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Instead of spending your time displaying your ignorance you could of course also use it to research the actual purpose of this mission.

The goal was to build an ion engine self-sufficient enough to reach the moon. Solar energy was used to create an electromagnetic field strong enough to accelerate xenon ions so that the resulting momentum would propel the space craft into ever higher orbits until it would be in reach of lunar gravity.

And, no, we have never done that.

Why don't you go and post on some college football threads instead.

Instead of spending your time displaying your ignorance you could of course also use it to research the actual purpose of this mission.

You mean that it was a rather useless demonstration by a third-rate space agency?

SMART-1 — Small Mission for Advanced Research and Technology — was launched into Earth orbit by an Ariane-5 booster rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, in September 2003. The ion engine slowly raised the orbit over 14 months until the moon's gravity grabbed the probe.

Because of that, the spacecraft took the long way — traveling more than 62 million miles instead of the direct route of 217,000 to 250,000 miles flown by U.S. astronauts on Apollo missions to reach the moon in three days. But ESA did it for a relatively cheap $140 million.

Have you made any estimates of how long a mission to Mars or Mercury or the gas giants would take? Would the designers of such probes live long enough to see the results of their work?

It's very unlikely that this kind of ion-propelled spacecraft will see much use. Even if we decide to build moonbases, transporting raw materials there in this way isn't necessarily the most desirable. The cost of transporting to orbit from Earth seems likely to vastly outweigh the meager economy of using ion transport to the moon.

There's always somebody who wants to take a casual remark and turn it into a big whopping argument with a lot of name-calling.

drtom,

Your insights into this program would be more valuable if they didn't come shrink-wrapped in personal vitriol.

I'm sorry if there are Americans whose first reaction to anything from Europe (land of the anti-American) is negative.

I'm very sorry that such sentiments ruffle your feathers so badly.