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Ex-Astronaut Developing Plasma Rocket To Revitalize NASA
TechReviewAl writes "Former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz believes that the private sector can revitalize NASA, and his company is developing a plasma rocket to back up that claim. Chang Diaz argues that private industry can be used to develop much of the basic technology needed for space exploration, allowing NASA to focus on more sophisticated and critical components. His company, Ad Astra, is developing a variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMR) that will be used to reposition the International Space Station. Last week, the rocket passed an important milestone in testing — reaching 200 kilowatts (enough to move the ISS). A video of the rocket can be seen on Ad Astra's site."
I've been building this big ol' rocket in my barn, here in Texas. If I could just get the feds off my back long enough to fuel the thing, I'd be happy to help out.
If you measure distance in terms of transit times, the sustainable thrust potential of this technology would make the Solar System the same size to travelers as the Earth was during the Age of Sail.
VASIMR means the only expensive part is getting to LEO. Once there, a space tug using VASIMR can lift satellites to GEO for almost nothing (compared to today's prices). It's not really fast enough for human travel, but for moving equipment around Earth orbit (or elsewhere), it's very promising. Between this and SpaceX reducing the price to LEO, the next 10 years should be very exciting in commercial space travel.
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VASIMR can fire for up to 10 minutes at 200 kW using trickle charged batteries.
http://spacefellowship.com/2008/12/13/nasa-and-ad-astra-rocket-company-sign-agreement-for-flight-test-of-the-vasimr-rocket-engine-aboard-the-international-space-station/
A cynical view I know. But the US Gov pays through the nose to train these guys who then just retire and try to cash in on the Washington gravy train. Just like the rest of the high level military, political and bureaucratic employees that leave gov employment in order to cash in. Typical and sad.
Why is that "sad"? Would you keep working for the Government if you had a skillset that was going to enable you to make a lot more money in the private sector? Does it also bother you when someone gets an entry level IT job and then leaves for greener pastures once they acquire sufficient work experience?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Or maybe, just maybe, the guy got a doctorate in plasma physics, and flew 7 Space Shuttle missions (which isn't exactly safe), directed the NASA Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory, and is investing in plasma rocket research after his NASA tenure because he's interested in plasma physics, rocket science, and the possibilities of space flight.
I am officially gone from
Can't any amount of power move the ISS just at a slower rate?
But the US Gov pays through the nose to train these guys who then just retire and try to cash in on the Washington gravy train.
Yeah he retired after "just" twenty five years. He really screwed NASA on that one!
And what, after he retires, he's not supposed to do the most obvious things related to his education and experience? He was working on plasma rockets before he made it to NASA. So is it worse that he's planning to work on plasma rockets to sell to NASA after working for them for a quarter century, rather than going into private industry straight out of college? Why? Because it vaguely fits a stereotype of ex-government employees leaving to work for contractors?
A cynical view I know.
Yeah... What's the word where cynicism is used as a replacement for understanding? Kinda like "blind optimism", but the opposite? Blind cynicism doesn't sound right. As a cynic, I've always liked the expression "cynicism is realism plus experience". But you're not being realistic. So... what is it that you're doing?
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A non-chemical rocket that can produce that level of thrust is absolutely news, it has the potential to open up the solar system. Personally, I'd rather see research and developement into ground to orbit launch technologies, but this is a big part of moving things quickly from one part of the system to another.
To be fair, the title is what is wrong, it should be "VASIMR Tested at Full Power" not "VASIMR under developement".
AFAIK they have been working on VASIMR for over a decade now... This isn't exactly "news"
I think you're mistaken, "news" and "new" aren't the same thing. If you're pining for something "new" in this "news" it's the fact that they passed a significant milestone last week.
Note: If English isn't your first language and you're mistaking "news" as the plural of "new" (which usually doesn't have a plural as it's not generally used as a noun) disregard.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
This is the same kind of math used by proponents of President Obama's healthcare socialization package. If you will, it's also the same math used to justify the Soviet command economy.
On paper, eliminating profits saves money for the hypothetical society. In reality, however, eliminating profit also eliminates self-interest, which very effectively stagnates or degrades the enterprise... be it at the level of a single supermarket, or the economy of the wealthiest country on Earth.
The reason why this doesn't work, is because you need several things to get something accomplished. You need the WILL to start it... the RESPONSIBILITY to see it through, and the MEANS to get it done. Socialism helps with the means... but not the will. Capitalism helps with the will, by accepting man as the egotistical bastard he is, and appealing to the basest of desires: greed.
But nothing helps with responsibility. For as long as clerks with 1-inch fingernails will 1-finger-type endless requisition forms to get anything done in large organizations (which includes companies as well as governments) with zero interest or concern for what they are doing, waste will reign supreme. At least in private enterprise, this is somewhat moderated by the need for more profit. A government bureaucracy, on the other hand, is like entropy. It spontaneously expands, and this can only be reversed locally, at an even greater cost to the entire system.
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So we've got a _really smart_ guy we've paid to educate, paid for many years to perform exactly 7 times... I'm not about to give him a free pass just because he's got a doctorate and a handful of mission patches.
Given your flippant tone, I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that 7 space shuttle flights is as many as anyone has ever done. Only one other astronaut has as many missions under their belt. This is because space flight is a Big Deal. Astronauts often train for years for a single specific mission.
By the way...how do you amass enough cash to personally invest significantly in this kind of endeavor, considering otherwise "normal" governmental salaries in the 70-130k/year range?Or is he primarily a front man - a very smart one - who is helping to get money from others (perhaps old colleagues with strings to government funds?) to pursue this research.
Front-man... inventor of the technology the company makes... Yeah, same thing.
I'm not saying he's not doing interesting, and possibly valuable, research, but I'm not about to give him a free pass just because he's got a doctorate and a handful of mission patches.
What does that even mean? A "pass" from what? What horrible sin has he allegedly committed? Leaving NASA after a mere twenty five years and a record number of shuttle missions? Turning his research into plasma propulsion into a real invention? Throw me a bone here!
Now, if he's made a bunch of money doing other things (dot com bubble investor?), and is pursuing this as a purely speculative path, then good for him.
Oh I see. So if he'd managed to fund this venture without having done anything productive rather than inventing a new propulsion system, then you'd be cool with it.
WTF is with these comments?
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Bank in 1999. electricity has been generated in space by dragging a copper tether though the earth's magnetic field (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/astronauts-seek-power-in-space-1319781.html).
Presumably this produced drag. Can't this "drag" be used for some near earth maneuvering using a mesh system to create an electromagnetic sail by which one might tack? Or is the amount of force to small to be useful?
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While 180 day circumnavigation is possible, the travelers of the 16th-18th Centuries usually took three to four years to circle the globe. That's the basis for the comparison I was making.
So if Mr. Astronaut became a lobbyist instead that'd be okay too? Or a Medal of Honor winner who pimps his heroism out to lobby for munitions makers seeking gov contracts? Guns and bombs is what he knows right?
But that's not what he's doing, now is it? He's starting a private company, with private investment, and creating what he hopes are practical solutions for other private industries and NASA.
This is exactly what I'm talking about -- "cynicism" is not saying "this will end badly" without concern for the specifics of what "this" is. You have to look at the actual reality and distinguish based on that. "So if he [did something else] that'd be okay too?", implying no distinction based on the actual activity or its outcome, is the opposite of realism.
For a self described cynic (as in always asking "who benefits?") you sure do have a idealistic outlook which goes against the weight of the evidence about who lobbys and for what.
He is going to benefit, obviously so, because he's the CEO of the company. What's the problem again? He's going to get a nice NASA contract, become Yet Another Defense Contractor, and lobby congress to give NASA more funds? Oh noes!
You don't sound like a cynic to me. You sound like a betrayed idealist, with a rosy-eyed view of how things "should" be, and constantly finding that not to be the case. So you say things will end badly in some vague way, without regard to what's actually happening because it doesn't matter.
Personally, seeing someone trying to use the 'best of both worlds' of private enterprise and government contracts to drag NASA kicking and screaming out of the 60s warms my cynical heart.
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I'm not sure you understand the potential that any particular astronaut has to ruin hundreds of billions of dollars of government investment. If an astronaut meant to, or just screwed up at something that may have seemed inconsequential at the time, the deaths of the people onboard would be, while publicly tear-jerking, relatively inconsequential compared to the gross loss of capital for the agency. (Less now that they're intending to stop using the shuttles altogether, but to some degree still.)
The fact that he made it through training and became an astronaut means that he was worthy of being trusted with a hundred-billion-plus dollar space ship. That's what the training is for. That's why we pay their training, and why we pay them. Not only could they die in a spectacular fireball if they make the wrong mistake--or if someone else does--but it's possible they could completely ruin NASA's chances of ever being useful again by swaying public opinion. A single person could--or could have--singlehandedly set back mankind's exploration of space by decades or longer.
And you've really got the balls to say that spending the money that he got as part of that trust to keep advancing something he loves and believes in is less respectable than if he had taken his money, gambled with it on the stock market, and taken whatever gains he had and spent them on this as an outsider?
Disclosure: I am related to a former high-ranking NASA employee, and while that doesn't make me an expert, I do have at least SOME sense of scale about the damned thing.
Despite it's high specific impulse this engine isn't the whole answer to the exploration of the solar system. Blame the inverse square law.
It may be feasible to power an slow unmanned Earth-Moon VASIMR transfer vehicle with solar, but at Mars solar radiation is only 25% as strong and at Jupiter it's 4%. So you are talking about nuclear for probes to the outer planets and for manned missions to anywhere.
There's nothing technological that would stop space-based nuclear but you just know it'll take years to get that done.
New Scientist has an article that says VASIMR + nuclear = 39-day transit time to Mars.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Orange Soda? This is rocket science, they use Tang.
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