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Earth to Mars in 39 Days
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Quilt
07/28/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
It's not very often, but sometimes I really feel like I'm living in a science-fiction type future. I am so excited to see where mankind goes in my lifetime.
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CoyoteBrown
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days

As long as we don't name the ship Ares Seven, and get work on bubble drive tech, stat, we should be fine.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment Edited by CoyoteBrown at 07/27/09 12:02 PM CoyoteBrown was starred CoyoteBrown was unstarred

Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
07/27/09

@CoyoteBrown: Exactly my thought.
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alphanumeric1971
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
So, TIE fighters could actually exist then?
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Skunky
07/27/09

@alphanumeric1971: That's the real reason why they want to test it on the ISS, I mean, c'mon, have you seen the thing through a telescope recently?
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robertmonsters
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
So, what are the chances of survival if a spaceship hit, I dunno, some random particle the size of a grain of sand. Game over?
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Belabras promoted this comment robertmonsters was starred robertmonsters was unstarred

Belabras ate my dingo!
07/27/09

@robertmonsters:
That's true of a lot of systems on current space faring vessels. Not a good reason to rule this out.
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Jonny_eh
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
NOVA Science NOW recently had a great segment on this technology and the genius behind them (not literally, that would be BAD)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0403/04.html
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BullLifter promoted this comment Edited by Jonny_eh at 07/27/09 11:31 AM Jonny_eh was starred Jonny_eh was unstarred

Ruthless, If you let me
07/27/09

@Jonny_eh: That segment was really good.
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joetato
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
Let's put twin ion engines on the spacecraft and make it give off a really cool whining noise as is streaks past, kinda like a fighter. Hmmmm. I wonder what we could call a ship like that?
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AngryEddy
07/27/09

@joetato: Fictional
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Belabras ate my dingo!
07/27/09

@AngryEddy:
buzzkiller
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crashedpc - Haifisch
07/27/09

@joetato: French Tickler.
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Skunky
07/27/09

@joetato: The ISS?
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Belabras ate my dingo!
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
Read about this last week. Hope they get it working. The problem with propulsion in space has always been a payload issue, so anything they can do to alleviate that is great, especially if it comes with added speed.
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kagekiri
07/27/09

@Belabras: Unless ion engines are shooting out particles WAY faster than a rocket, I think this is more about g-forces and acceleration than any space saving. You'd probably need more fuel to speed up faster and then brake than the "one burst of acceleration" method of rockets.

Based on basic physics, I think you still need to be shooting mass out to gain momentum, it's more the problem that rockets can ONLY accelerate quickly in short bursts. Thus, to get up to the same speed as a gradual engine, you'd need to have lots of rockets fired in bursts that won't kill the astronauts with sheer G forces. The ion engine will have to expend more fuel/energy than a rocket to get going faster (basic momentum conservation, I think), but the fact that it can do this gradually is actually the main advantage here.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, the ability to store tons of energy using nuclear power is probably a space-saver, since you need less fuel and just use the nuclear-produced electricity to power the ion engines. My bad, should have thought that through more completely.
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Edited by kagekiri at 07/27/09 1:22 PM kagekiri was starred kagekiri was unstarred

TheLostVikings R.O.A.C.H.
07/27/09

@kagekiri: BUt you see they ION engines are shooting out particles faster than a rocket. IN fact they are way, way waaay faster. Which means you need LESS fuel, not more, as the faste ions shooting out the back of an ion engine have a much higher energy to matter ratio than the slower chemical fuels used in rockets.

And "g-force related problems" has nothing to do with why ION engines are better, making the rest of your post completely moot.
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Edited by TheLostVikings R.O.A.C.H. at 07/27/09 10:39 PM

Ruthless, If you let me
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
This is the rocket being developed by former astronaut Chang-Diaz right? I just watched something on PBS about this, and never was the moniker VASIMR mentioned; they only called it a plasma rocket. I hope it works.
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ihfiapc
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days

Soooo...
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ThisDudeRufus promoted this comment ihfiapc was starred ihfiapc was unstarred

ihfiapc
07/27/09

@ihfiapc: This inscrutable link was meant to inspire discussion of whether one option for longer spaceflight might be artificial gravity simulated by centripetal force. For reals, is there any reason this wouldn't work?

Discuss!
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ThisDudeRufus
07/27/09

@ihfiapc: Creating enough rotation to adequately create gravity is probably beyond the comfortable limits of our materials. We simply don't need the gravity that badly.

And now that we can get to wherever we're going faster, the degradation that goes along with zero-gravity isn't as bad. 39 days is nothing compared to what some of those guys pull on the ISS.
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Edited by ThisDudeRufus at 07/27/09 11:47 AM ThisDudeRufus was starred ThisDudeRufus was unstarred

Daveinva
07/27/09

@ihfiapc:

Yup. Coriolis effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity

Anything as small as the Discovery foot-track (or even the Leonov's rotating arms) wouldn't be big enough in diameter.

That said, perhaps even a *little* artificial gravity might go a long way towards keep folks healthy.
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SinisterBill
07/27/09

@ihfiapc: You don't need to. Just make the engine keep a 1g acceleration to the mid point, then flip it around and do a 1g negative acceleration.

Problem is, what ever they decide to use, 1g acceleration is pretty close to the limit of what your going to be able to do.
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Mathmos
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
this is why I sent io9 a tip about detection of uranium on the moon some time ago.
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Log1c
07/27/09

@Mathmos: I'm not putting two and two together here, the uranium is for... the reactor?
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Mathmos
07/27/09

@Log1c: Yes. Might be helpful for several reasons. There is backlash against transporting nuclear materials into orbit through the atmosphere in case of mishap, and of course lunar gravity is low making the energy cost of sending things off-moon for use elsewhere lower (once you're there in the first place).
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Log1c
07/27/09

@Mathmos: Right. Yep. I was thinking off in some tangential way....
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Delphinus100
07/28/09

@Mathmos:

Of course, you can't put raw ore in a reactor. Mining and enrichment requires a substantial infrastructure that no one will re-create on the Moon (and it will be more difficult because it is the Moon) without a very good, profitable reason. A handful of ships to Mars won't be it...

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Mathmos promoted this comment Delphinus100 was starred Delphinus100 was unstarred

Mathmos
07/28/09

@Delphinus100: good point. but there may be some potential use there.
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LittleDragon
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
I remember reading something about the Russians working on something similar back in the late 90's. But it disappeared.
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NotChoinski
07/27/09

In reply to Earth to Mars in 39 Days
Does it come with Ion Brakes?
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Belabras ate my dingo!
07/27/09

@NotChoinski:
Like all forms of propulsion in space, there aren't so much breaks as just reversing the direction of the engine.
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Certifiable
07/27/09

@Belabras:

Reverse the polarity of the ion flow?
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