VASIMR Plasma Rocket Passes Power Test, Announces Launch Date

The advancements in Space travel are so amazing!

Is this new rocket engine silent? I heard sounds like pumps and other machinery, but nothing from the engine.

Excelent! Mister Frank Chang-Diaz, please give my congrats to the team!

The article mixes up the meanings of "fuel" and "propellant" with:
"burning solid or liquid chemical propellants"
&
"the plasma rocket uses an electric power source to ionize fuels such as hydrogen or helium into superheated plasma"

Solid or liquid fuels provide both the power source and the propellant for the thrust.
The ion engine doesn't use the hydrogen, helium (or more likely xenon) as fuel. It gets no power from these gases, they are used purely as propellants. This engine needs a seperate power source: nuclear or solar.

This might sound a tad pedantic, but by mixing this up, the article has missed the entire point.

NOM -- Good point, thanks. I've now also added the fact that Chang-Diaz is leaning toward a nuclear power source to provide the electricity that would ionize the hydrogen/helium/whatever propellant.

Now if a nuclear power source is required, let's hope they change the rules prohibiting nuclear fuels in space. If an orbital transfer accident is the concern, the fuel can be carried aloft in successive small quantities, as an extra payload on existing launches. The collection point can be a satellite in lunar orbit, or perheaps even sitting on the lunar surface itself. Wait, wasn't that Space 1999 ... the series?

Impossible is nothing if you have the zeal to achieve progress.

New aged propulsion for interplanetary flights before 2020. Now that's change I can believe in.

"Welcome! to the Federation Starship SS Buttcrack!!!"

You wouldnt have to change the rules if you use fusion instead of fission. No radiation. Yayyyy!

I have been following the VASIMR for years and think this is the most likely candidate besides nuclear propulsion to get us too to Mars in a reasonable time. What Chnage-Diaz doesn't realize is that solar concentrators using sterling engines could do the trick in the inner solar system for the type of power he wants to test, 200 kilowatts, see beamed energy below. However there is a conflict with using Nuclear Propulsion, NP, verses using Nuclear Electric ,NE, power. The Russians prefer NE, NASA right now favors NP, that's probably why Chang-Diaz lost some of his funding from NASA -- he soon got some of the funding back after he formed his own company. The reasoning that NASA gives for their push for NP is that if you have to make all the electricity from the nuclear reaction and add that to an ion or plasma drive you are adding several layers of failure to the system. With making an all NE device you will also have to carry with you a much larger cooling system, radiator, that adds to the mass of the system.

With that being said Chang's VASIMR engine is as close to a fusion type propulsion system that we have right now as far as speed of the thrust out the backdoor and it is finally ready to do some serious testing. A true fusion type propulsion system could get us to the stars in a reasonable time about 10 percent the speed of light. The thing that technically would get us there faster at close to the speed of light is either matter-anti-matter propulsion or beamed energy both have the capability of hurling us through space close to the speed of light. Beamed energy is another one that should be extensively tested and funded since creating antimatter and holding it for a short time period has been very difficult to do even in trace amounts.

Beamed Energy here:

www.shineinnovations.com/6112.html

Those of us who are a bit more sci fi than the rest have known for more than 15 yrs that this is the only reasonable choice for a systems efficiency that allows extended travel, even in our own solar system. Now we need to get up on a compact fission reactor(fusion does NOT exist,people, unless you got a star in your pocket)with shielding sufficient to keep the craft, supplies, and crew from glowing too much. As I understand, mass becomes the gorilla in the room. Have we decided on the most efficient configuration for that yet? Seeing the illustration doesn't give me a lot of hope there, no gravity, plus proximity increases rad count. Are particles in space concentrated enough in sol system to collect particles, allow them to soak up rads, and forced out with the next layers of particles? Can radiation be sealed with our electromagnetic abilities now?

I just read an article that this would shrink the trip to mars to about 39 days. Is that true and if so - why isn't that in this article. Let's make this practical - we just made mars a reality. Submariners spend 6 months in a tiny capsule...39 days is cake. Can anyone confirm?

Yes it was in Scientific Americas November 2000 issue, if powered by a 200 megawatt VASIMR craft then Chang-Diaz claimed it could get to Mars in 39 days. At the time he was hoping to build a 100 Kilowatt VASIMR Test engine, I see he finally done more than that -- good for him. In fact the image showing the spaceship on the way to Mars in the posted article above is from a Scientific America article in their Feb 1999 issue.

For his test run for the 200 Kilowatt VASIMR engine I suggest a thin film highly reflective umbrella shaped Mylar solar concentrator similar in design to the link I provided above that would unfold in space. He could use it with some modifications such as using 8-25 Kilowatt Sterling engines that are currently being used in solar farms in the California desert. To get to the electrical demand that he needs for the 200 megawatt he would need a nuclear electric, however if just traveling to Mars and back a large scale solar concentrator like the one I proposed above would give him the power he needs at much less mass than ordinary solar cells and about the same alpha number, ratio of power-plant mass in kilograms to electrical output.

A large thin film solar concentrator can be built with about the same alpha number near Mars as a nuke as low as 0.5 verses over 50 for a standard solar array at Mars distance from the sun.

See www.shineinnovations.com/6112.html

Couldn't it also regenerate it's hydrogen supply from solar winds? Isn't that the reason the moon has hydroxil and possibly water on it, because hydrogen from the sun reached the moon?

@Figgins
The reason why you can't hear the engine in the video is because it is operating inside a vacuum chamber. The inability to operate in an atmosphere and the low thrust, that engine was only putting out around 2 N I believe, are the main downsides to this and all electric engines. So, for getting off planets we'll still need good 'ol LOX

Worst video ever.