August 7, 2008
Plasma Reboost
Plasma Rocket May Be Tested at Space Station, Discovery Channel
"NASA is considering flying a prototype plasma rocket engine designed by a former astronaut to the International Space Station for testing, officials said Wednesday. The engine is called a Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR, and if that sounds like something you'd see on Star Trek, you're not too far from the truth."
Posted by kcowing at August 7, 2008 10:09 AM
Simply put - what a great-great idea. Chang-Diaz is a genius - and he deserves to see how well it works in the environment it was designed to work in. It sure would make trips to Mars or other places alot quicker and more economical.
Simply put - what a great-great idea. Chang-Diaz is a genius - and he deserves to see how well it works in the environment it was designed to work in. It sure would make trips to Mars or other places alot quicker and more economical.
Don't jump to conclusions on this. Many in the electric and plasma propulsion community have expressed serious doubts about the entire VASIMR concept. The facility he has developed certainly deserves praise for its capacity to evaluate plasma physics and energetics. But there are a lot more factors that have to be considered in designing and building a flight-qualified thruster.
That all being said, I applaud Franklin's and other's attempts to keep advanced propulsion research alive in this arid and arguably development-centric environment.
Posted by: sc220 at August 7, 2008 7:18 PM