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Anew type of nuclear thermal propulsion reactor fuel has been successfully tested at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, with hopes that the fuel could take humans to Mars in the not-too-distant future. Getting to the Red Planet, as things currently stand, will be a long-haul mission. Mars is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth. "Rather than a three-day lunar trip, astronauts bound for Mars would be leaving our planet for roughly three years," NASA explains, adding that such a mission would require the crew to be self-sufficient for long periods of the trip. "Facing a communication delay of up...

Conventional jet engines generate thrust by mixing fuel with compressed air, then igniting it. As the burning mixture rapidly expands, it gets blasted out of the back of the engine, propelling the craft forward. On the other hand, a plasma jet engine does away with the standard air and fuel mixture. Instead, it makes use of electricity to compress and excite gas into a plasma — an extremely hot, dense ionised state comparable with the insides of a fusion reactor or a star — then generate an electromagnetic field from it. Plasma engines have remained in experimental stages for quite...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Flying saucers may soon be more fact than mere science fiction. University of Florida mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Roy has submitted a patent application for a circular, spinning aircraft design reminiscent of the spaceships seen in countless Hollywood films. Roy, however, calls his design a “wingless electromagnetic air vehicle,” or WEAV. The proposed prototype is small – the aircraft will measure less than six inches across – and will be efficient enough to be powered by on-board batteries. Roy said the design can be scaled up and theoretically should work in a much larger...

Imagine a car that accelerates from zero to sixty in 250 feet, and then rockets to 120 miles per hour in just one more inch. That's essentially what a collaboration of accelerator physicists has accomplished, using electrons for their racecars and plasma for the afterburners. Because electrons already travel at near light's speed in an accelerator, the physicists actually doubled the energy of the electrons, not their speed. The researchers—from the Department of Energy's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering—published their...

The 'double layer thruster' is a new kind of ion drive which could give much more power than existing versions. It works by accelerating charged particles between two layers of argon plasma, gas where the atoms have been stripped of electrons. Esa says it has 'proven the principle', and will proceed with simulations and perhaps bigger prototypes. Esa already uses an ion drive on its Smart 1 Moon probe, and the US space agency Nasa deployed one on Deep Space 1, which flew out to Comet Borrelly in 2001.

A team of engineers and scientists led by NASA have begun investigating the physics and performance of magnetic nozzles -- innovative devices that could support development of plasma-based propulsion systems.

SEATTLE – Sitting in the cramped coach section of a transcontinental airliner for five or six hours can be trying enough. But consider NASA's "reference mission" to Mars. Astronauts will be cooped up in their craft for up to six months each way as they travel to and from the Red Planet. Robert Winglee and his colleagues would like to give these future explorers a break. Inspired by the sun's influence on Earth, the team is developing a unique approach to space propulsion. The craft it envisions hurtles through space on sails made of magnetic fields. The sails billow under...

Superfast VASIMR Rocket in Funding Limbo By Leonard David Senior Space Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 07 August 2002 Trimming travel time between Earth and various space targets is crucial to keeping human and robotic surveys of the solar system prospering into the 21st Century.Faster rockets cut back on an astronaut's radiation intake. Being a space speedster may also reduce loss of bone and muscle mass, as well as limit circulatory changes due to prolonged microgravity exposure.One approach to express lane rocketry is tagged the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR). With VASIMR's oomph, a 10-month one-way trek to Mars...