Posted on 10/14/2017 12:24:08 PM PDT by MtnClimber
A thruster that's being developed for a future NASA mission to Mars broke several records during recent tests, suggesting that the technology is on track to take humans to the Red Planet within the next 20 years, project team members said.
The X3 thruster, which was designed by researchers at the University of Michigan in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Air Force, is a Hall thruster — a system that propels spacecraft by accelerating a stream of electrically charged atoms, known as ions. In the recent demonstration conducted at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio, the X3 broke records for the maximum power output, thrust and operating current achieved by a Hall thruster to date, according to the research team at the University of Michigan and representatives from NASA.
"We have shown that X3 can operate at over 100 kW of power," said Alec Gallimore, who is leading the project, in an interview with Space.com. "It operated at a huge range of power from 5 kW to 102 kW, with electrical current of up to 260 amperes. It generated 5.4 Newtons of thrust, which is the highest level of thrust achieved by any plasma thruster to date," added Gallimore, who is dean of engineering at the University of Michigan. The previous record was 3.3 Newtons, according to the school.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearscience.com ...
Face it, we will be on Mars soon and then all the other planets.
Continuous acceleration in zero gravity and no “resistance”.
I assume that would be a decent speed achieved.
In a gravity-free-vacuum environment like space, the mass is almost irrelevant. Even a tiny push will move a mountain, and it will not stop (virtually no friction). Give it a tiny push every second (like from an engine that is constantly operating), for days and weeks and months and years, and the speed will be ever-increasing (constant acceleration instead of constant speed).
Why if you started by the Eiffel tower, in two weeks you’d be at the Louvre ...
The Jovian ice-covered watery moon called Europa is the one that I think will be the most interesting and most useful. If we have life in our most frigid and darkest ocean depths, why can’t Europa?
One newton is the amount of force needed to accelerate one kilogram one meter per second per second.
Consider that one kilogram weighs 2.2 lbs, and the acceleration of gravity is 9.8 meters per second per second. Therefore one newton in pounds is 2.2/9.8 = 0.225.
Steve Wright asked an interesting question years ago. If you’re in a car traveling at the speed of light and you turn the headlights on, what happens?
If the car is traveling (just less than) the speed of light:
The headlights look normal to you driving the car. The car and light from the headlights appear frozen to everyone else ( this would actually happen if the car were entering a black hole, just before the event horizon - observers would see the car stalled at the EV, “never” actually entering).
467 m/s = 1045 mph
“Why if you started by the Eiffel tower, in two weeks you’d be at the Louvre ...”
Obviously math and physics are not your strong suits.
It depends on the mission and the design of the payload.
If the target is Mars, aerobraking in the upper atmosphere can shed a lot of velocity and energy. It is also hard on the capsule, and more dangerous, but a much shorter transit time might be worth it.
“If the car is traveling (just less than) the speed of light: The headlights look normal to you driving the car. The car and light from the headlights appear frozen to everyone else “
If you see it traveling at just less than the speed of light how is it that it appears ‘frozen’?
The event horizon is a vortex, so I don’t understand how it would look “frozen”.
Obviously humor is not yours ....
” The headlights look normal to you driving the car. The car and light from the headlights appear frozen to everyone else ( this would actually happen if the car were entering a black hole, just before the event horizon - observers would see the car stalled at the EV, “never” actually entering)..”
Given that no light escapes the black hole, there will be no car seen entering.
However the light ‘stops’ coming from the car after entering the black hole thus it will disappear.
Before the event horizon, the car will NOT be seen normal as the light will be more and more red-shifted as it approaches the event horizon.
“I have no idea how much a Newton is, do you know how much that would be in terms of horse power? I am old school.”
Newton is a unit of force.
Horse power is a unit of power.
Because of time compression/dilation (depending on your point of view). To you, outside the situation, time for the car does not appear to be advancing i.e. it is frozen.
The red shift is another consequence of time. But the driver does not see any change.
“Because of time compression/dilation (depending on your point of view). To you, outside the situation, time for the car does not appear to be advancing i.e. it is frozen.”
It is all relative. You assumed a frame of reference (you) by giving it a speed.
If you see it traveling fast, it cannot seem to be frozen to you!
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