NASA Successfully Tests Ion Engine

Spaceref ^ | 11/20/03

[KevinDavis]

or some form of faster then light technology i.e. B5 hyperpsace or Andromeda slipstream. I think in 60 years we will have some form FTL. I could be wrong.

[Eala]

NASA seems to have been overcome by that age old nemisis of too many chiefs.

I remember in '73 or '74 a NASA researcher gloomily observing that they had just passed the point of one administrator per researcher...

[Camel Joe]

and we need to get off this rock before something big hits it!!

[edwin hubble]

>Deep Space1 put out 90 millinewtons of thrust, this is putting out around .9 Newtons of thrust with an ISP of >6000.

Could we get this past 10,000-20,000 ISP with around 100 Newtons of thrust? A technology definitely worth investigating.

What the hell did you just say?!

English Please?

---

OK.
ISP is specific thrust:
This is: thrust (pounds, for instance) for a time (seconds) per mass of propellant (kg, for instance).

So, Deep Space 1 has Isp of 3,100:
That's a thrust of about .1 newton (or .022 pounds) for 310,000 seconds for each kg of propellant.

Thus, (for instance - numbers not exact) the earlier Deep Space 1 100 kg of propellant will run for 30 million seconds
or more than a year with a thrust of less than an ounce.

It has run for at least 40 million seconds or used 127 kg of propellant.

Long-distance interplantary probes can use low thrust for long periods. They minimize the propellant mass (for efficiency) and maximize the acceleration of the propellant (no 'burning' reaction, only an electrostatic charge which accelerates an ion).

The ion engine is like the solar sail concept in that it uses low power over a long time. A spacecraft of small mass can accelerate over time.

For the example above, a 100 kg craft for 450 days would get to more than 90,000 miles per hour. (but would typically spend half the travel time decelerating).

[irv]

Granted I think it's an interesting and cool idea, but is it something I want the government to take care of?

The government has a legitimate role in the development of infrastructure. It's fine for them to develop (some of) the technology and run the space ports. There's no need for them to run all the shuttles, too.

[skinkinthegrass]

Oh yea, don't forget about that little "meter vs foot" thing this time, ok? Sheese.

Really..they (from venus) have'nt stop bitching about that one.

[skinkinthegrass]

Level flight low speed (100mph) test scheduled for spring :)

Moeller 4000 shall fly.

[skinkinthegrass]

There are over 2 million words...create objective confusion.

Good point.

[edwin hubble]

Restating the beginning of #104:

Specific Impulse (ISP) is also known as Specific Thrust:

[King Prout]

I'm working on something along those lines... sort-of

[billbears]

The government has a legitimate role in the development of infrastructure.

Not always it hasn't. And that was not the intent under the Constitution. Granted I don't see how the infrastructure already in place could be privatized without a generational plan, but it does not condone further 'development of infrastructure', especially in a place there is no infrastructure, namely space

[irv]

especially in a place there is no infrastructure, namely space

So, since there is little infrastructure (Cape Canaveral does count as infrastructure), that means we have no interest in building any?

You came out against the Louisiana Purchase, "Seward's Folly' (the purchase of Alaska for those of you from Rio Linda) and the Lewis and Clark expedition, didn't you?

[R. Scott]

Upward and onward!

[Frank_Discussion]

I like it as a backup technique, but I wouldn't want it ingrained as an architectural backbone to any system. No ship should be beholden to ground control and power.

[Frank_Discussion]

But you could be right. The technology isn't there yet, but there is a LOT of theory being firmed up on how to pull a ship out of Einstein's clutches. Sixty years? Perhaps, maybe sooner. A century on the outside.

[KevinDavis]

I read an article from Discover maganzine talking about this issue of having ships going ftl or close to ftl. One theroy caught my attention was the ramjet theory. What it was, it allowed a ship that would scoop up particles and have it processed as fuel. The only drawback was that the ship could go into an area with no particles and it could stop in space. I wish I still had that magazine.

[Frank_Discussion]

Broussard Scoop, I think it's called. The idea's been around a while, and it's actually not bad, though running out of fuel is a true concern. I could see it as a good way to get around a solar sysem, though, solar wind and all being ever-present.

The FTL stuff I'm excited about is the possibility of really "warping" space. The surface of space and time (spacetime) can actually move faster than light, so the idea is that a ship creates a bubble of spacetime that is steerable from one point to another. The ship inside the bubble is non-moving while carried inside, so you don't have all of those pesky relativistic effects. The big drawback (and even that is shrinking) is the large amount of energy required, and it's type. Subsequent theories are finding ways to whittle down the energy problem.

[KevinDavis]

I saw that idea on the Science channel before they stop showing human space flight programs. That would be good way going to Mars or Jupiter or whatever. However as for going to Alpha Centauri, no way.

As we find a way around the energy problem, look out it is either Alpha Centauri or bust!