The US space agency NASA is building a new type of rocket propulsion which make people to be able to reach Mars in just 39 days instead of six months, as it has judged!
As a partner in this project, NASA has selected a Texas company, "Ad Astra Rocket Company", which is to develop a drive VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket). This engine with the help of electromagnetic waves, ionizes and heats fuel gases such as argon or xenon, and turns them into a plasma which are then accelerated by the magnetic field.
Gas is first inserted into the hollow cylinder, in which using antenna "bomb" with electromagnetic waves which then ejected electrons from atoms and forms a cold plasma consisting of ions and free electrons.
In the second phase, the electromagnet compresses ionized plasma as nozzles compressed gases in conventional rocket engines. The part of the engine known as the ICH, plasma is heated to million degrees Kelvin, which is 173 times higher than the temperature on the surface of the Sun, which is 5,778 Kelvin.
The last part of the engine directs the electrons and ions in the opposite direction of movement of the rocket speed of about 50,000 meters per second!
The new drive can not be used for take-off, or to exit the gravitational "embrace" and the Earth's atmosphere, but the acceleration in interplanetary travel.
- It's a rocket different from all previous - Plasma Rocket - explains Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut on "shuttles" and director of "Ad Astra".
New missions in areas closer to the Earth and the Sun will be able to use solar energy, and away from the Sun to Mars to use some more powerful drive, probably nuclear.
In optimal conditions designed rocket to Mars could come for only 39 days. This would significantly reduce the stress and dangers of travel, or exposure to radiation of Human crew.
NASA has signed a contract with the company of ten million dollars, which envisages the construction of a prototype engine that could run at full power for at least 100 hours. Engine parts have already undergone numerous tests and the first experimental launch is expected in 2016.