any thought at least. At one point damned near ever real "power" on the earth was located in Europe. Now there's not a single nation in Europe that equals the United States. Together they do the job quite nicely though.
That's just it. Despite what we've seen from the former USSR there is life after being a superpower. Most Americans aren't living under the impression that the ride's going to last forever and only the small percentage of real paranoids think it has to at any cost.
I can't wait for us to return to being one of the pack so to speak. Then maybe our leaders wouldn't feel like it's necessary to station troops all over the planet. A military that can protect the United States is fine by me. An economy in the upper half of the world is more than many could ask for. Damn I'd like to see us get out of the world police business and back to the "working on making America better" business.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
It's as simple as that: if you made new land habitable, it should be yours. ...
As long as there is enough land left on the moon, there will be no conflicts, if the people involved have the slightest hint of moral obligatons left.
The words you are looking for here are: Lockean proviso. According to Locke, it is permissible to privatize a resource that you improve, provided you leave as much of the same (unimproved) quality for others. For example, you can privatize an oasis in the desert, so long as it is not the only one within reach of a caravan route.
Of course Locke then went on to argue that money changes this basic moral prinicile, but that's a story for another day.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I think after USA falls apart, the world should get together and have a "no superpowers" rule. But then again, there were no superpowers at the 70 years ago, and things didn't turn out so well. Europe sort of punched itself out, somebody else took over. We might not be far from that right now.
Well, maybe some sane country like Norway or Canada,
:)
And just how long would they remain "sane" when living with the status as "superpower"? How long before they too turned paranoid, or pissed off somebody and really got something to worry about?
Has there been studies on how even being targeted with nuclear weapoins for prolonged periods affects human psychology, and in the extent, foreign politics?
There was said something about how power corrupts.... Perhaps every state should have plans for how _not_ to grow too large or powerful. An international agreement to keep world domination in check. (No, a perpetual state of war isn't it.
You can get that on Earth already. Where I grew up, just down the street from the North Pole, we had 3 months of daylight during summer. And plenty of water ice, if that's important to you.
It's actually the one thing I miss the most. Once you've experienced life without any darkness, you realize how much the night cripples your life, and it's a hard thing to lose.
You seem to be laboring under the misconception that wars begin for rational reasons. Do you know who Germany's largest trade partner was prior to WWI? France--and their economic "interdependency" did nothing to avert that war. Both countries burned themselves out and the conflict pretty much ended European dominance in world affairs. Was that war rational? Wars start because some leader is too stupid, scared or short-sighted to not attack somebody. The reality of the situation is that if someone decides for some stupid reason to launch an attack on, e.g., South Korea, it will be too late after the fact to say "gee, we should have had some troops there".