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VASIMR Ion Engine Could Cut Mars Trip To 39 Days
An anonymous reader writes "It would take about 39 days to reach Mars, compared to six months by conventional rocket power. 'This engine is in fact going to be tested on the International Space Station, launched about 2013,' astronaut Chris Hadfield said. The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR®) system encompasses three linked magnetic cells. The 'Plasma Source' cell involves the main injection of neutral gas (typically hydrogen, or other light gases) to be turned into plasma and the ionization subsystem. The 'RF Booster' cell acts as an amplifier to further energize the plasma to the desired temperature using electromagnetic waves. The 'Magnetic Nozzle' cell converts the energy of the plasma into directed motion and ultimately useful thrust."
Oh! And very good job of taking a sliver of truth, distorting it and turning it into an anti-environmentalist message!
You could have a career in AM Talk Radio. You just need to work in the "Liberals will stop human progress!" and you'd be making millions of dollars a year by just working 3-4 hours a day for 5 days a week!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Cigarette breaks? Ridiculous. With the new Obama tax on tobacco, they're too expensive on the average astronaut's salary.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm pretty sure that with the demonstrated launch failure rate of rockets there will be more than just the eco-hippies getting up. And while you may care or not, those in a position to actually decide and take the responsibility very much shy away from such things.
Besides, large-scale nuclear power in space is in no way off-the-shelf technology. And if you have to pour lots of money into that, using that money for developing lightweight solar technology and going the solar-electric route is not only safer, it can also much easier be scaled up and down and be used for other useful things (like probes and solar power satellites or communication satellites) while your MW reactor in space would never be much more than a very expensive one-off stunt without any long-term consequences for spaceflight. The ability to deploy large, mass-produced, lightweight solar panels may make a difference for both large and small projects, though. And it's a general engineering effort with lots of companies having good expertise in it. There is a *market* for such technology. Pushing the state of the art here is useful, there's money in it.
Nuclear power in space is very much a dead end. You don't need to be an eco-hippy to see that. People don't like it, politicians and managers don't like to take the responsibility, you can't make money from it, it gives no spin-offs, you'll never have private companies involved: it's a single-purpose, money wasting government exercise. SF from the past, not more.
A million children a day die from diseases related to a lack of safe water. Can we engineers design cheap, maintainable safe water systems? Tell me Vasimir is worth the life of one child.