Electric Rockets Set To Transform Space Flight 114
An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at Txchnologist:
"The spectacle of a booster rocket lifting off a launch pad atop a mass of brilliant flames and billowing smoke is an iconic image of the Space Age. Such powerful chemical rockets are needed to break the bonds of Earth's gravity and send spacecraft into orbit. But once a vehicle has progressed beyond low-earth orbit chemical rockets are not necessarily the best way to get around outer space. That's because chemical propulsion systems require such large quantities of fuel to generate high speeds, there is little room for payload. As a result rocket scientists are increasingly turning to electric rockets, which accelerate propellants out the back end using solar-powered electromagnetic fields rather than chemical reactions. The electric rockets use so much less propellant that the entire spacecraft can be much more compact, which enables them to scale down the original launch boosters."
First electric post (Score:5, Funny)
Tesla would love this shit!
Re:Ahh, the future (Score:4, Funny)
This is fantastic. Finally my ship will stop drifting backwards when I fire my ion cannons.
Captain Kirk of the USS Prius (Score:4, Funny)
Stardate 45280.4
My crew and I have just left Earth's orbit, it took a mere 15 minutes to accelerate enough to reach escape velocity. Unfortunately, we ran out of batteries the moment we passed the moon and are now waiting for the Vulcans to come rescue us. Unfortunately, there are no electric charding stations out past the great-divide so we will have to be taken back earth where our crew will double the number of lithium ion batteries.
Re:Do we even have such a long cord? (Score:5, Funny)
213 million six foot power strips daisy chained together...
The Fire Marshall will have an absolute conniption fit over that one.
Re:Ahh, the future (Score:5, Funny)
they are building VASMIR engines down the street. It would be a long walk, but ...
You may think that's a long walk, but that's peanuts compared to space.
Re:Do we even have such a long cord? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but knowing our government they'd buy them all from Belkin. Then we'd still have the iconic imagery of a trail of flame following the rocket up.