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article image39 days to Mars- It can be done
By Paul Wallis.
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Feb 26, 2010 by ■ Paul Wallis - 30 votes, 11 comments
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Illustration courtesy of ESA
Mars: Future space exploration.
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Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket isn’t a household word, but it soon could be. It’s an engine 6 times faster than the existing clunkers, and uses a very important principle which Star Trek fans would recognize as “impulse” power.
VASIMR is a concept from no less an institution than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. This idea has officially been around for a while, since at least 2001, according to a Johnson Space Center techbrief note, and I heard about it earlier than that, and it’s real science, not a storyline. The theory is phased pulses of ionized power generating progressively faster speeds, up to 55 km a second on current estimates.
Far more importantly, this principle involves the use of magnetic fields as propulsion. This is potentially a far more powerful, far more efficient means of propulsion than chemical power can achieve. This is a prototype concept for an entirely new class of propulsion, and it’s the equivalent of rubbing two sticks together in terms of difficulty.
What’s important about this concept is that magnetic fields and their ability to provide motive power have no real theoretical upper limit. There’s a definite limit to what you can do with rocket fuels, internal combustion engines and pedals, but not with this type of power, except how much of it you can generate.
MIT physicist Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut and now physicist at MIT, is the mind which has escaped the chemical rocket syndrome. As ABC Australia reports:
His rocket would use electricity to transform a fuel - likely hydrogen, helium or deuterium - into plasma gas that is heated to 11 million degrees Celsius.
The plasma gas is then channeled into tailpipes using magnetic fields to propel the spacecraft.
That would send a shuttle hurtling toward the moon or Mars at ever faster speeds up to an estimated 55 kilometres per second until the engines are reversed.
The magnetic fields are controlled by three “magnetic cells”: An injector, amplifier and a two stage director. If someone injects the idea into the space industry, amplifies it so it’s properly understood as a commercial and scientific concept, and then starts steering, it’ll be an entire new phase in space exploration.
Please note that this is a basic design concept. Advances will produce much greater speeds, range and efficiencies across the spectrum. Nuclear powered magnetic fields are an obvious option, but at this early stage there are design, weight and safety issues to be considered, and it’s far more important that the principle gets properly tested and developed.
It’s fascinating stuff, and shows that the thinking, at least, if not the funding, has been paying attention to the new idea as a real working option. Ad Astra (to the stars) Rocket Company of Texas, (Chang-Diaz is CEO) is the backer for this idea, and they’re pulling no punches about the possibilities. There are two basic models VX 200, the experimental lab model, and VF 200, which is a flight unit
(I look forward to the day when they change their name to Ad Astra Ion Engine Company.)
As you can see from the link, this is nothing fancy, nothing difficult, all known technology and physics, just infinitely more efficient. One thing that's very different about VASIMR is that this isn't just another great idea that gets a few murmurs of interest and goes away. It's fundamental physics, irrefutably doable at all levels. Another aspect of Chang-Diaz’s idea which will get attention and keep it is that the extra power also increases payload potentials, dramatically. Chemical rockets, which have to fight Earth’s downright uncooperative gravity, need massive amounts of fuel just to get into orbit.
That means the net payload is a measly 5%, and that’s truly lousy economics for space flight. The cost-inefficiencies of chemical rockets are built in. They’re budget-killers, and they’ve created a log jam of science trying to get into space. The cost factor for a hydrogen based VASIMR is much cheaper.
(The concept of field drive in science fiction isn’t actually fiction. It’s been around for decades, and like most sci-fi is derived from scientific principles, rather than a desire to avoid technical issues. The technology, however, has been taking its own sweet time getting moving. Magnetic fields aren’t new science. The turbine, one of the most efficient, powerful engines ever invented, is based on fundamentally the same principle.)
Another aspect of VASIMR is that it’s likely to make manned space travel far safer. Use of relatively simple fuels adds some ability for missions to do things for themselves. Backup will be able to pitch in at much longer ranges, and much more quickly, carrying much more payload. For any sort of interplanetary expedition, it’s an important failsafe option. Robots using VASIMR will be able to do far more extensive work around the Solar System, with much longer lives, and retrieval missions like the asteroid and comet missions won’t take years.
Chemical rockets are basically 1950s technology. The pressing cultural problem is that science on the ground is now so much more advanced, and space technology is still driving a mule cart. That’s created a serious disconnect. It would be incomprehensible to any modern scientist that anything could take years. They can do millions of tests in that time frame. Waiting for a bus to do research in space, and a very infrequent, expensive bus at that, isn’t helping. Space science isn’t getting the attention it used to get, and needs, to promote new science.
Worse, the declining credibility of poor NASA’s politically plagued policies and stingy funding has reduced it to a crawl. That’s greatly reduced the returns from commercial missions, and handed valuable space business to other nations on a plate. The hope now is that commercial interests will take over and provide the sort of dynamics required to create an efficient, cost effective space program. VASIMR is a very good start in that direction, because it produces real commercial possibilities, not a bus queue of limited options.
The commercial potentials are theoretically bigger than anything in history. There is no limit to what can be done in space. Ironically, the word “space” is very apt. It’s something we’re becoming very short of, on Earth. If VASIMR gets moving to operational status, the paradigm will change drastically, overnight.
This could be a giant sprint for mankind.
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