by Corey Alderdice
Jules Verne would be jealous. Instead of simply traveling around the world in 80 days, it looks as though adventurers may soon have the potential to go to the red planet and back in the same time.
The U.S. space program, like the nation’s automotive industry, ain’t what it used to be. What once seemed like innovative plans to send humans to the moon once more have been bypassed for attempts to blow it up. However, some individuals are pushing past Earth’s only satellite altogether in search of the next great frontier: Mars. Sure, we’ve sent lots of pieces of metal in that direction but never human beings. It’s an innovative plan, but current technology means a trip there and back would take around two-and-a-half years. Talk about cabin fever.
A new technology, though, hopes to cut that trip to around 39 days each way. The New Scientist explains:
There’s a growing chorus of calls to send astronauts to Mars rather than the moon, but critics point out that such trips would be long and gruelling, taking about six months to reach the Red Planet. But now, researchers are testing a powerful new ion engine that could one day shorten the journey to just 39 days.
Traditional rockets burn chemical fuel to produce thrust. Most of that fuel is used up in the initial push off the Earth’s surface, so the rockets tend to coast most of the time they’re in space.
Ion engines, on the other hand, accelerate electrically charged atoms, or ions, through an electric field, thereby pushing the spacecraft in the opposite direction. They provide much less thrust at a given moment than do chemical rockets, which means they can’t break free of the Earth’s gravity on their own.
The space program was a hallmark of twentieth century politics, global competition, innovation, ingenuity and American education. While the talk is bold, deficit hawks claim NASA’s overall plans are too costly.
With NASA’s Ares I-X rocket scheduled for its first launch next week, eyes will be looking skyward. Where should NASA and other global space programs go from here? We’d like your thoughts.