Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Electric Rockets Set To Transform Space Flight

Posted by Soulskill on from the flying-to-the-future-at-full-impulse dept.

An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at Txchnologist: "The spectacle of a booster rocket lifting off a launch pad atop a mass of brilliant flames and billowing smoke is an iconic image of the Space Age. Such powerful chemical rockets are needed to break the bonds of Earth's gravity and send spacecraft into orbit. But once a vehicle has progressed beyond low-earth orbit chemical rockets are not necessarily the best way to get around outer space. That's because chemical propulsion systems require such large quantities of fuel to generate high speeds, there is little room for payload. As a result rocket scientists are increasingly turning to electric rockets, which accelerate propellants out the back end using solar-powered electromagnetic fields rather than chemical reactions. The electric rockets use so much less propellant that the entire spacecraft can be much more compact, which enables them to scale down the original launch boosters."

5 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. First electric post by Spliffster · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tesla would love this shit!

  2. Ion Drive isn't new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is old technology and the benefits of this have already been realized in many satellites. There is literature going back well over a decade documenting the trade space.

    1. Re:Ion Drive isn't new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      More like decades; quoted from Wikipedia,

      The official father of the concept of electric propulsion is Konstantin Tsiolkovsky as he is the first to publish mention of the idea in 1911. However, the first documented instance where the possibility of electric propulsion is considered is found in Robert H. Goddard's handwritten notebook in an entry dated 6 September 1906. The first experiments with ion thrusters were carried out by Goddard at Clark University from 1916–1917.The technique was recommended for near-vacuum conditions at high altitude, but thrust was demonstrated with ionized air streams at atmospheric pressure. The idea appeared again in Hermann Oberth's "Wege zur Raumschiffahrt” (Ways to Spaceflight), published in 1923, where he explained his thoughts on the mass savings of electric propulsion, predicted its use in spacecraft propulsion and attitude control, and advocated electrostatic acceleration of charged gases.

      A working ion thruster was built by Harold R. Kaufman in 1959 at the NASA Glenn Research Center facilities. It was similar to the general design of a gridded electrostatic ion thruster with mercury as its fuel. Suborbital tests of the engine followed during the 1960s and in 1964 the engine was sent into a suborbital flight aboard the Space Electric Rocket Test 1 (SERT 1). It successfully operated for the planned 31 minutes before falling back to Earth.

  3. Ahh, the future by squidflakes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The best part about living where I live is that they are building VASMIR engines down the street. It would be a long walk, but I could still walk to a freaking starship drive factory.

  4. Re:OT: Rocket Scientists Are Not Scientists by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you're building new drives to experiment with, you're a scientist. If you're following established principles to build a drive then you're an engineer.

    The distinction isn't nearly as clear as you imply, and isn't based on your criteria.

    I have degrees in oth science and engineering. Normally I do science with a bit of engineering, figuring out how to do new things. Sometimes I do engineering with a smattering of science figuring out how to do those new things out in the field.