Researchers from the University of Washington (USA) have builtthe parts of a nuclear fusion powered rocketthat could transporta full crew to Mars in 30 days.
The journey of a human being to Mars has long been the goal of space agency programs. For John Slough, director of this NASA-funded project,to use the same energy that the sun and stars use is to be “one step closer” to the red planet. As he explained, nuclear power can remove many of the obstacles that block deep space travel, including long transit times, exorbitant costs and risks to human health. “The use of existing fuels makes it almost impossible for humans to explore beyond the Earth,” said the researcher, who explained that this is the reason why he began to experiment with “a much more energy source. powerful”.
In studies carried out by NASA it is estimated that,With today’s technology, a round-trip expedition to Mars would take more than four yearsand the large amount of chemical fuel required for the rocket in space would be more than $ 12 billion. The Slough team have presented documents that indicate that their rocket powered by nuclear fusion would allow a mission to the red planet in a period of 30 to 90 days. This, scientists have pointed out, would make the trip more practical and less expensive. In this sense, they have explained that to power their rocket, only a minimal amount of fusion is necessary, such as “a small grain of sand from this material.”
For this mission, the research team has developeda type of plasma that is enclosed in its own magnetic field. Nuclear fusion occurs when this plasma is compressed under high pressure with a magnetic field. In addition, to ignite the rocket they have created a system in which a powerful magnetic field causes large rings of metal to implode around this plasma, compressing it to a state of fusion. The convergence rings come together to form a framework that ignites the fusion, but only for a few microseconds. Although the compression time is very short, enough energy is released from the fusion reactions to rapidly heat and ionize this scaffold. This material is ejected out of the rocket at a high speed. And the process repeats every minute, propelling the spacecraft.
Now, the team is working on bringing all the processes together using the technology to csqueeze plasma and create nuclear fusion. Slough hopes to have everything ready for the first test by the end of the summer.
