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#1 2020-07-09 16:06:46
- Carlg1964
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- Registered: 2020-07-09
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Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
Wanted to talk about the snail's pace of testing and using enhanced propulsion for mars missions. Here we are with the launch of the Perseverance, and we are still coasting through space like children riding a bike by kicking their legs on the ground rather than pedaling. It is pathetic. We have prototype next gen 21st propulsion systems that should have been tested already! The goal should be to see how fast we can get something to lunar orbit and back! It is time to stop coasting through space! We need to get serious and put something out there that will give us rapid point to point transit!
IT IS TIME TO STOP COASTING THROUGH SPACE!
Concept:
RACE TO THE MOON!
A challenge to see who can get to lunar orbit and back to Earth in the shortest amount of time!
At this point, getting anything out there and testing it, pushing the limits of our present day technology will yield a lot better results than endless testing and tinkering in labs. You can't learn to ride a bike by sitting in your garage testing it! You have to get out of the garage and get on the bike and go! If you fall, you brush yourself off and get back on! The same principle applies to developing a next Gen. 21st century propulsion system that will get us out there into deep space rapidly!
We can begin to really push what we have now, and test these prototype propulsion systems on some level and doing so will in itself propel us further and faster to reaching such a goal!
It is time!
Last edited by Carlg1964 (2020-07-09 16:07:59)
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#2 2020-07-09 16:37:42
- SpaceNut
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
Hello and welcome Carlg1964 to NewMars
The only engine that stays running and not coasting once we get out of orbit is ION at this time and it needs expensive fuels and lots of energy to provide the push needed to gradually at a constant rate.
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#3 2020-07-09 17:51:51
- Carlg1964
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
I know, and it is so frustrating that we are still, still coasting through space! Decades of tinkering in labs and almost nothing to show in the way of actually testing something, even if it is rudimentary in development... it would be better than what we have done! At this rate, it will be another 20, 30, 50 years before we see a serious effort to accomplish a truly next gen. propulsion system. For me personally, even if we get to Mars but we do it coasting all the way, it will be a huge disappointment! Real deep space exploration will never be realized until we stop coasting through space! We need something to inspire a challenge to go further and faster in our exploration of space! That is why I came up with the race to the moon! Returning to the moon would be nice, but if we do it in less than 12 hours, that.. would be awesome! We need awesome! Awesome inspires a whole lot more than nice ever will! Future headlines should read...
The Eagle has landed again! Travel time 10 hours 17 minutes, 43 seconds! Next stop... Mars!
Star ship has landed! We are on Mars! Travel time 22 days, 3 hours, 34 minutes and 7 seconds! Next stop... Jupiter!
The Jupiter run!... 51 days, 17 hours, 22 minute, 11 seconds... next stop.... Saturn!
From there we do not stop! Each time we go, we go further, faster, we reach out into the stars!
Last edited by Carlg1964 (2020-07-09 18:51:21)
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#4 2020-07-09 18:12:42
- SpaceNut
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
Aside from the various flavors of nuclear thermal propulsion we have some that look like they work but there remains more question as to how for at least one with the microwave cavity which makes motion without a fuel....
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#5 2020-07-09 19:18:13
- Carlg1964
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
Honestly, at the snail's pace that we are going and with almost no real testing in space, we should just quite space travel, stay home and watch Netflix! I often feel that way but when I see that Elon Musk and Space X are getting things done, still, they need a next gen propulsion system to get the Star ship where it needs to go fast! No coasting!
Last edited by Carlg1964 (2020-07-09 19:22:58)
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#6 2020-07-09 21:06:59
- SpaceNut
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
New electric propulsion chamber explores the future of space travel
NASA, testing its 12.5-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) thruster, which is part of the Gateway mission to orbit the moon.
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#7 2020-07-09 21:42:28
- Oldfart1939
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
The main problem for use of electric propulsion systems is, and will continue to be, availability of a viable power supply. The more distant an ion powered vehicle travels from the sun, the less efficient solar panels become. Only nuclear energy or thermonuclear energy stand a chance of providing enough raw power to reasonable accelerate an large spaceship to the velocities required for human crewed vessels
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#8 2020-07-11 11:35:02
- GW Johnson
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Re: Next Gen. 21st century propulsion systems...
I think there may come a day when electric propulsion will no longer be a whisper of thrust (milli-Newtons) from tons of equipment. But this is not that day. Nor will it change in the next few-to-several years. Doesn't matter how you power it, the thrust per unit mass of equipment is just abysmally low.
Meanwhile, all the forms of rocket propulsion that we know are limited to bursts of thrust followed by coasting. These are energy-limited, even the nuclear ones. There is only so much energy per unit mass of material that can be released in any usable way from chemistry, nuclear fission, or even nuclear fusion. These energy sources pale into insignificance beside the energy demands of continuously-thrusted travel between the planets. That is simply where we are. All you can do is fly as fast as you can afford.
The biggest and most ready-to-apply among the nuclear sources would be nuclear pulse propulsion, which in very large vehicle sizes (tens of thousands of tons) offers tens of thousands of seconds of Isp at very high thrust levels (vehicle accelerations in the 2-4 gee range), something nuclear thermal cannot offer, not even gas core. Nuclear pulse propulsion has EMP side effects which mostly preclude its being launched from Earth, or its being fired while in near Earth orbit, but it most definitely is something we know would work. Yet even that source is a brief burn followed by a long coast to go to another planet. Not necessarily as long as with chemical propulsion, but still a long coast. You fly only as fast as you can energetically afford.
That seems to be about where we humans currently are.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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