Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

SpaceNut · 2004-10-14 18:57:28

New propulsion concept could make 90-day Mars round trip possible. Lots of details into the technology and concept.

http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=5817

Martian Republic · 2004-10-14 20:02:37

New propulsion concept could make 90-day Mars round trip possible. Lots of details into the technology and concept.
http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?artic … cleID=5817

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. See there faster ways to get to Mars, we just have to figure out what they are and develop them. I'm sure there are even faster ways to get to Mars too, but we will just have to keep looking. But, in the mean time we can use what we have to get to Mars, but we will keep our eye's on faster newer ways to get to Mars.

Larry,

Palomar · 2004-10-15 11:26:44

*I just now had a chance to read about this, at spaceref.com. "Winglee" -- apt name! *laugh* That mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion idea is nifty too (geez, I envy the brains which come up with these ideas!!!). Wow, wow, wow...really like all this. :up: Seems like a winner all the way around. Wish I could attend that NASA Advanced Concepts Institute meeting (public invited).

Under the mag-beam concept, a space-based station would generate a stream of magnetized ions that would interact with a magnetic sail on a spacecraft and propel it through the solar system at high speeds that increase with the size of the plasma beam. Winglee estimates that a control nozzle 32 meters wide would generate a plasma beam capable of propelling a spacecraft at 11.7 kilometers per second. That translates to more than 26,000 miles an hour or more than 625,000 miles a day.
Mars is an average of 48 million miles from Earth, though the distance can vary greatly depending on where the two planets are in their orbits around the sun. At that distance, a spacecraft traveling 625,000 miles a day would take more than 76 days to get to the red planet. But Winglee is working on ways to devise even greater speeds so the round trip could be accomplished in three months.
But to make such high speeds practical, another plasma unit must be stationed on a platform at the other end of the trip to apply brakes to the spacecraft.
"Rather than a spacecraft having to carry these big powerful propulsion units, you can have much smaller payloads," he said.
Winglee envisions units being placed around the solar system by missions already planned by NASA. One could be used as an integral part of a research mission to Jupiter, for instance, and then left in orbit there when the mission is completed. Units placed farther out in the solar system would use nuclear power to create the ionized plasma; those closer to the sun would be able to use electricity generated by solar panels.
The mag-beam concept grew out of an earlier effort Winglee led to develop a system called mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion. In that system, a plasma bubble would be created around a spacecraft and sail on the solar wind. The mag-beam concept removes reliance on the solar wind, replacing it with a plasma beam that can be controlled for strength and direction.
Winglee acknowledges that it would take an initial investment of billions of dollars to place stations around the solar system. But once they are in place, their power sources should allow them to generate plasma indefinitely. The system ultimately would reduce spacecraft costs, since individual craft would no longer have to carry their own propulsion systems.

--Cindy

SpaceNut · 2004-10-18 12:56:24

Another reference this time with if funded could have a working model in 5 years time.

Magnetic beams could power swifter spacecraft

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996543

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-18 13:11:44

These guys are fruit cakes, probobly trying to save their jobs now with VSE... do they have a clue how much electricity, plasma feedstock, and difficulty in riding the beam it would take? They even want to put a generator on the JIMO probe according to the SpaceDaily article of the same...

And the last line about the beam staying focused and straight for kilometers... "we don't know until we try" is NOT a good thing to hear when people come begging for millions of dollars. If they don't have at least some idea what would happen, then they haven't invested the effort in figuring out the specifics of the concept worthy of a seven-digit grant.

ERRORIST · 2004-10-18 21:37:25

A particle beam would work better.

chat · 2004-10-19 06:21:33

Its nice to see after 21 years of pounding peoples ears about this general idea, that someone has finally presented something similar to it.

I think the idea they have is close, but still an inefficient system and full of technical bugs.

Using a particle accelerator circle with a timed particle escape is a much more efficient method.

14% - 21% of C velocities are possible with an accelerator and only 5% - 10% weight in (nuclear) fuel.
The down side is the reactor needed to power it, a minimum of 50mw and 200mw would be ideal.
Also the cost of putting a fully functional particle accelerator inside a ship wont be cheap either.
And all the minor details like launching it all, and the nuclear materials heading to space to power the reactor.

Driving ions to near C, then allowing them to escape out the back of the accelerator tube will make for very high velocity thrust.
But since the mass of an ion is so low the push will be small, but persistent at near C.

ERRORIST · 2004-10-19 07:13:35

I bet all the materials to build such a ship are on the moon. Launcing from there should be six times cheaper. Also, If we can place an asteroid with all the materials to build such a ship in orbit around the Moon or Earth it would be much cheaper to launch from than even the Moon.

chat · 2004-10-19 18:37:27

ERRORIST,

Great idea to bring the costs down.
Also the moon is a great place to build the reactor, and with some luck mine and refine the nuclear materials needed for the reactor.

Instant moon base with a purpose and financial returns.

I bet your right about the cost, a moon launched system of all the tools needed would be initially similar to earth launch costs.

But the second one would be vastly cheaper.

One other down side to the particle accelerator tube is the dismal push from the ions, only about 4x what deep space is with a 50mw reactor.

With a 200mw it still only goes from 0 to 60mph in about 1hr 20 minutes, but it is accumulating.
Or 1200mph per day +initial speed.

Most of the people I've talked to over the years seem to agree that the top speed of 14% - 21% c.

Most of them also agree it would be an awful craft for humans to traverse the solar system because of slow acceleration, nuclear reactor, magnetic fields etc etc.
But it would make an awesome star probe.

comstar03 · 2004-10-19 21:48:45

I do think the concept is interesting but application wouldn't be practical. Remember some of the research could lead to other discoveries, So reasearch only, the understanding of plasma and interstellar magnetic forces could provide to unlocking hyperspace travel.

chat · 2004-10-20 05:03:22

comstar03,

The only technical bug in the particle accelerator tube idea is the timed release.
When you release the stream of ions from the accelerator it will mess up the initial beam.

More of a research problem that a technical hurdle though.
And the problem could be resolved with a dual or quad chamber beam with a single or double chamber release and beam recovery.

All the other parts of the system are well proven technologies.

The biggest problem with the idea is that no one is looking to send probes to the stars at this time.
If it was a good vehicle for getting around the solar system i believe it would be practical now.

Also the costs are staggering.
maybe 100b for the ship, 100b for the accelerator, 100b for the reactor,100b for research, 100b for the launch of the parts, 100b for the assembly in space.

ERRORIST · 2004-10-20 15:07:59

If the beam hit the target on a tangent then the explosive force could be directed through a nozzel. This would allow for very fast pulses of energy from the beam.A particle beam would work better. Such pulses could be turned on and off in femtoseconds and even faster.

Commodore · 2004-10-20 16:19:54

An interesting idea.

But what if the beam misses, and hits something else? Something important?

ERRORIST · 2004-10-20 17:40:34

It could be positioned in such a way that if it misses it would miss the spacecraft all together. No harm done.

chat · 2004-10-21 03:04:31

ERRORIST,

A particle beam works well for the system, but the down side is the power requirements, accelerating anything heavier than ions equates to a lower % c thrust and higher power requirements.

The best thing to push of all is electrons, they are simple to get to near C , simple to push and require little power to push.
A cathode ray tube in a common TV does this well.

The down side to pushing electrons is the weak push from them.
Pushing electron beams means you must make 50 - 100 timed escape tubes for the same thrust as ions.

A plus side with electrons is all of the reactors electricity could be used for push.

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-21 07:53:21

Trouble is, you can't use a regular ion or electron beam, their path will be deflected by planetary and solar magnetic fields and it will be impossible to aim. A plasma beam will be bad enough.

RobS · 2004-10-21 17:35:58

One thing the article didn't explain is how to deal with Newton's third law. The plasma beam, presumably, is pushing the spaceship through impact or deflection of the beam against a surface or a magnetic field. That means the beam's source that's shooting out the beam is being pushed in the opposite direction. A machine able to propell a spacecraft to Mars in 45 days would presumably propel itself in the opposite direction at a pretty high speed as well, unless it was enormously massive and therefore enormously expensive.

-- RobS

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-21 18:00:26

So, like I said, silly people trying to keep their jobs in the "breakthrough propulsion division" type positions where VSE will/could lead to them being axed, or at least force them to work on somthing other then their pet projects. Harping their projects in press releases to the gullible public to try and make it politcally impossible to fire them.

"You CAN'T fire smart guys like these! Look what they thought up!" yadda yadda yadda...

In any which way, a plasma beam station will be big. Way big. Bigger than the ISS big at least, maybe by an order of magnetude, and require putting multiple very large nuclear reactors into LEO, which won't make the greenies happy, and will require gobs and gobs of propellant too.

It ain't happening

ERRORIST · 2004-10-21 18:01:40

What if it is attached to the moon or asteroid?

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-21 18:04:11

How are you going to get a massive thing like this to the Moon? Nor could it fire for more then a week or so at a time as the Moon moves around its orbit, so you would need multiple beam stations.

As for an asteroid, it would push the asteroid out of orbit.

ERRORIST · 2004-10-21 18:19:52

Build it from moon material. Multiple stations could work. The same type of beam could keep the asteroid in orbit.

Euler · 2004-10-21 18:21:42

One thing the article didn't explain is how to deal with Newton's third law. The plasma beam, presumably, is pushing the spaceship through impact or deflection of the beam against a surface or a magnetic field. That means the beam's source that's shooting out the beam is being pushed in the opposite direction. A machine able to propell a spacecraft to Mars in 45 days would presumably propel itself in the opposite direction at a pretty high speed as well, unless it was enormously massive and therefore enormously expensive.

A machine that propels the ship to Mars will obviously be much larger than the ship itself. If it were not then the ship would not get to Mars in 45 days with near-term technology, and it would make more sense to just attach the particle accelerator to the ship. It will also be in orbit, which means that half the time it will be adding to it's rotational momentum, and half the time it will be subtracting from it's orbital momentum.

Anyway, I agree that this is not a very good way to explore the solar system. Not only do you need a large momentum beam generator in LEO, you also need one at your destination. The only application I can see for this sort of propulsion is possibly launching a small interstellar probe, though it would not necessarily be the best way of doing that either.

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-21 18:27:52

I think that by the time we could build multiple multimegawatt plasma beam generators on the Moon, that we won't be needing them anymore... with a GCNR/NSWR/VASIMR/Orion/Metastables propulsion system, the beam getup would be pretty obsolete... it would probobly use less fuel too, which you'll need alot of to generate the beam.

ERRORIST · 2004-10-21 18:30:48

Plenty of fuel on the Moon. Cheaper than gas here on Earth right now.

GCNRevenger · 2004-10-21 18:34:37

No actually, there is not nessesarrily plenty of fuel on the Moon. We don't even know for sure if there is any useful fuel on the Moon... and the mining operation, and getting it to the beam generators, would be a titanic task too. And if you have all this fuel, why wouldn't you just fill up the GCNR or VCR/Fusion+VASIMR powerd rocket with it instead?

This talk of "build it of moon material..." do you have any clue what kind of an undertaking that would be Errorist? That kind of contruction capability is beyond the realm of reason even decades from now.

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#1 2004-10-14 18:57:28

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#2 2004-10-14 20:02:37

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#3 2004-10-15 11:26:44

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#4 2004-10-18 12:56:24

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#5 2004-10-18 13:11:44

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#6 2004-10-18 21:37:25

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#7 2004-10-19 06:21:33

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#8 2004-10-19 07:13:35

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#9 2004-10-19 18:37:27

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#10 2004-10-19 21:48:45

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#11 2004-10-20 05:03:22

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#12 2004-10-20 15:07:59

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#13 2004-10-20 16:19:54

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#14 2004-10-20 17:40:34

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#15 2004-10-21 03:04:31

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#16 2004-10-21 07:53:21

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#17 2004-10-21 17:35:58

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#18 2004-10-21 18:00:26

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#19 2004-10-21 18:01:40

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#20 2004-10-21 18:04:11

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#21 2004-10-21 18:19:52

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#22 2004-10-21 18:21:42

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#23 2004-10-21 18:27:52

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#24 2004-10-21 18:30:48

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

#25 2004-10-21 18:34:37

Re: Magnetized-beam plasma propulsion - 90 day Mars round trip?

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