Raphael Thys
Combined bursts of energy form a powerful beam which is able to destroy whole planets.
Stocktrek Images/Tomasz Dabrowski//Getty Images
- NASA is investing in a far-out space exploration concept called “pellet-beam propulsion.”
- The technology could transport spacecraft weighing 1 ton to the orbit of Neptune in one year.
- The system is somewhat similar to a solar sail.
Far-flung science fiction often depicts humanity as an interplanetary (or even interstellar) species, but there’s a lot of technological advancement that needs to happen to move us from Earthbound terrestrials to spacefaring explorers. Luckily, there’s the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.
Dedicated to exploring advanced space-based technologies, NIAC just announced 14 recipients of a $175,000 grant to help bring some of these sci-fi inspired technologies to life. Among them are ideas like TitanAir, a seaplane designed to fly though the nitrogen-and-methane atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, and lunar pipelines designed to transport oxygen between moon-based settlements.
“NASA dares to make the impossible possible,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “The NIAC program helps give these forward-thinking scientists and engineers the tools and support they need to spur technology that will enable future NASA missions.”
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But to make “the impossible possible,” as Nelson says, scientists need to crack the biggest hurdle to space travel: getting from point A to point B much faster. Three projects in NAIC’s group of 14 aim to reimagine space travel, but the most ambitious is an idea called “pellet-beam propulsion.”
Artur Davoyan
Traveling at only 3.6 AU (1 AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun) a year, the Voyager missions took nearly half a human lifetime to reach the heliopause. Artur Davoyan of UCLA wants to speed up that process dramatically by using fast-moving particles propelled by lasers.
Similar to solar sail concepts that have been around for years, this pellet-beam propulsion system could transport spacecraft weighing one ton to the orbit of Neptune in just one year—it took Voyager 2 twice as long just to get to Jupiter. Extrapolated, this technology could even travel 500 AU in 15 years, placing spacecraft smack dab in the scattered disk of the Kuiper Belt.
The project’s Phase I investigation will research these exciting-yet-bold claims by modeling the pellet-beam technology’s subsystems and designing proof-of-concept studies (with hopefully encouraging results).
How Does a Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Rocket Work?
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Pellet-beams aren’t the only propulsion technology in town, as two other NIAC projects turn to nuclear reactors for ways to push humans beyond the limits of conventional rockets.
The first (and most well known) is a new class of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engine, a propulsion system powered by fission that is estimated to reduce travel times to Mars by at least 25 percent. Another concept is a nuclear fission fragment rocket engine, or FFRE, that NASA says would be “exponentially more propellent efficient than rocket engines.” The problem? Right now, FFRE engines are prohibitively massive, incredibly complex, and have some pretty big thermal constraints—issues the propulsion company Positron Dynamics hopes to address.
With all three of these concepts, chemical rockets would still have their place by providing the initial escape from Earth’s gravity. But it’s clear from these NIAC selections that NASA is eager to move beyond the speed limitation of today’s rockets.