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I've been reading up a little bit on NASA, the ESA and numerous other firms and their development of new experimental engine prototypes.

The MiniMag Orion one would supposedly enable us to travel at 10% the speed of light. Another one would be a very fuel-efficient and powerful ion engine. Neither prototypes list just how long it would take for the engines in question to go to Mars and back for example. Can anyone here help out and tell me if they found the estimated travel times somwhere?

Any help would be appreciated...

   

Well in reference to the MiniMag orion, if it travels at 10% of the speed of light then it would travel at 107,925,284,880 km/h. Mars is between 100 million km and 380 million km from earth depending on where it is intis orbit. Using the closest, it would take the engine 9.2656693110597791548771309576366e-4 hrs or 3.3 seconds.

I did this really quickly so if there someone finds a mistake somewhere let me know but im pretty sure this is right. Hope this helps.

   

There really hasn't been a lot of research on ion engines - most of what info you'll find will be speculation at best.

   

Andrews space

   

Calculating the transit time to mars for example involves a lot of variables.

Regardless the power source/engine there is an aceleration period before top speed is achieved and then a period of decelaration to avoid visiting the outer solar system.

This applies to this proposed MiniMag Orion as well, the acceleration and deceleration would be necessary for payload survival even if if it somehow could attain full speed on the second bound so to speak.

The requirements are lots of power and range. This involves a relatively light yet powerful engine and energy source. A tall order.

Currently, for practical purposes, the main propulsion involves slingshoting off of the gravitational fields of objects such as Jupiter.

   

The craziest method I've heard of was Project Orion and its Nuclear Pulse Propulsion.

Basically the spacecraft would have a "pusher plate" on the back and they'd periodically detonate nuclear explosives behind the craft and ride the pressure waves.

I really hope they come up with something more elegant - that method just sounds too crude.

   

Why don't they use solar power? Have the main part normal space fuel. Have a lot of solar panels all over the ship's surface. Practically covering the ship except for windows, doors, etc. After they get out of our orbit and into space. They stop the fuel pump and enable the solar power. Since they are in space, and probally more closer to the sun. There is no earths ozone layer blocking part of the suns energy so they can get a lot more. Have another device that saves and stores the energy collected so whatever they don't use they can save as backup along with the fuel they got left.

Not entirely sure it would work, however if the suns energy can fuel the ship. You practicly got unlimited energy right there and can go anywhere. Just depends on the engine.

Probally wouldn't work though, or they would have already done it.
Maybe we will find something in space that would do the trick? Because if there was something on earth that was good fuel. They would be using it now, unless of course it's in the rain forest and hasn't been discovered yet.

   

Yeah, I think that's the Mini-mag Orion concept. Back in 2006, someone somewhere created a new, dual-stage ion engine that looks promising. And unless I'm mistaken, it goes as fast as 210,000 m/s or in other words, 210km/s.

   

Solar power would rapidly fade with an increased distance from the Sun.

A more likely concept is to some-how harness the Coasmic radiation which is present even in inter-steelar space. What we really seek is an inter-stellar drive.

   

I think you missed the part where they also developed a system that saved the power it collected from the sun. Also stars would help give energy as well and there are stars everywhere.

Also we can create a space station that floats in space like the satalites, the space station would be a lot bigger then the space craft so it can support more solar panels and seeing how it would be in space near the sun 24/7. It would collect a lot of power. The space crafts can be constructed with a huge system that stores a shit load of power which wouldn't take too much space at all. When the ship docks with the station, the station transfers power to the ship unti'll the ship is full. Then the ship takes off to its destination like Mars. The station can also serve multi-purposes. Like to hold all the gear and other stuff astronauts need to fix satalites. Also to re-power satalites when they need it to avoid situations like recently.

Also if needed, a crew can live in the station and easily maintain all the satalites more easy then having to launch a new craft from earth just to reach it. You just launch one from the station which would already be in space. Saves time, and fuel.

   

A great place to discuss space technology and specifically technologies to get to Mars, is NewMars. That's the forum of the Mars Society.
http://www.newmars.com/forums

There are several space propulsion concepts:
Nuclear thermal: use a nuclear reactor to heat liquid hydrogen to super-heated gas which is exhausted out a nozzle like chemical rocket exhaust.

NERVA: Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications. They developed it at Jackass Flats, where the US military tested nuclear bombs. It worked, and the test facility is still there (although it has 1972 technology). The rocket was debugged and fine tuned. The first prototype had a problem with hypervelocity exhaust shaking the engine apart. They got that fixed and developed the engine so the next test would be in space. Then in 1972 it was cancelled along with the rest of the Apollo program. Nixon redirected funds from NASA to the Vietnam War. NERVA had a specific impulse (fuel efficiency) of 825 seconds. That means one pound of fuel will produce one pound of thrust for 825 seconds. In 1991 they upgraded the design and did computer simulations rather than a physical prototype, they got it up to 925 seconds. DARPA did a study, developed Timberwind based on a pebble bed reactor, they got it up to 1,000 seconds and the weight of the reactor was a lot less. Specifically, the mass of Timberwind 250 was 8,300kg with 250,000kgf thrust, NERVA2 massed 8,500kg with 34,000kgf thrust. To compare apples-to-apples, Timberwind 45 was a smaller version 45,000kgf thrust from engine mass 1,500kg. A significant improvement, but analysis of Timberwind showed the fuel elements would melt together, so it was a use-once only engine. NERVA could be restarted multiple times and plenty of extra power for electricity generation.

As a comparison, the main engine of the Space Shuttle was the most efficient chemical rocket engine at the time it was built. It produces 453 seconds in vacuum. There's now a LOX/LH2 engine that can produce 481 seconds, but it only works in vacuum, won't work at sea level or any atmospheric pressure at all. That gives you an idea how efficent the nuclear engines are.

gas core nuclear thermal
Use a vortex of gassified uranium with liquid hydrogen run down the middle of the vortex. The vast majority of uranium would circulate, but fission fragments (nuclear waste) would be included in the exhaust. Definitely for in-space use only. Direct contact from actively fissioning uranium with liquid hydrogen is the most efficient heat transfer. This is a very efficient engine design. Radiation is way, WAY, too much for use in Earth's atmosphere, but in space that radiation is like a teaspoon of water added to the ocean. The problem is how to test it? A solid core nuclear rocket contains the reactor in solid fuel elements so everything is contained, easy to test at Jackass Flats. But how would you test a GCNR? How do you develop a rocket that spews nuclear radiation? Consequently there hasn't been any serious work on it.

ion engines
Very high fuel efficiency but very low thrust. The idea is to slowly build speed. Great if you're not in a hurry, like an unmanned probe. A trip out to Pluto could result in reduced trip time since it could build so much speed, but for a trip to Mars you would get there before building significant speed; it would take more time than other propulsion systems.

hall effect
Similar to ion engines, same efficiency and propulsion, but uses a different principle of physics.

MPD: magnetoplasmadynamic
Almost as efficient as ion or hall, but a simpler design and can use hydrogen instead of xenon gas.

microwave water (I forget the name)
Medium thrust, medium fuel efficiency, uses water as propellant.

VASMR: Variable Specific impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket
Uses a slightly different principle of physics, but basically uses radio waves to heat liquid hydrogen similar to a microwave heating water. Contains the heated gas in a chamber for maximum pressure. Exhaust nozzle can be choked down for high pressure, producing low thrust but high fuel efficiency. Or openned for low pressure, high thrust but low fuel efficiency. Think of it as high gear and low gear for a rocket. Requires so much power that solar panels won't be enough, it needs a nuclear reactor. Uses liquid hydrogen as propellant, not xenon, so fuel is plentiful and cheap. Problem is the guy working on it still hasn't quite got it to work yet. At "high gear" the gas is so hot it would melt any known material so he uses a magnetic bottle. That leads to the same old problem of containing a high enough concentration of hot gas to be useful without leaking. Leakage could result in hot plasma touching the sides of the chamber, melting it.

Solar sail
A giant thin film of mylar, reflects light, uses light pressure for propulsion. Extremely low thrust but no propellant. Only works in the inner solar system, intensity of light outside the orbit of Mars is too low to produce any useful thrust.

MMPP: mini-magnetosphere plasma propulsion
A big magnet captures solar wind, uses that for propulsion. The magnet captures some ionized plasma, an electric current run through the plasma creates a bigger magnetic field, which captures more plasma, etc. There is a limit to how big the magnetosphere can inflate, the bigger the magnet the larger the maximum size of the magnetosphere. Also the closer to the sun the smaller the magnetosphere, due to solar wind stripping off loosely held plasma. But solar wind pressure is greater close to the sun. Total pressure from the sun remains the same from Mercury to Pluto, a slow but steady force. MMPP (or magnetic sail) provides more thrust than a solar sail (or light sail) but it requires significant power to run the electromagnets and electric current through the plasma.

Orion
Drop a series of nuclear bombs behind the spacecraft, with a concussion plate attached via shock absorbers to the spacecraft. Requires lifting hundreds of nuclear bombs in space (would other countries trust anyone who tried that?), and to work the spacecraft has to be inside the nuclear bomb's blast radius. Do you want to be that close to a nuclear bomb when it goes off?

   

IMO Orion sounds really idiotic. Isn't that what messed up our ozone layer before? Indeed, lets go for round two! . The hell is wrong with people.

   

At this point it is difficult to conceive any working concept. There is a close parallel to aviation in 1900. Hopwever history has shown that technology can advance rapidly.....remember only about 40 years separated kitty Hawk from the first breaking of the sound barrier, and then 20 years before the SR71's first flight.

We could have a break-through tomorrow or languish a century or more.

   

the prob newest would be fusion energy. If possible something that would be able to generate its own gravitional field so speed of light could be acomplished.

   

I'd say ion engines would be pretty good for getting to the outer solar system slash leaving it entirely...

As for future interplanetary colonies in the solar system, Something that had a nuclear reactor at its core would be best...

   

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