Nuclear fusion is a promising technology that always seems to be 20 years away. Money has poured into Research and Development over the past few decades with no real results. In 1989, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann claimed to discover a means of facilitating nuclear fusion at room temperature, termed cold fusion. No one was able to consistently or reliably replicate their results and cold fusion became pathological science, science produced by wishful thinking. However, fusion undoubtedly exists and releases an enormous amount of energy. Nuclear fusion is the energy source for the sun, all active stars, and the most powerful bomb on earth. Though fusion is not a reliable or cost-effective means of generating energy, it is possible to produce controlled, but not self-sustaining, fusion reactions inside magnetic fields. Scientists at the University of Washington and a space-propulsion company called MSNW are working on fusion propulsion for travel to other planets.
According to John Slough, a University of Washington research associate professor, existing rocket fuels provide little potential for exploration beyond earth. It’s estimated that a roundtrip manned mission to Mars would last 500 days or nearly a year and a half. Slough, the president of MSNW, determined that a fusion powered rocket would make it possible to travel to Mars in 90 or even 30 days. The fusion propulsion development program is currently being funded by NASA and received renewed funding in March. Previous NASA studies indicate that a Mars expedition would take two years to complete and could cost $12 billion dollars in fuel alone.
The specific method for the fusion propulsion of a rocket it tricky, and though John Slough and his team have successfully completed isolated tests, they have yet to produce fusion. Lab tests suggest that nuclear fusion could occur by compressing a special type of plasma to high pressure with a magnetic field. The energy contained in an amount of plasma the size of a grain of sand is roughly equivalent to the energy in current rocket fuel. A powerful magnetic field could collapse lithium rings around the plasma and create fusion for a few microseconds. The hot, ionized metal ring would then be jettisoned out of the rocket nozzle at high speed. By repeating this process nearly every minute, Slough expects that nuclear fusion could propel a spacecraft to Mars in only 30 days.
With fusion, breakthroughs are never a certainty. I don’t expect 30 day trips to Mars any time soon. Maybe one day though, fusion propulsion will enable interplanetary travel, which would be pretty awesome.
Fusion Propulsion: Future or Fantasy?