VASIMR Rocket Could Send Humans To Mars In Just 39 Days
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VASIMR Rocket Could Send Humans To Mars In Just 39 Days
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Current prototypes working for less than a minute to over 100hrs with only 10 million. I guess good luck to them. Or actual costs being a fair bit higher. Hope they can build upon the technology and figure out a way to also bring people back from Mars once they're there.
A new type of rocket that could send humans to Mars in less than six weeks instead of six months or longer may be one step closer to reality.
NASA has selected Texas-based Ad Astra Rocket Company for a round of funding to help develop the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR. The new rocket uses plasma and magnets, not to lift spacecraft into orbit but to propel them further and faster once they've escaped the planet's atmosphere.
“It is a rocket like no other rocket that you might have seen in the past. It is a plasma rocket," Dr. Franklin Chang-Díaz, a former shuttle astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra said in a video describing the rocket. "The VASIMR engine is not used for launching things into space or landing them back but rather it is used for things already there. We call this ‘in-space propulsion.'"
NASA has selected Texas-based Ad Astra Rocket Company for a round of funding to help develop the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR. The new rocket uses plasma and magnets, not to lift spacecraft into orbit but to propel them further and faster once they've escaped the planet's atmosphere.
“It is a rocket like no other rocket that you might have seen in the past. It is a plasma rocket," Dr. Franklin Chang-Díaz, a former shuttle astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra said in a video describing the rocket. "The VASIMR engine is not used for launching things into space or landing them back but rather it is used for things already there. We call this ‘in-space propulsion.'"
In ideal conditions, the rocket could propel a spacecraft to Mars in just 39 days.
So far, a non-nuclear prototype has been able to fire for less than a minute at a time:
The NASA contract, worth about $10 million over three years, would go toward creating a prototype that could operate at high power for a minimum of 100 hours, the company said in a news release.
So far, a non-nuclear prototype has been able to fire for less than a minute at a time:
The NASA contract, worth about $10 million over three years, would go toward creating a prototype that could operate at high power for a minimum of 100 hours, the company said in a news release.
Current prototypes working for less than a minute to over 100hrs with only 10 million. I guess good luck to them. Or actual costs being a fair bit higher. Hope they can build upon the technology and figure out a way to also bring people back from Mars once they're there.
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That's the whole point, just to see if there is justification to invest more money. $10 million isn't a rocket engine development budget.