Can This Insane Nuclear propulsion plan take us to mars and beyond?
Traveling to mars and building a settlement there is the new goal of this space race. But let's be
quite honest, Sending humans to mars isn’t an easy task. 50 years ago was the last time humans were
on the moon, we should have had a moon settlement by now. When it comes to Mars though, there’s a
reason why we haven't explored the red planet and why only a few landers have made the trip.
There are many problems lying in the deep depths of space that make a voyage to mars oh so tough.
Gary Flandro, a young caltech graduate student, was poring over his notes in building 180 of the
jet propulsion laboratory in 1965, studying the intricacies of using planets gravitational fields
to slingshot spacecraft into the outer reaches of space with no need for additional propellant- the
gravity assist, a method of propulsion that uses the gravity of a gravitational body to literally
pull the spacecraft into a new trajectory and velocity as he examined. In the late 1970s,
Gary saw something incredible: a window would open up where the alignment of the planets would allow
a single satellite to pinball its way through Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune before being
ejected out to the furthest regions. With this information, a frenzy of activity erupted within
NASA and jpl. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had been discovered that would not occur again
for another 175 years and it was critical that the opportunity shouldn't be wasted. Planning began
and in 1977 two satellites voyager 1 and 2 would launch a board that three-staged titan 3e rocket
voyager 2 would use a gravity assist with jupiter saturn and uranus before racing
by neptune before eventually exiting the solar system voyager 1 completed a more direct path.
Today as species we have left our marks all over the solar system and beyond.
Voyager 1 took 35 long years to reach the end of our solar system. Even though we can
build these spacecrafts and send them to other worlds to explore with gravity assist methods,
sending ourselves in Space and to other planets is a completely different thing. We cannot use a
method like Gravity assist to travel to other planets. 35 years is a long time for a human.
So far, the furthest humans have traveled into space is to the dark side of the moon,
which is just 400 000 kilometers away. If our goals to establish colonies on Mars are
to be realized, we will need quicker and more efficient spacecraft than we presently have.
Humans aren't accustomed to staying in space for so long. The Hohmann transfer technique, with
launch windows every 26 months, is the quickest and most efficient way we know for reaching Mars,
and it takes around 9 months to accomplish. A round trip would take about 21 months to complete.
We would need to spend thousands of dollars a second to just get to the red planet
and would have to sacrifice a large amount of payload, based upon our current technology
and not to mention the kind of impact such a long trip would have upon human psychology.
But what if there was another way? What if there was a way that wouldn't take 21 months to complete
a trip to mars? What if it could be done in a mere three days? Are there new methods of propulsion
that can change this for us? Let's take a look at where our current technology is right now.
Ever since the start of the Space race, chemical rockets have been the most
commonly used propulsion method. Current rockets use chemical combustion to propel themselves,
which is a method in which a fuel and an oxidizer are combined in a combustion chamber and ignited,
causing the combustion products to rapidly heat up and expand. The nozzle design then directs the
expanding gas in one direction to achieve thrust. Today, SpaceX is one of the most technologically
advanced companies, and the kind of tech they have is far better than any other company. One of the
first pioneers to go to mars, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX is building Starship to take humans to
mars. SpaceX is currently working on their raptor engines which are known for the ridiculous amount
of thrust they produce. They plan to replace it by the Raptor 2.0 which will be a major
improvement in the raptor engines. But what makes SpaceX different is their rapid reusability,
which no other company has achieved as of right now. The raptor 2 engine, which is currently being
developed, is a critical piece of SpaceX's future. It has a radical amount of power cultivated in
ways never before used with the science and reusability factor. The raptor engine is what
space engineers have always dreamed of but have never been capable of achieving before now. It
will save money, it will save energy, and it will help massive vessels like the Starship transcend
our atmosphere and head straight for Mars. But there’s still a problem with this technology? Even
though with Starship we wouldn't have to sacrifice payload weight and it's far superior than any
other technology in the past, the journey to mars would still take 9 months in each direction.
This is where a nuclear-powered rocket has the opportunity to truly transform space travel for
humanity. EVEN THOUGH THEY CAUSE CONTROVERSY ON EARTH, nuclear reactors can supply the energy and
power required to swiftly transport big spacecraft to Mars and, if desired, beyond. Nuclear rocket
engines were first proposed in the 1940s. This time, though, proposals for interplanetary trips
fueled by nuclear fission and fusion are backed by new designs that have a considerably higher chance
of success. Importantly, the nuclear engines are exclusively intended for interplanetary flight,
not for usage in the Earth's atmosphere. Chemical rockets propel the spacecraft beyond low Earth
orbit. The nuclear propulsion mechanism is activated only then. Nuclear thermal propulsion
uses the energy provided by nuclear processes to heat liquid hydrogen to around 2,430 °C,
which is almost eight times the temperature of nuclear power plant cores. The propellant
rapidly expands and jets out the nozzles. When compared to chemical rockets, this can create
double the thrust per mass of fuel, allowing nuclear-powered ships to go longer and faster.
Furthermore, once reaching the destination, whether Saturn's moon Titan or Pluto, the
nuclear reactor could transition from propulsion to power supply, allowing the probe to transmit
back high-quality data for years. That means it can also allow us to reach mars in a mere 90 Days.
But some people have their skepticism about this method, thanks to all the nuclear disasters like
Chernobyl and Kosmos 954. Given the past events, it's no doubt people would be cynical about this
method. However, it is a very safe method, and there are specific safeguards in place to prevent
any type of radiation leakage or exposure, and for an added layer of safety, any nuclear-powered ship
would actually rely on an old-fashioned chemical rocket to get out of our atmosphere, and it would
only be once the ship left the earth that it would begin using its nuclear power. In the fiscal year
2021 budget bill, NASA received $110 million for nuclear thermal propulsion development.
Obtaining adequate thrust from a nuclear rocket used to need the employment of weapons-grade,
highly enriched uranium. Low-enriched uranium fuels, which are utilized in commercial power
plants, are safer to use, but they can become brittle and fall apart when subjected to the
intense temperatures and chemical assaults of the extremely reactive hydrogen. However, Ultra Safe
Nuclear Corp. Technologies (USNC-Tech), a company based in Seattle, uses uranium fuel enriched to
less than 20%, which is of higher quality than that used in power reactors but "can't be diverted
for nefarious purposes, so it greatly reduces proliferation risks," according to director of
engineering Michael Eades. The fuel used by the firm is made up of small ceramic-coated uranium
fuel particles spread in a zirconium carbide matrix. The microcapsules contain radioactive
fission byproducts while allowing heat to escape. This kind of technology can easily
outperform our current propulsion methods and make human space travel very accessible.
There is also another route for safe-nuclear powered rockets: ‘The Fusion reactors’ Because
fusion processes release up to four times as much energy as fission reactions, fusion propulsion
might theoretically beat fission-based propulsion. However, the technology is not as advanced and
faces various hurdles, including producing and retaining the plasma and efficiently turning the
energy produced into focused jet exhaust. But what if you wanted to reach mars even faster?
If this is the case, ion engines may be the best next choice. Unlike chemical rockets,
many scientists are investing substantially in developing these ion engines
to determine how strong these futuristic inventions may be.
Ion engines would accelerate electrically charged atoms known as ions through an electric field,
propelling the rocket ship forward in an incredible manner. However, once in space,
the charged ions will be giving the rocket ship a continuous push, similar to the wind
pushing a sailboat. This type of propellant would get the rocket ship moving far faster
than a typical chemical rocket. It might take you only about 39 days to reach the red planet.
Another possible propulsion method is Plasma Propulsion. Sounds like sci-fi? Well not quiet.
Ad Astra Rocket Company, located in Costa Rica and the United States, stated over the summer that it
has completed an 88-hour high-power endurance test of its Vasimr VX-200SS plasma rocket
at 80 kW. The test, which took place at the company's Texas laboratory near Houston,
established a new high-power global endurance record in electric propulsion.
The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr) rocket was planned to fly
with an engine that heats plasma to two million degrees using nuclear reactors.
Hot gas is then directed out of the rear of the engine through magnetic fields,
allowing it to travel at speeds of up to 123,000 mph (197,950 km/h). Despite the fact that Vasimr
rockets would send nuclear reactors flying through space at extraordinary speeds, the purpose of Ad
Astra is to make considerably faster, but also much safer, spaceflight conceivable.
Despite the fact that Vasimr launch vehicles will still require chemical rockets to reach space,
once there they will embark on a journey to transform space travel as we know it.
There is no doubt that these new propulsion methods can literally change space travel,
allowing humans to travel to mars and beyond in a very short time as compared to our current
technology. All of these potentially prospective modes of travel might drastically alter how humans
navigate the cosmos if we are genuinely able to reduce the length of time
it takes to reach Mars and other planets. There is no doubt that a new golden age
of space has started and a lot more of it is yet unexplored. The possibilities are immense.
SO what do you think about these new propulsion methods? Which one will ultimately come out as a
winner? Let us know what you think in the comment section below. And don't forget to like the video
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