Re: Mars In 39 Days via ...The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket.

"jonathan" <Not@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:Fr6dnd9na-
c6IcvXnZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Via The Fourth State of Matter, according to Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz.
Friend and fellow astronaut of soon to be NASA administrator Bolden.

This new technology was mentioned during NASA confirmation hearings
by General Bolden the other day.


NASA Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory

"This plasma rocket drive is not powered by conventional chemical reactions
as today's rockets are, but by electrical energy that heats the propellant.
The propellant is a plasma that reaches extreme temperatures - 50,000º
and above. Some scientists call this the fourth state of matter."

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/researching/aspl/index.html



This is simply another type of nuclear propulsion. They keep hiding the
fact that these kinds of rocket engines need nuclear reactors as their
power source. If you're going nuclear we might as well revive some of
the nuclear rocket engines from the 50's and 60's, since they are known
to work and fully developed. The radioactive cloud them emit is of no
consequence in space. Worst case different ships will need to take
slightly different paths to prevent flying through each other's
radioactive cloud but that's about it.

However, I foresee great apprehension against these drives once people
find out they are nuclear and we need to risk flying nuclear fuel rods
aboard a rocket to get them into space. If there's a launch accident
we'll have a major contamination of the Atlantic Ocean on our hands.

OTOH I'm convinced that nuclear rockets are the only way we'll be able
to explore and colonize our own solar system, chemical rockets are
simply too inefficient. Uranium has been spotted on the Moon, but I
doubt we'll ever mine it since it's simply too expensive and most
nations will simply take the cheaper route and take the risk of
contamination for granted.

.

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