NASA Plans Test of New Plasma Drive

Sallust writes "Flightglobal has an interesting article about the testing of a new electrically powered plasma engine called the Vasimir. It's being developed by former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz and promises to greatly reduce the time and fuel required for interplanetary journeys. According to the article: 'The Vasimir involves the injection of a gas such as hydrogen into an engine that turns it into a plasma. That plasma is then energised further using radio signals as it flows through the engine, a process controlled by electromagnetic waves from superconducting magnets. Accelerated and heated through this process the plasma is focused and directed as exhaust by a magnetic nozzle. Vasimir is many times more efficient than conventional chemical rockets and far less fuel is needed.' The developers are finalising an agreement with NASA to fit a scaled-down version of the engine to the ISS to conduct operational tests. There is also a concept video on YouTube suggesting a journey time for a manned craft to Mars on the order of 60-70 days."

Comments

plasma exit velocity?

[oldspewey]

Neither summary nor TFA give any indication of the velocity of plasma exiting the engine. How does it compare with chemical rocket? Ion drive?

Re:plasma exit velocity?

[wurp]

This sounds a lot to me like it *is* an ion drive. I didn't RTFA, but a plasma is characterized by a separation of the electrons from the nuclei. The only difference between that and an ion drive is that not necessarily all electrons are stripped from the atom in an ion drive.

I don't know how (or if) you would distinguish between ionic hydrogen and a hydrogen plasma (hydrogen atoms have only one electron...)

In both cases you give the propellant momentum with either electric or electromagnetic force, and both are much more efficient than chemical rockets. I would also expect both to have miniscule thrust compared to chemical rockets, and hence only be appropriate for navigation when you already have orbital or superorbital velocities.

Nice to see fact moving faster than fiction

[CRCulver]

Who knows if this thing will work out, but it would be amusing if it did. In histrilogy beginning with Red Mars , Kim Stanley Robinson had interplanetary journeys being trimmed down to such short lengths only a couple of hundred years from now, and KSR's work tried hard to be scientifically plausible.

Re:Nice to see fact moving faster than fiction

[spun]

Fact is often capable of moving faster than fiction, it just takes a collective decision to make it so. We could have been to Mars already, just like we could be feeding everyone in the world. We just don't care enough.

Engine?

[jdb2]

Engine? The scaled down test version might use something "conventional" as its power source, such as an RTG. But, in order for the VASIMIR to work at full-scale, say in a human Mars mission, the power source is going need a VERY large energy density -- something not achievable with any known and tested chemical reaction. I have no idea why they call the power source the "engine" but perhaps it's to placate the environmentalist wackos who will go nuts after hearing the obvious : the "engine" or power source is a nuclear reactor. It will be interesting ( and probably funny ) to see how this plays out in the long run if NASA sticks with this technology.

jdb2

Re:Yes, attach it to the ISS

[Amouth]

actualy because this design heats the gas to a plasma state then uses EM waves to move it to create thrust - the idea could be used on just about any gas - your effeciency would be how much energy goes into heating it to a plasma state and keeping it there.

this is a great idea because they could design one engine and while the gas is consumed it could be replaced by any gas - and electricity is the true source of the power to run the engine..

we already know what gasses are readly avaliable on mars - design one to run on say H to get there (assume Hyrdogen is the easiset to heat to plasma sate) but have the engine also able to run on the gasses from Mars.. then when it gets there refill the tanks.. carge up the batteries (or use a nuke power source on the thing) and come on back - or keep going.

think of a ship with this type of drive.. then think about adding say a Bussard collector http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Bussard_collector (i know we would have to invent a bussard collector but the idea is not that hard)

if this works they way the say it does - it is going to be one of the best propultion advances for traversing our solar system.

and with us having probes leaving our system - the data from there might show that there is a good ammount of particals in the space between systems.. if that is true then you could use this to send probes to other systems. sure it would take awhile but i bet they can alwasy make improvements.

Re:Yes, attach it to the ISS

[Omega996]

yeah, designing and building a bussard collector isn't that hard, it just needs something that can generate a magnetic field that doesn't diminish as the inverse square of the distance, since your magnetic or electrostatic funnel would have to be huge to pull in enough material to be worthwhile (even inside the heliopause). unless you're planning on not using a vehicle with any live crew or any sort of electronic equipment. I'm sure the difficulty of initiating and sustaining a proton-proton fusion to generate plasma is just a quick fix (no doubt you've already figured out the materials and fuel source for your carbon-nitrogen-oxygen fusion catalyser), as are the problems associated with getting the ramjet to speeds above the solar wind (unless the vehicle is making a quick one-way trip into the sun).

not much to do there, at all. You should get right on it, and we'll be heading toward Mt. Lookitthat within a few months. *rolleyes*