Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Plasma Rocket

Interesting...

Top boffins working at a NASA spinoff company are thrilled to announce that their plasma drive technology – potentially capable of revolutionising space travel beyond the Earth's atmosphere – has checked out A-OK in ground tests.

...

According to the Ad Astra Rocket Company, building the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), the firm's VX-200 prototype engine has just completed its latest round of trials with flying colours.

8 comments:

Ryan said...

Very exciting stuff! hopefully this kind of propulsion technology will kick-start the next space race era with the hole solar system opening up to us.

Ryan said...

*whole

David said...

This is off topic and you probably get asked this a lot but.....I'm going to ask it again anyway.

Is there any chance that Mason's Rats, Runcible Tales, and The Parasite will be republished? I've been watching Amazon for years but ......

I always enjoy reading a favorite author's early work to see how their writing has evolved and the unavailability of these titles has left me somewhat frustrated. Yeah, I could pay $73 U.S. for a used copy but that would just frustrate me even more. lol

Thanks very much

Unknown said...

VASIMR. I remember when the guy responsible for this design was considering scrapping the prototype because it was stuck in his garage mouldering away.

Thankfully someone saw fit to look at the design.

Also, Gaseous Nuclear Lightbulb design looks to be on the cards too!

Neal Asher said...

Let's hope so Ryan, but as they said in the article, this drive would be great for getting to Mars, but no good for getting into orbit.

David, at some point I may well republish both The Parasite & another one called Mindgames: Fool's Mate, but I'm not sure when or how - they may end up as part of a collection. The first of the three Mason's Rats stories can be found in 'Year's Best SF 11' edited by Hartwell & Cramer, whilst the other two can be found in 'The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume Two' edited by George Mann.

Cameron, please tell me about nuclear lightbulbs!

Jebel Krong said...

this is one of those projects that ex_NASA guys came up with and sold back to them - seems to be the best way of getting anything done at that place these days...

btw the rumour for now is that they're going to announce signs of life on one of saturn's moons at their press conference this week.

Unknown said...

Neal, I think this one does it justice.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/07/gaseous-core-nuclear-design-liberty.html

Alan Smith said...

Tried pasting this on another post but you deleted it.

--

You have used your own cut and paste job to argue against you. You really aren't that smart.

With regards to the second paragraph, that is meaningless. It is called "cherry picking" and I understand that's what denier folk do quite a bit, which is probably why no one takes you seriously.

Your final error here is that the IPCC don't make "predictions" - they publish a variety of data trends and models with statistical outcomes (many of them underestimating the real results when they come in).

Finally, you are cut and pasting (clever argument technique by the way) from a discredited denier:

http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/22/roger-pielke-jr-denier-john-tierney-link-climate-change-extreme-weather/

Color me unimpressed.

I've also just seen some of your other blog posts. Are you a member of that British National Party by any chance? You sound like one of them, or from what I hear in the news out here. You probably think the whole world is out to get you too, right?