brian-- talking 'bout:
PLASMA POWER!!!!!!!!!
Plasma-Powered Trip to the Stars
by Leander Kahney
3:00 a.m. 18.Aug.99.PDT
Using a giant sail made of plasma, a new type of spacecraft could beat Voyager I to the edge of the solar system. But NASA's taking no chances on it, yet.
Developed by a team at the University of Washington, the Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion system, or M2P2, has a maximum speed of 180,000 miles per hour, or 4.3 million miles a day, about ten times the speed of a space shuttle.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also: NASA's Leaner, Cleaner Future
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The brainchild of geophysicist Robert Winglee, the M2P2 system employs a huge plasma field around a satellite. The field catches solar wind, like an enormous electromagnetic sail.
Although it cannot be used within earth's atmosphere, the system could theoretically shoot a spacecraft across the continental United States in just 10 seconds.
Though not as fast as the warp drives described in Star Trek, the M2P2 system would propel craft as fast as the current knowledge of physics allows, researchers said.
Despite its next-generation design, the system functions similarly to one of mankind's earliest forms of propulsion -- sailing.
The system employs solenoids on the spacecraft to generate an electromagnetic field 24 miles across, with the spacecraft at the center.
The electromagnetic field is then filled with a cloud of magnetized plasma, or ionized gas, generated by a small plasma chamber about the size of a pickle jar.
"It's like a balloon," Winglee explained. "The electromagnetic field is the fabric that holds the plasma in."
Once inflated, the plasma field harnesses the solar wind, a stream of particles that continuously shoots from the sun at speeds between 780,000 and 1.8 million miles per hour.
The system is based on well-known physical principles and is essentially an artificial version of Earth's magnetic field, which shields the planet from the effects of the solar wind, Winglee said.
If an M2P2 craft were launched today, in just eight years it could catch Voyager I, which launched in 1977. Even if it were not deployed for another ten years, the speedy M2P2 system could still overtake Voyager as the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, despite a 32-year handicap.
Winglee said he'd like to see an M2P2 craft launched on a mission to the Kuiper Belt, a mysterious area on the edge of the solar system believed to be the source of comets.
1 of 2 Next Page >> |
