New and Improved Antimatter Spaceship for Mars Missions

NASA/GODDARD ^ | 04.14.06 | Bill Steigerwald

[cabojoe]

Most self-respecting starships in science fiction stories use antimatter as fuel for a good reason – it’s the most potent fuel known. While tons of chemical fuel are needed to propel a human mission to Mars, just tens of milligrams of antimatter will do (a milligram is about one-thousandth the weight of a piece of the original M&M candy). However, in reality this power comes with a price. Some antimatter reactions produce blasts of high energy gamma rays. Gamma rays are like X-rays on steroids. They penetrate matter and break apart molecules in cells, so they are not healthy to be around. High-energy gamma rays can also make the engines radioactive by fragmenting atoms of the engine material.

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is funding a team of researchers working on a new design for an antimatter-powered spaceship that avoids this nasty side effect by producing gamma rays with much lower energy.

Antimatter is sometimes called the mirror image of normal matter because while it looks just like ordinary matter, some properties are reversed. For example, normal electrons, the familiar particles that carry electric current in everything from cell phones to plasma TVs, have a negative electric charge. Anti-electrons have a positive charge, so scientists dubbed them "positrons".

When antimatter meets matter, both annihilate in a flash of energy. This complete conversion to energy is what makes antimatter so powerful. Even the nuclear reactions that power atomic bombs come in a distant second, with only about three percent of their mass converted to energy.

Previous antimatter-powered spaceship designs employed antiprotons, which produce high-energy gamma rays when they annihilate. The new design will use positrons, which make gamma rays with about 400 times less energy.

[burzum]

It will be safer to launch as well. If a rocket carrying a nuclear reactor explodes, it could release radioactive particles into the atmosphere. "Our positron spacecraft would release a flash of gamma-rays if it exploded, but the gamma rays would be gone in an instant. There would be no radioactive particles to drift on the wind. The flash would also be confined to a relatively small area. The danger zone would be about a kilometer (about a half-mile) around the spacecraft. An ordinary large chemically-powered rocket has a danger zone of about the same size, due to the big fireball that would result from its explosion," said Smith.

This was a neat way for the engineer to downplay the energy of a nuclear bomb being released. I can't believe he actually thinks it would be safer to launch a rocket which if it has an issue will explode with the energy of a nuclear weapon as compared to one with a nuclear reactor which will crash and spread a small amount of radioactive material (the high level radioactive material is only created during operation--not prior to operation).

But I am more suprised that NASA would put an article like this on their website. Sure, they discuss all the advantages to using a 'magic' energy source, but they seem to have left out some minor details. How do you confine these anti-matter particles in large numbers and how do you create them economically. Reading the article, it would seem like it this a minor issue.

[Don Joe]

I don't see any "revolutionary propulsion" technology here. This looks like a "conventional" design for an "atomic rocket", except instead of using a "conventional" reactor for the heat to whoosh the superheated hydrogen out the backside, they propose to use antimatter to produce the heat.

Big *yawn*. This is nothing more IMO than a long-term money-sink. Can you imagine how many decades they can drag this out, trying to "iron out that one last kink in the design" -- the antimatter containment vessel? LOL! They might as well propose an "antigravity drive", showing "artist conception" drawing of "what the antigravity starship might look like", and a crude diagram of how the "antigravity waves" would be used to propel the ship.

The only "kink in the design" would be the little detail about HOW to "create the antigravity waves". For that, they can take this drawing, and relable the "bleeds off the right edge of the page" section that is currently labeled "STORAGE UNIT". All they'd need to do is write in "ANTIGRAVITY GENERATOR"!

LOL!

Here, look for yourselves:

[Don Joe]

But I am more suprised that NASA would put an article like this on their website. Sure, they discuss all the advantages to using a 'magic' energy source, but they seem to have left out some minor details. How do you confine these anti-matter particles in large numbers and how do you create them economically. Reading the article, it would seem like it this a minor issue.

Oh, but it is! All you need to do is budget tons of money to keep throwing at it year after year, decade after decade, building up a huge research enterprise that just keeps on growing like Topsy. Of course, you'll need to periodically release pep talk white papers explaining how you're really making progress, and expect a "breakthrough" any year now.

[Don Joe]

PS:

Oh, but it is! All you need to do is budget tons of money to keep throwing at it year after year, decade after decade, building up a huge research enterprise that just keeps on growing like Topsy. Of course, you'll need to periodically release pep talk white papers explaining how you're really making progress, and expect a "breakthrough" any year now.

The beauty part of this scam is that after you've managed to drag it out for a few years, you can scream bloody murder about how "irresponsible" it would be to "throw away all the years of investment in this technology" any time Congress makes noise about pulling the plug on the program.

[Dustbunny]

Wow, another case of 'Science Fiction' becoming a reality.

[uglybiker]

From: A Star Trek Christmas

Th' control panel's shootin' sparks like lightnin'!
An' th' dilythium crystals look frightenin'!
Cap'n! Jus' thought ya'd like ta know
She's goin' ta blow!
She's goin' ta blow!
She's goin' ta blow!

[Las Vegas Dave]

Pinging.

[wotan]

Doesn't antimatter cost about $27B per ounce?

[cabojoe]

"A rough estimate to produce the 10 milligrams of positrons needed for a human Mars mission is about 250 million dollars using technology that is currently under development," said Smith. This cost might seem high, but it has to be considered against the extra cost to launch a heavier chemical rocket (current launch costs are about $10,000 per pound) or the cost to fuel and make safe a nuclear reactor. "Based on the experience with nuclear technology, it seems reasonable to expect positron production cost to go down with more research," added Smith.

[burzum]

Yeah, it is a little ironic that they have the expectmore.gov link at the bottom of this page.

[manwiththehands]

NASA posted this?

You gotta be kidding! There's no place for duct tape in an antimatter engine.

[wotan]

If this is true, doesn't it mean that we will soon have the ability to blow up our entire planet through the creation of enough "cheap" anti-matter?

[finnigan2]

"NASA posted this? You gotta be kidding!"

- No, as a matter of fact it's been out there for some time. Since April 1st. I think.

[Larry Lucido]

Doesn't antimatter cost about $27B per ounce?

Does it matter?

[Mr. C]

Doesn't antimatter cost about $27B per ounce?

Since when does the Gov't care about cost?

[Larry Lucido]

So do antimatter particles just get disillusioned with being matter, then go off and set up anti-matter web sites and talk bad about matter?

[patriot_wes]

("a milligram is about one-thousandth the weight of a piece of the original M&M candy")

plain or peanut?

[KevinDavis]

[KevinDavis]

Would you really want to use Microsoft to control spaceships??? Just think in a middle of a launch the OS shows a blue screen of death???

[SunkenCiv]

I'd rather see more work on quadrotriticale.