What would that do to a marshmallow?

Omg this is awesome. I hope it works in bigger scale.

You got your facts mixed up. The 7.5 tons of fuel/year is the amount the ISS currently uses to maintain orbit; VASIMIR would reduces that to 0.39 tons. Considering what it costs to get a ton of anything into orbit, that would be a lot of money saved over the life of the ISS.

Now that's a program worth sinking money into. I wonder if it can be used on earth as a powerplant, or does the need for magnetic fields put the kabosh on that?

when are the warp engines going to appear?

I wish they would have called them thrusters...

@Old Man Dotes: Thanks for that correction. I've updated the text.

im suprised that something like this would happen in my lifetime.
im only 18, to mars in 39 days.
good stuff. right there.

I did a research project on this technology last year. Really glad to see them making some headway.

Is that 39 days of continual thrust? If so that is a LOT of fuel, even if the engine is 20 times more efficient. Because if I remember right the 6 month journey uses something similar to a hohmann transfer. In that case you just make a big burn to leave earth orbit, and another burn to capture mars orbit. The rest of the time you are powered by gravity, which saves massive amounts of fuel.

@dancesonsnow

I doubt it. 39 days of continual thrust in space would be ridiculous. Most engine burns(once in space at least) last a couple of minutes at most, usually just enough to overcome mass and get the object moving. And because of the lack of friction in space, Newton's 1st law takes over and the craft would just keep going at that speed.

This looks like a low mass, high velocity exhaust engine like the Deep Space 1 test probe. It therefore would need much time to build up to its maximim velocity. Very different from chemical rockets.

So now they just got to get a craft that is able to take us to mars and back with no problems. That will be amazing when they do.

12,465.75 Km/Hr = 6 Months
58,333.33 Km/Hr = 39 Days

Um, I wonder what little tiny rocks would do to a rocket if you hit them at that massive velocity? They'll some kind of auto-correction on the navigation to avoid obstacles, yeah?

A 39 day one way trip would only require accelerating at less than 1% of earth's gravity. The mass of fuel needed to boost all the way to mars (flipping over half way) depends on the velocity of the exhaust, so it’s totally possible. But what they aren’t saying is that 20 MW is way too much to be produced by solar power. The thing will have to have a nuke to power it, thus all those heat radiating veins you see on their computer model.

- Nuclear plant. That's what was nagging me. Where the heck does 20MW come from?? Great advance. Nothing wrong with using nuclear to run it, far as I'm concerned. Just wondered where the power started.
- People who are terrified of nuclear plants on launch vehicles are going to have to get over it, sooner or later. Chemical isn't viable in the long term, and nuclear, even dirty nuclear like we build now, is the only other option right now, afaik. At least in space disposal of the spent fuel is pretty trivial. On the return trip, toss it at the Sun. (grin)

will this make vegas trips even cheaper?

when are they going to build that high speed train to Vegas from LA. That would be nice.

this is cool. 39 days is quite an improvement. Saves a lot of food, water and air and makes a mars-shot more doable by nasa. As it is they would have to figure out how to support a team for 18 months. It could be redesigned to be a go-explore-return all in the same orbital window, instead of waiting for mars to swing all the way around the sun, which makes the minimum stay on mars a year or so

How cute that everyone thinks interplanetary travel is done in straight lines...

The acronym should be VASIMR. Or is there any mistake in the order of words, say "Magnetoplasma Impulse" ?

One step closer to realizing Tsiolkovsky's dream.

Traveling in a straight line would be inefficient, if not impossible. Besides, what is a straight line in gravity-deformed space?

If FTL travel is even possible (theoretically, pseudo-FTL travel is possible), it is centuries away.

Besides, until we develop some sort of acceleration compensators (or inertial dampers, of you prefer the sci-fi term), space travel will be restricted to a select few and requre intense physical conditioning.

At higher speeds, things like micrometeors becomes a problem. And we don't have "deflector dishes" to help with that.

I'll take a dozen.

As was pointed out earlier, with sufficient thrust, only 1% of earth's gravity, in continuous acceleration / negative acceleration would be needed to to reach Mars. That kind of thrust doesn't need extensive physical training, although it's fair to say specialists would be the only ones going for a while.

The other side to that is micrometeor protection. The recent tv show "Defying Gravity" has the answer to that. Put a large shield on the front of the craft. In space, there's no drag, it's just a matter of more mass. And putting solar cells on it or maybe radiator vanes for a nuke plant also solves that issue as well.

Great for accelerating, however, how would you brake or stop yourself from running into Mars or whatever destination? Turn the ship around or using thrusters or what?

It's not the trip to Mars that will kill you, it's the sudden stop.

Field propulsion is the only way to go!!

Does anyone know if this technology is feasible in creating a horizontal take-off space plane? Using scram jet engines in the atmosphere and then switching to the plasma engine once you reach the upper part of the atmosphere sounds like a great idea to save the costs on fuel. However, I have a feeling a dual engine system could weigh down the craft and make it less efficient. I am (clearly) not an engineer, so I am not sure if something like this could be possible down the road.

So how will this technology affect a trip to the moon? Could we make it there in under a day?

Question; How much thrust dose it put out? Statement; Vested intrests will kill it.

I'm 52, and always loved anything "space". Hope we get to mars... soon.