. A conventional chemical rocket engine would be able to carry enough fuel to reach only one of these asteroids.)
NASA'S DAWN SPACE PROBE, which is propelled by an electric rocket called an ion thruster, nears the asteroid Vesta in this artist's conception. Vesta is its initial survey target; the asteroid Ceres, its second destination, floats in the far distance in the image (bright spot at upper right). A conventional chemical rocket engine would be able to carry enough fuel to reach only one of these asteroids.
Image: Pat Rawlings SAIC
In Brief
- Conventional rockets generate thrust by burning chemical fuel. Electric rockets propel space vehicles by applying electric or electromagnetic fields to clouds of charged particles, or plasmas, to accelerate them.
- Although electric rockets offer much lower thrust levels than their chemical cousins, they can eventually enable spacecraft to reach greater speeds for the same amount of propellant.
- Electric rockets’ high-speed capabilities and their efficient use of propellant make them valuable for deep-space missions.
More In This Article
Alone amid the cosmic blackness, NASA's Dawn space probe speeds beyond the orbit of Mars toward the asteroid belt. Launched to search for insights into the birth of the solar system, the robotic spacecraft is on its way to study the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest remnants of the planetary embryos that collided and combined some 4.57 billion years ago to form today's planets.
But the goals of the mission are not all that make this flight notable. Dawn, which took off in September 2007, is powered by a kind of space propulsion technology that is starting to take center stage for long-distance missions a plasma rocket engine. Such engines, now being developed in several advanced forms, generate thrust by electrically producing and manipulating ionized gas propellants rather than by burning liquid or solid chemical fuels, as conventional rockets do.
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14 Comments
Add CommentOf course electric rockets sound good, but they need a high efficiency power-source to produce decent thrust for human missions. I think NASA has dropped the ball in that department after its nuclear space-power program got canned a few years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI could not agree with you more... nuclear power and the plasma rocket designed by Chang-Diaz would have been the next generation ... now something of the likes will not be created for another 50 years from now or more... what a set back
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's see if Barack has the cahonnes to reauthorize the nuclear rocket program. Unfortunately, he is in the back pocket of the Luddites of the Eco- crazy world and is unlikely to do the right thing.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue space travel is not here yet. In 1957 I started jr. high school and wanted to be a rocket scientist , by the end of the year I knew roman candle technology (chemical rockets) would not yield true space travel. so I studied neuclar power and designed a reactor heated gas rocket, still no good. Too expensive, too dangerous, too slow. USArmy actually built and tested in 1970s (100s of million$, too dangerous, too expensive). By 1960 I gave up on becomeing a rocket scientist, and studied electricity & electronics. It was evident no reaction engine would ever yield true space travel. TOO SLOW, space is a VERY LARGE place!! humans too short lived.
During the last 20 years it became clear that an EMF(electro-motive force) drive could give true space travel. Nearly 200 years of reports of strange electro phenomana and present astrophysics indicates an EMF manipulation of the stuff of space,dark matter, dark energy(Aether) is doable. Safe, moderate expense, fast. At only one G, trans light speeds in a long month. In an Aether universe the speed of light is not an absolute.
But don't worry kiddies, as we speak crazy people, often alone, in dark basements and garages are working on EMF manipulation of dark matter-dark energy, the foundation material of everything. Most will fail but some are getting close. Within 10 years or less,(after 2012 ? maybe) true space EMF drives (UFO's anyone?) will be possible. Got to go,must hurry back to the garage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell pgtrus, if we can't understand the whys of gravity, forget efficient space travel. The two are integrally intertwined.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEXACTLY!! A well thought out under standing of mass/inertia causes will yield an understanding of the phenomena of gravity. Remember gravity is not a thing it's an effect " Gravity doesn't exist, the Earth sucks" an attempt by the matter of the earth to accelerate (overcome inertia) of matter towards it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnified-field. No gravitons, wormholes,or spacetime warpage. Just proton - electron shell attraction for proton - electron shell. Large amounts of matter acting over large distances. more later.
You want to find the real answer for this go to google type keshe go to keshetechnologies you find the right answer for a lot of riddles
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is never been explaind like this ever.
but nobody wants to bring it to publiek?????????
C De Roose
Does anybody named The Astra Rocket Factory, here in Costa Rica... the new rockets exist in part due to Frankling Chang Díaz researchs...i would really like to read on your magazine an article about him... or atleast about the labs...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor an ant to explore,were he so inclined,another continent,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishe needs to get a lot further in a lot less time,I E,,,,,speed.
coast to coast has all manner of wacked out crazy theories of
everything imaginable,and unimaginable,except to the crazy.
the 'bell' project,supposedly designed/built by the germans
using multiple spinning magnets to alter local time/space
continuum,aging the contents a million years in a few seconds
like a calf,turning to dust,a tire into liquid tar,uranium to lead,to gold (???),the development of a travel means that
enables us to meet/exceed 300,000 km/sec,like the atomic bomb,as jfk mentioned,gives us the choice to assure survival of ,or extinction of all life.as th whether domeone cooked this up.?????????I don't know,,but kids the world over take the first steps in ,I hope,a living room, at about a year old,toddle for a few yards,fall on the butt,get up & start over,amidst applause,the driver is curiosity,and the genes that drive
the urge to move about & explore an ever expanding horizon.
ask columbus the vikings,the jutes,the british colonists.
the space program stoker needs to be fired up,so we might 'boldly go where no man has gone before'
Hello everyone, I've been looking for info on an idea I have. The idea is about using electricity, creating a divisional of energy witch has two divisions. The movement is from the magnetism of the energy created by the core. The speed is controlled by the manipulation of each division, The construction of the core I have, I need info on different magnetism of metal's if that's possible. There will be Quantum Physic's involved but what's the hurry. I am a machinist with interests in the future for all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI most be behind time's, the electric rocket with the ions, and gases or plasma to thrust the rocket is close to my dream. The core of the engine am working on is to allow electricity to create a rubber band affect using ion's or some anti quark's and quark's plus a natural magnetism created by the engine to give it a thrust and to pull the engine through space.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisspace travel
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is 3 ways + to this, here is 3 ways to do it.
its called using a magnetic field to rip you to Jupiter & other galaxies.
its just like MIR scanner pulling metal to it, this will to.
A MRI scanner only uses a 10,000 gauss magnetic field, that will rip metal to it fast.
So it would be making massive amounts of gauss.
so you can make millions of gauss in split seconds now, so you can now make a massive force. it can pull to metal or to magnetic fields like Jupiter's and so on.
the strongest magnetic field in the worlds in 1000 trillion gauss. once compressed, it will be * by 59 million gauss for every 1 gauss in that 1000 trillion gauss field. or in a different way every 3 gauss in that 1000 trillion gauss field, will be * by 10 billion gauss each gauss. So something like 335 trillion gauss times by 10 billion gauss each gauss, Wow.
the force of that is massive. you would pick up speed faster and faster, as in many times the speed of light. probably like. 375 million times the speed of light a second. in 2 seconds it will be 750 times the speed of light as in distance's every 2 seconds. * it by 60 seconds. well in 1 week, wow.
you can also build a turbine that will compress and blast out mass amounts of gauss in a spit second. you will put it at the back of a space ship, & will put a south side styli magnetic plates all around & in the exit, where the blast will spray out millions of gauss if not trillions in time.
In 3 year billion then trillions then quadrillions of gauss in a split second.
so it blast out, hitting the cotted walls in a shape, that are like a 1 side of a magnetic field, that if something like south side & south side face each other, they will push away from each other. the stronger 1 will force the other one away.
So its like a fin or a wing on a boat or a plane. If its on a angle or so on, it will push it away or that way it will move.
So a blast in a spit second of millions or billion or trillions of gauss & so on, would 100% force the space craft ford, or it would also turn.
There would be different ways to make it work too.
You can do 1000 split second blast non stop. Or if to fast you would do 1 here and there.
So in space once you hit 1 million km/s. you will site on that speed with no force pushing you. You if you did it again, you would be going faster again & again. Within 15 years, you would reach the end of the radiation bubble in the universe + more then that.
And if not just keep making split second blast that repeat its self.
the same way is how we get into space for free as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisso it would be putting a magnetic field on the space station, then pulling everything up into space.
i think Italy sent a rope up into space back in the 1990s or early 2000, but it snapped min after it was in space.
I would put a magnetic field on the space station, then i would ether put a metal coat on containers full of goods or on the spacecraft nose, or would put a south side magnetic plate on it, where by it will pull to each other / magnetic filed would rip it to it, & fast if you needed it to. so now we can get pulled into space for free, & the only cost is a 1 off cost, then its free. mass people can get up into space & mass shells & goods can for almost free. no more $700 million dollars a space launch. it could ether be done by the ground, getting pulled up. or like how NASA put's a spacecraft on the top on a big A380 air craft, then it gets realised and it gets pulled up. even goods as well also.