NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30 days
An article in The Register looks at the potential of fusion for space travel. A team of scientists at the University of Washington has plans to build a fusion engine that could send a spaceship to Mars in just 30 days. Space travel could be expanded significantly if sourced from fusion energy.
“Using existing rocket fuels, it’s nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth,” said lead researcher John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics in a statement. “We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace.”
The proposed Fusion Driven Rocket (FDR) is a 150-ton system that uses magnetism to compress lithium or aluminum metal bands around a deuterium-tritium fuel pellet to initiate fusion. The resultant microsecond reaction forces the propellant mass out at 30 kilometers per second, and would be able to pulse every minute or so and not cause g-force damage to the spacecraft’s occupants.
To read the full article, click here.
