A scientist is building 'immortal' plasma rockets to send humans to Mars

[spinner981]

An extreme minority of religious people hold that the Earth is flat, and most of those are probably people taking the piss. So in a sense, responding to a jab at flat earthers by interpreting it as a jab at religion is sort of insulting to reasonable religious people everywhere, imo.

Obviously the tip off was the firmament comment, not the flat earth one. The insulting part is the equivocation of a belief in a firmament (which many believe used to exist in the past), to a belief in a flat earth (which is not anywhere near a belief exclusive to religion).

[Skroe]

I need @Skroe to come in and talk about how this rocket and Mars tech. Could spend the whole day reading that shit.

Also, Sky colonies in Venus are the way to go. Or underground colonies in Mars already seen massive holes.

Also, on a planet of 8 billion people . We can easily find someone willing to make a one way trip to Mars. Seems they are trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist. Or at least doesn't need to be solved right now. Let the plasma rocket break the ship as it will,as long as we can make it last long enough to get there.

The safe rule of thumb is that the more conservative the technology the more likely NASA will use it in a manned mission.

We've heard a lot about (supposedly) revolutionary breakthrough engines the past half decade. VASIMR, this, EM-Drive, among others. Some like VASIMR have potential. Others like EM-Drive, are likely frauds. But regardless, they're too exotic to be used by NASA in all liklihood, including this.

The Mars Design Reference Architecture has two potential models, one of which is based around a nuclear powered engine and nuclear power on the surface. You can read it here:

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/373665main_...P-2009-566.pdf


(see page 25 section 4.3 for the nuclear thermal rocket reference in detail, and page 41, section 5.4 in the above document for some discussion on surface system power)


There is also a checmical rocket alternative. But the design in question uses a Nuclear Thermal rocket. Of any engine to be used to go to Mars in the late 2030s, that is the one I believe will be used, if not chemical. Nuclear Thermal Rocket technology is 40 years old and was ready to fly in the 1970s. They're simple really. NASA built a flight ready one with NERVA and fired it. It was ready to go. The biggest problem is political will.

NASA will have to choose a propulsion method for a Marsbourne craft within the next 10 years (probably on the later end of that). If they decide to do VASIMR, or Nuclear Thermal Rocket or something else, they're going to need a powerful space-bourne nuclear reactor. There will need to be a launched proof-of-concept test bed before that is launched. That's a 10 year program. You start in 2026, and you have a Mars-Mission ready model by the late 2030s, exactly when its needed.

Electric Vehicles in space have tremendous potential, but they too, require a huge power source, and it won't be solar electric. Not for a large manned craft. It will have to be nuclear and the clock is truly ticking on getting started on that. NASA did a lot of great work with Project Prometheus a decade ago, to this end, and the work continues under a different name and smaller office, but the next few congresses will have to start laying the ground work to build a reactor powerful enough for a warship, but to be used in space, if we're truly going to go to mars using anything other than chemical rockets.