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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2024
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It's 1 spacecraft... 2 (still) spacecraft ;) That said.. Love your content!
In Ukraine, the FED company produced ion-plasma engines of a new type of 3-5 kW for sale, but the question of what happened to the company is currently unknown. The first biplanes were supposed to be delivered to the satellites in 2022.
I can’t join it says invitation expired thanks
Elon Musk announces charging stations between Earth and Mars.
So thats why the aliens @ area 51 have a hard time landing their ion rockets once they enter atmosphere. lol
Conventional rockets are still necessary to take things from planetside into orbit. Ships that will rely exclusively on ion engines will be probably assembled in orbit.
We need the infrastructure to assemble stuff in space
@@WilliamFord972 we managed to build the ISS. The loss of the shuttle program was a big setback, but we do have that ability.
Yea that's what I'm saying
Yes, both nuclear and ion propulsion engines will be best for interplanetary travel, but to leave the gravity well of a planet requires a more conventional rocket engine. However, there is nothing saying that an ion or nuclear-powered ship cannot be launched from the surface of a planet using chemical rocket engines.
@christopherdaffron8115 well yea ion Propulsion is a form of plasma Propulsion plus it's supposed to keep accelerating to its destination even if you try to use chemical in space to try to accelerate it even more you have to carry so much fuel it's not practical so yes ypu are right having a higher Delta V is what you want
I remember reading about ion drives in library books in the early 1960's. There development has been going on since then.
t h e i r
@@petterlarsson7257 It was probably a auto suggestion from their phone if that is what they're using. Wow it's amazing that such an advanced technology was conceptualized way back then. It's amazing how far humans have progressed since the first electric light bulb in a lab in 1879 and the internal combustion engine powered chariot in 1886 to now just ~143 years later.
@@reinatycoon3644 in a hundred years we went from wright brothers first flight to supersonic jets, humans do stuff fast, hell even our evolution was fast with it only being 300,000 years since we evolved as a species, thats literally nothing compared to what it took to get there.
I mean, ion thrusters are real. they are used all the time
@@petterlarsson7257 its youtube.. who cares. ur pedantic elitist prescriptivism has no power here lololol
Considering how much technology has advanced in the last 120 years, I would be surprised if humanity hasn't colonised the Moon and Mars by 2120.
That would be so sad
@@kakapofan6542 no it would be better ( considering the present condition of humanity at least )
@@kakapofan6542 what r u talking about? it would be amazing and great if we did that.
Try 2035 that’s probably when we will colonize both if star ship and Artemis go accordingly.
We keep screwing around, theres a lot of things humanity is distracted by :(
There is a classic mistake here: ion thrusters don't necessarily have "low thrust". In fact, in many cases there is literally no limit to how much thrust they can produce. The issue is the amount of power available - they produce low thrust simply because they lack the power to accelerate more propellant and generate higher thrust. So the issue is really not the engine, but the power source.
What would happen if we stuck a nuclear reactor in one? Is that feasible?
@@AS7Promitus we could, but nuclear reactors are very heavy, and in space this becomes even a bigger issue because you have no easy way to remove waste heat from the reactor. So on top of heavy reactor you also need gigantic and heavy radiators. As a result, while you heave lots of power, you also have lots of additional mass to carry around. The trick is to have power source with low mass/power ratio, and those we simply don't have.
What if we 'overclock' the thrduters of sorts, do they consume a lot more fuel per second. Would that be better?
@@AstronAndry and there do you get the power for that? :)
@@Pharisaeus with the power of friendship
Thanks for another interesting video. But it was a little disappointing that there was no mention of the successful "Dawn" space probe mission, which visited both Vesta and Ceres in the Asteroid belt. Entirely powered (after leaving Earth's atmosphere), by an Ion engine.
There is a catch when it comes to travel times and achievable velocities: You can always only use half the distance to mars to accelerate. Because at some point you'll have to start braking. The weaker you thrusters the longer you have to brake unless you want to use gravity assisted deceleration again which brings you back to where you were with conventional propulsion. So the question is: How much is your actual net gain in travel time really if you have to brake half of the distance to your target?
True. Also, for a human-rated mission to Mars, you're better off using any additional boost capability for added payload that will increase mission safety on the surface, rather than reducing travel time. Getting there any faster than 6 months' time doubles the reliability requirement of your new engine as it destroys the 2-year free return abort option available at arrival.
Traveling with constant acceleration (which is not something we will be able to do anytime soon) actually gives amazing results. If you rearrange the second law of motion we all learned at school, s=ut+1/2at^2 , simplified by assuming initial speed u=0 and rearranged for t you get t=sqrt(2s/a). At its closest, Mars is about 54 billion meters, so the midpoint is 27 billion meters. Accelerate at 10m/s^2 to the midpoint then decelerate at the same rate (so the astronauts have comfortable 1g gravity all the way) and you get there in about 1.7 days. Pray you don't hit anything halfway, because you will be doing 1.6 million mph!
Mars is a special case since it has an atmosphere which can be used for braking. So even if you approach the planet at your maximum ion assisted transit velocity, you can kill that speed by skipping into and out of the atmosphere until your velocity is low enough to allow for a safe descent. As with the takeoff from Earth, final descent will use conventional, chemical rocket power.
You don’t have to start deceleration that soon. Just use the gravity of Mars to decelerate. You can use the gravity well to slow down without getting trapped in it.
@@oldbloke135 "If you rearrange the second law of motion we all learned at school..." You're too optimistic!
You know what’s kinda neat? The pros and cons of ion thrusters discussed here are implemented in _Space Engineers_
All hail the mighty Clang!
KSP too
Except for that annoying speed limit issue. I did manage to make a fully electric landing shuttle at one stage. Tricky, but doable.
Is your belly button an iny or an outy?
@@glitch-pr3nr Outies denote alien - human hybrids.
I love everything about your videos, they are of the highest caliber in every way. However, one of the things that really makes them distinctive is the tone you're able to set with the combo of your narration, script, and aesthetic. Every time a new one is up and I see it, it's like when you would run into a dim air conditioned house after being in a bright and hot sunny day. Incredibly refreshing.
Could we have an aircraft (first stage of flight) to get high enough and then use that to launch something higher than the atmosphere which can continue using ion drive?
What about Dawn? It went to a few large asteroids (Ceres, for example) using ion thrust.
That really is one of the best descriptions I've ever heard, exactly how I feel.
@@simonmultiverse6349 I think you may mean to be posting comments to the video, not replies to my comment. If you do mean to be doing that, I'm not sure why.
@@makoyoverfelt3320 You can wonder about that forever, he he he ha ha ha snigger!
"It might one day be possible to pop over to Mars for a holiday." If you accelerate at 1 g for the first half of a journey from Earth to Mars and decelerate at 1 g for the second half, it'll take at least 1.7 days, with an equally slow journey home. Not undoable, especially for long holidays, but they'd have to make the vehicle feel more like a cruise ship than a plane.
People do not go on inhospitable radiation riddled climate destroying holidays , oh they do the climate destroying bit .
Last summer, it took me 3 days to drive from my house in Arizona to my dad's house in Missouri. I would not mind 1.7 days on a luxury airliner just to go to Mars!
@@MyKharli Going to mars isn't climate destroying
“accelerate at 1g” meaning continuous thrust at 9.8m/s^2?
Assuming 1.5g's is still tolerable over all time periods for most people, then it could be sped up.
I had a hand in manufacturing the Ion engines for SpaceX’s starlink satellites. They’re really neat stuff.
you're a delicious dish too, just saying.
so u popped the lids on at the conveyer belts? insane manufacturing skills!
@@lossless4129 No, you!
Cool! Did you work at Spacex? Or a subcontractor?
Redmond wa?
I think Ion thrust is going to be a major component of space travel in the future. I also think that they should be looking into developing nuclear fusion power as well. I researched that the potential top speed of a powerful and efficient fusion thrust would be 10% the speed of light but we need to get there technologically. There is also the potential usage of solar light sails than can also top out at 10-20% the speed of light! Imagine a wonderous spacecraft that combines all of these techs plus using gravity assists when needed.
You think they aren't looking at fusion? They were looking at that first.
@@thekaxmax I'm aware that they are but it's not getting as much funding and dedication as it should. Nuclear spacecraft technology has been a concept since I believe the late 60's iirc.
@Reina Tycoon so has fusion, and has billions put into it.
They can push two lines of research at once. Sometimes more....
I feel like these technologies are going to be more niche and less revolutionary than people tend to think they will be and I doubt we're ever going to have humans traveling 10% the speed of light with them either. These technologies are slow to accelerate to these speeds making them more useful the longer the distance you want to travel - but it's still 40 years to the nearest star at 10% the speed of light, meaning we're unlikely to send a human. Also with the time it takes to accelerate to 10% the speed of light with these technologies even if we did use them for human travel within our solar system, it wouldn't be at anywhere near 10% the speed of light because they won't be traveling for long enough to reach it.
@StreakyBaconMan
You're assuming only rocketry technology will advance, and not medicine. By the time we're advanced enough to be seriously considering going to another star system with a big ship (not a tiny probe powered by lasers, for example), in say 100 years from now, we will have at the very least doubled human lifespan, if not solved aging altogether.
“Epstien Drives”. yah im not getting on that spaceship…..
That spaceship has sailed.
@@woodcat7180 the spaceship didn’t depressurize itself.
The Horshack Drive is much more intriguing.
Our closest neighbour is not Mars, it's Venus or Mercury, depending upon how you measure it (look it up).
Mars is slightly more hospitable than Mercury. Venus is hotter than Mercury and is the very definition of acid rain. No one is going to want to live permanently underground on Mars, so a fast trip is mandatory as a 26 month trip to Mars and back will seriously mess you up.
I wish NASA would do an orbiter around the far outer planets, like Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and other dwarf planets using Ion engines. Yes, it would take like 15 years, but still, it would be nice.
With their studio, they could do it.
@@australien6611 It doesn't have to use ion engines to be nice, I meant that ion engines would work best for an orbiter out far.
One of the things that will suck about dying is I'll be pissed off not knowing where this all goes.
The true power of elastic bands needs to be explored more 😊
Beside the very interesting subject matter, I greatly enjoy your narration. You always sound so genuinely interested and enthusiastic, it makes your content incredibly enjoyable.
Glad you made a video about the 39 days statement. I would enjoy seeing more information about current ion drives technology attached to current nuclear power sources. Feels like technology we could put together today, just no one has yet.
love your vids alex. They always make my day
What a great topic for a video, Alex. Thanks for the upload! [4:32]
Thanks for this update on Ion engines. I designed the thrust vector actuators for the Deep Space 1 Ion Engine that chased down comet Borelli and took the first fotos of a comets nucleus. Kind of anticlimactic, though, it looked like a longish Idaho potato! I also co designed the electronic pressure regulator Xenon fuel feed for the 200W TacSat 2 Spacecraft First of a Kind US built Hall Ion Thruster System, for which I received a nice plaque from JANNAF. What we Really need, though, is Field Propulsion. No expendables. I use the moniker Iam Nobody to remain anonymous on the web. Thanks. Jerry
Haha and then sign you text "Jerry".
Thank you for your contribution to the progress of human kind.
@@peasant8246 You are very welcome. I really enjoyed my work. Jerry
The biggest thing that will hold back space colonization is not the distances involved, but the fact that humans are not built to survive well in zero or low gravity, and, we all like to be in nature, and there isn’t any out there.
Shhh you will upset the fan boys
you would be surprised by how resilient some people can be in the most inhospitable environments for long periods of time, and people have stayed up on the iss with no real affects as they exercise 2 hours everyday to keep their muscles ready for earth’s gravity. this could even be circumvented using a gravity ring, which is a habitable, spinning ring that when standing in you would feel exactly 1 g due to the centrifugal forces.
the biggest thing holding back space colonisation is money and politics
@@Joshs4stro I recently finished reading “Packing for Mars” by Mary Roach and it made me realize how difficult spaceflight is for humans, how difficult it is to work in space on the space station, and so forth.
And I really think the nature thing is a lot more important than people realize. Kim Stanley Robinson writes quite a bit about this, such as in his book, Aurora.
artificial gravity
@@josupuff A large centrifuge is the obvious solution for long-term survival at zero gee, but who wants to spend a lifetime that way? Short trips, yes.
Ion engines only work in the vacuum of space ! Atmosphere is the limiting factor ion engines can’t overcome….
Almost perfect ion propulsion video, Thank you!!
One thing everyone should know however, is that there is a series of ion thrusters that are patented for lifting their power supplies against Earth's gravity! The crafts are fully independently verified, since it is amazing that they have a high enough thrust to weight ratio. This series of crafts are called the Ion Propelled Vehicle or Self-Contained Ion Powered Aircraft. Some of the 40 or so flight videos available online, show the crafts lifting small propellant tanks for use in space. So far, all the flights have used ambient air/O2 as propellant. The velocity of the propellant for ion propulsion is proportional to the energy input as mentioned, however, high propellant velocities can be produced more efficiently with higher voltages and with different geometries and propellants. While not yet proven in space, the greater than 1 to 1 thrust ratio that this produces, is tremendously higher than for xenon thrusters.
Now I’ll just wait for the first Twin Ion Engine ship, can’t wait!
it's kinda funny when you consider the TIE fighters in star wars were meant to be using ion """"thrust""""ers powered by solar pannels, it would take them several months to turn around in a dogfight if that's really what they were using
@@anonymous-rb2sr those hexagonal panels are actually radiators, not solar panels. As silly as the TIE ships are, the radiator part is actually very smart and something that came to mind when it was mentioned in this video that waste heat was a problem in current designs.
Ion thrusters have also been proposed as a means of deorbiting space junk, as the exhaust forms a beam that exerts force on objects that it comes in contact with.
every rocket engine does that
@@Joshs4stro Yes, but burning precious fuel to move junk out of orbit would be comically wasteful.
@@peaceandloveusa6656 ik
@@peaceandloveusa6656 It would also be incredibly based
@@peaceandloveusa6656 finally somebody get it lmao
"yes our species burns fkn XENON and KRYPTON to barely move around in low earth orbit because we are too lazy and dumb to make anything better than just a simple pushing plate magnet as our engines, also we'll soon be unable to fly in space near our own homeworld because one of our country named the USA spilled trillions of tiny needles in orbit to do somethign that didn't even work, and because 2 other countries that also fill the ground and oceans with trash named china and india decided to blow up satelites, that's our species, also we don't have any off earth colonies let alone self sufficient mining operations!"
Just imagine how much the aliens are laughing at us, we're probably designated as a circus planet
If cooling is the issue, perhaps they could transfer the heat to the ions before they are ejected? If it's able to eject enough particles quickly enough that might work.
Thanks, Alex! Wonderful discussion.
If you use sodium as a reactor coolant, you could also use it as a propellant in an ion engine. It would be very cheap.
But the problem that arises here is how to properly store and transport sodium as it is very reactive in nature. And how to safely send large amounts of sodium into orbit.
@dakshshashwat7578 you get it from lunar rocks. Store it in vacuum, heating it through the reactor. Obviously you can't expose it to vacuum, but it's safer in space if you get a leak than oxygen and water atmosphere. It needs to be kept at the boiling point of water to stay liquid.
when you say reactor do you mean fission reactor? If so then why even use sodium, just use hydrogen, that's how the NERVA engine works, it's just a nuclear reactor that heats up hydrogen, it's a very very basic and shitty design in many ways, but I don't see why you would ever need sodium, the NERVA and engine concepts like it technically use their "coolant" as exhaust, then again the entire concept is heating up a liquid by shoving it through the core of a neutron source
maybe you mean another type of reactor where there would be a reason to use sodium idk
but also remember, any time you transform "energy" from one type to another, you lose efficiency, there is no reason to have some fissile thing, make it release neutrons and photons and protons, use that to generate heat, use the heat to heat up sodium in a semi closed coolant loop that powers up a turbine (makes it spin) that creates electricity throgh a dynamo that creates a magnetic field that creates a linear acceleration that yeets your sodium, when you could just be using the heat to yeet the coolant directly
(unless the thermal yeeting process is so inefficient that it's worse not to do all the steps, which is definitely possible, the nerva was a pretty bad engine as well)
either way with a nuclear electric reactor powering an ion engine, that means you now need to carry the very heavy nuclear power plant, the fissile core, coolant, collant piping, turbine, electric wires, dynamo etc, with the terrible thrust of your ion engine, which I can't see being a good idea
Cheap for who?
The biggest issue in space travel in the future will not be generating speed. It will be the ability to avoid collisions with rocks and particles as the space ship moves towards is destination. Some form of shield will have to be generated at the front of the craft in order to avoid damage. This could take up a lot of energy from the spacecraft.
Agree 👍😉
Isn't that something the Alcubierre drive could do if we can get it to work because it warps space around the craft or something?
There is no need for scientifically impossible "force fields", just a microwave radar to detect and a laser to divert small objects in ship's path by heating up one side until resulting vapor acts like a thruster and changes their trajectory while simply adjusting the course to go around the bigger ones. All this can already be done with current tech.
Actually, the idea of thrust is much easier to understand that the archaic newtonian description. In fluid mechanics, the description is that when you create a pressure in a chamber, it presses on all walls equally. But what if you create a pressure along only one wall? It would accelerate in the direction of the pressure. So a thruster takes the easiest view of this - it solves the problem of "one-wall-pressure" by opening the opposite wall and making it into a nozzle. Thus, the measure of the exhaust coming out the nozzle is a measure of how much pressure is bing exerted by the ignited fuel mixture within the combustion chamber in the direction of motion.
Its a more realistic description for large systems like a turbulent flow of gas than "throwing mass out the back maves you move forward" though this is a true statement, but only because the mass is exerting a push on you.
Gotta use Ion thrust for non-manned spacecraft part that can have extended acceleration time while human part (capsule that docks with "mother ship") could use "traditional" rockets to get on-board it (and separate before target, while "cargo ship" is using larger loop (like 2-3 gravity assists with small "normal engines") to slow down).
I love the amount of ion engine and space engineering experts watching this channel. If only NASA took notes from the TH-cam comments section im sure we would already be visiting the stars 🙄
It's not quite that simple. If you look at the history of rocketry (an excellent book on the subject is Ignition!) pretty much every crazy idea that could plausibly work (and a shockingly large number on implausible ones that were well marketed) has been tried by government researchers over the past 80 years or so, especially during the height of the cold war.
@@Eric-gq6ip sarcasm dude 🤓 have a great day!
With ion thrusters it's less about how far away they are as "how long you're willing to wait."
Because of the low thrust.
Your video popped in my suggestions- I’m relearning as I’ve noticed some channels talk about the Pole Shift and so many years of darkness- would love your point of view on the earths changes and 5D ascension.
Liked came w/o even watching your video, as your subscriber. I was expecting your video to use MAGLAV kind off setup running in a loop in vacuum achieving the escape velocity and then shooting straight up. Further accelerating by running close circles around Earth then further using our Moon to do that(MAGLAV as well as circling) before starting it's journey to Mars and using Ion thrusters on it's way. The way back would be the same from Mars this time using one of it's 2 satellites and using our Moon as a speed breaker, further slowing down circling around the Earth. I see it happening in coming 40-50 years where humanity will achieve such pin-point accuracy and efficiency if, we don't destroy ourselves by then. Keep more videos coming! I eagerly wait for them.
@Does Not Compute That's what and why stops us from achieving it plus many other reasons. One other reason, it requires a mile high tower to send it in space after achieving that kind of speed. It's been covered in an another video just check the videos uploaded by Astrum. We are talking about achieving it in near future. The system works like particle accelerator. Just imagine the power input it will need to accelerate a whole space ship.
For some who still don't get it fully is what Astrum means is Ion drives will be able to get used to other places faster by keep accelerating for years without massive amounts of fuel sure but they won't completely replace chemical rockets as they are too convenient to get stuff into orbit but having a higher delta V is very desirable
Whos not getting it? He explained it better than you..
@@australien6611 duh ik
Seems to me that what will eventually become standard is a combination of different types of propulsion systems...solar sails, lasers, ion and rockets, depending on the application...
Gravity wells need rockets to overcome, at least until some sort of "skystalk" is built but that's not going to happen anytime soon. So, the Moon is the best closest place to jump out there, imo...
S.W.
Using this for people isn't as far off as you suggest. Here are some things to consider:
1. Say you want to move people to and from Mars. Back in the 1960's and early 70's NTP (Nuclear Thermal Propulsion) was developed and demonstrated here on Earth with the design goal this would be the 3rd stage to a Saturn V rocket. While they use hydrogen as propellant, which we use in the core stage of the SLS as it is so very light, the nuclear reactor can easily heat the hydrogen enough to have over twice the ISP (how fast it shoots out of the nozzle) while still having enough thrust to take advantage of the Oberth Effect to escape Earth's gravity. The reason NTP has such a high ISP compared to the SLS core stage is the SLS core stage combines hydrogen and oxygen and oxygen is relatively heavy and thus needs to be heated a whole lot more than what chemical heating alone can do in order to reach such a high velocity while elemental hydrogen is far lighter and thus needs far less heating to have the same high velocity. What you really want to do with this is to have a reusable booster that never really leaves Earth. This will allow a crewed ship to quickly get around Earth's radiation belt just like how Apollo skirted around Earth's radiation belts to get to the Moon and then return to LEO to be reused for the next mission. The initial escape from Earth's gravity well done and done quickly and done this way to minimize radiation exposure and thus less radiation shielding is needed for the trip.
2. Also going back to the 1960's and key components developed further for solar concentrating power plants with overnight molten salt storage in the 1990's, I mean we eventually circled around and tackled the chief problems with this technology when back in the 1960's the scientists were never given the chance to finish the materials science are LFTR reactors. These use a high temperature molten salt reactor core and breed thorium into uranium to use as fuel and burns nearly all of the uranium / thorium put into the reactor. These are passively / inherently safe unlike light water reactors and extremely compact and efficient, especially with a good space only design. You complain about heat dissipation in space, but actually we have space radiator science down pretty well. You do the right high powered nuclear - electric setup as it is called and the radiator space needed is a small fraction of the solar panel space needed for Earth orbital distance from the Sun, let alone farther out. I mean you can get rather good accelerations suitable for deep space missions getting you to Mars in short times allowing for minimal radiation shielding and in general minimal ill effect from being in 0 G as the trip will be quick. Then the ship that always stays in space can come back to Earth. Mars does not have radiation belts around it as it does not have a magnetic field and in general less gravity to escape from, so the nuclear - electric drive is more suited for getting you back from Mars. Once back to Earth, you could potentially aerobrake to help achieve LEO again and thus with the NTP booster already back in LEO a long time ago and serviced for the next mission, you have a complete system for getting people to Mars space.
3. For getting to the surface of Mars, when you have the transfer ships above put together, you use chemical to get down, which you don't need that much chemical to get down. With 1/3rd the gravity and almost no atmosphere, it is easy enough to get chemical back up. As engines tend to be a lot more expensive than propellant tanks, you could have some mostly cargo and passenger one way landing craft with some propellant to make the landing burns and some rockets designed to return to the mother ship in space carrying people, samples, and engines of the one way landing craft so that future missions can be cheaper by recycling the engines used for landing. You can also have a nuclear - electric focused cargo and fuel hauler to bring the bulk of your supplies and landing craft out to Mars space slowly, but efficiently doing nuclear - electric the whole way forgoing the NTP booster and launching before the crewed ship as maximum efficiency takes longer than a rapid, radiation minimizing crewed trip.
One thing to note when you talk about efficiency of fuel; there are two ways to think about efficiency. You could consider how much mass is required to get a specific change of momentum, in which case ion thrusters are way more efficient. Or you could think about how much energy is required to change a unit of momentum, in which ion thrusters are way way less efficient than chemical rockets.
We can only bring a finite mass of fuel with us, and because of the rocket equation bringing fuel mass gives diminishing returns. For this reason, the limiting factor is generally the amount of momentum change per mass of fuel, and so ion engines are considered efficient. We can get energy for free using solar panels, but the power (energy per second) may be very limited and thus the thrust is very limited.
I know nothing much about all this but I find this quite interesting, but I was thinking, would it be possible to like cancel out or just to reduce the gravity a little? And have the rockets take off from there? Like a small area with low gravity? Can save lots of fuel to take off right, again its just a thought that occurred while watching this video
You mean launching from the Moon?
@@tonywells6990 no like some places on earth have lower gravity, launching from there can make a difference is my question
@@itzmrdub4591 No we cannot change gravity, but we can launch from Earth, refuel in orbit and then that extra fuel will get us to our destination (eg. Mars or Jupiter) much faster. Or land on the Moon and launch from there with another rocket, and since the Moon has a much lower gravity than Earth, we can launch to another destination with less fuel.
If only the Treaty of Moscow hadn't put a stop to the Orion Project. We might have a means of propulsion that far exceeds both chemical rockets and ion drives.
Don't get me wrong. I agree with the Treaty of Moscow. Nobody wants random EMPs in the upper atmosphere. It's the ending of the Orion Project that I take issue with. They could have found a different fuel source, rather than simply abandoning the project.
This would have ultimately led to Bussard's ramjet design possibly seeing the light of day.
Yea, some smart country should make their own rules about space nukes, then withdraw from that treaty...
Nuclear pulse is too good to ignore!
If we want to rush humans to other planets before they die, NPD is our current option...
Shame JFK ended it because they put a dangerous-looking model Orion battleship in front of him! :D
Always fascinating!
Great channel I LOVE IT!!!
You could get to Mars in a lot less time than seven months using chemical propulsion by assembling in orbit a multi-stage rocket with jettison able external propellant-tanks.
How would you get the propellant up there?
@@D1craigRob The tanks would be loaded in orbit by second-stages launched into orbit for that purpose.
The faster you travel to get to a planet the more you need to slow down to get into an orbit of that planet when you get there. This is one of the reasons why current rockets take slower orbits to get to other planets. An ion engine that takes a lot of time to accelerate will need to start slowing down much further away from the destination.
Everyone seems to be forgetting this..
Why not just cause a reverse process in front of the craft?
Great video, but ion thrusters' "fatal flaw" of not having enough thrust is moot because all space travel is the initial launch providing all the inertia needed, then slingshotting around stars or planets to return to Earth on the initial thrust only, that's how we've always done space travel here. That's exactly why Iron thrusters are so perfect. A single nuclear battery and over thousands of years, you can even drop the battery and recharge near suns, make minor adjustments due to solar winds or collisions and maintain trajectory without a need for finite, heavy fuels which are incredibly inefficient. As a metaphor for us, plants are way more efficient than we are in this way since their waste product is actually a highly energetically bondable gas that they could even use in an advanced biological system, but we use to breathe instead. As for atmospheric interference, all circuits can be altered by radiation so we shield them with a thin band of gold or cheap aluminum. As for fuels, there are many kinds as it simply pushes out electrons, something that any conductive material can do very well so we are not limited to any material. I love the air impluse engine, how fascinating thank you for sharing such wondrous knowledge I hope to see more of this everywhere! As for not making the trip, we can just use more launch volocity initially via gravity well slighshot drop, rockets, or space elevators. As for the heat sinks, have we looking into nigh-absolute zero conditions reapplied to be used as "shift in" advanced heat sinks like a key ring of variable heat-absorbing property barriers that open and close? It might be very nice in space for example.
I love looking up conversions, especially when you could just say it.
Thank you for the opportunity!
1.6km/mi or 0.62mi/km. Why should every science video presenter be required to waste their time speaking or editing in text with conversions when only three countries on the planet use miles? As for those three, Liberia and Myanmar don't constitute a big enough part of the planet's population to make waves AND are in the process or interest in converting to metric, so that just leaves the stubborn, whiny rich kid that won't catch up with the world.
I don't think the rest of the world really needs to cater to us. Look it up.
@@VoltisArt That's fair.
Other channels do it.
Makes things easier for us smaller minded people.
I'm going to look it up after this, lol.
Have a great night!
Don’t ion engines have a very low specific impulse, like they are great and all but they take ages to do anything
Yes he even explained that in the video, this engines are very efficient, can run for ages and spend very few fuel and their exhaust does look cool but the push, is like a very gentle breeze, not like a huge hurricane like normal rockets are.
A ion engine, wouldn't be able to lift a rocket from the ground here on Earth but in space, where there's no air resistance, even a gentle breeze can take you, very far very fast.
I'm gonna bet right now that hybrid rocket ships will be invented sometime in the future.
One that uses a super powerful initial push for the rocket to switch on its ion boosters to let us take a lap to Neptune and back
thats already how all rockets work bud
@@itisinickt really? Im pretty sure we dont have ion boosters yet bud, hence the video
@@SwiggityPeanutdid...did you actually watch the video?
we can't do laps to netpune and back, like we literally cant, all our engines are trash, space agencies send probes to the outter planets always using gravity assists in laughable missions that take 30 years to get there, if you're lucky they're put in orbit (like cassini around jupiter), in most cases they're just flybys (completely useless and wasteful) because we don't have the DeltaV to slow down and orbit the thing properly, meaning the mission lasts like 5 hours instead of lasting 50 years
Ion engines are terrible in many ways, they're an extremely simple design, their thrust is beyond atrocious, in most cases you can get more performance from lower ISP engines just because of how insanely long the ion "burns" take (doesn't even deserve to be called a burn, literally)
BUT, the really really really pathetic thing is that they're not even good enough to move around the solar system, not only does their low TWR have plenty of limitations like the sort of escape trajectories you can do, the time it takes, and in extreme cases just the burn taking longer to do than the entire trip (which puts a hard cap on the minimum travel time)
AND EVEN WITH ALL THEIR DOWNSIDES, THEIR ONLY UPSIDE IS STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE ANYTHING MOVE AROUND IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM LMAO!!!
It takes like what, 15-25 kilometers per second to do a 1 way trip from LEO to low orbit in the gas giants? We literally can't even do that, doing long waste of time gravity assists instead, a 2 way trip would be more like 60 kps, (maybe like 35 if you're willing to wait for transfer windows and do hohmann transfers like a good little boy), but who has the time for this nonsense, you can't move confortably around the solar system if you need at least 150 kilometers per second Dv, we're no where near that
as far as I'm concerned ion engines are barely good enough to be considered attitude control/RCS on space infrastructure you don't think deserves anything better, calling them engines is pushing the definition a bit, they're something you can use to despin reaction wheels, but at that point you might as well be using literal mirrors and solar sails
basically I feel the same way about ion engines as Cave Johnson feels about lemons
I don't want to be pedantic, but Mars is not our closest neighbor.
At their closest distance Mars is 55.7 million kilometers from Earth while Venus is only 38.2 million kilometers.
Love your channel
Rotating detonation engines produce more thrust than conventional engines with the same fuel. Depending on fuel you could at lest from an hypothetical view use a turboscramjet (similar to the J57 which was a turboramjet). Those would save enough weight to give you a much faster spacecraft, as for the same weight you could carry a significant amount more fuel, and you would get more thrust with that fuel.
Propellant, not fuel.
In 2006 I did my English essay on ion thrusters because I knew my teacher would be so lost she would pass me because she was so lost.
lmao did u pass?
@@Joshs4stro yeah. High 80s. I don't remember exactly. Did the paper the night before it was due
Nice strategy. 👍🏻
This was the coolest video I watched today. I dig👏👍
Thanks, good video🌎🔭
Mars is not our closest neighbour, Venus is...
Closet friendly planet tho
I wouldnt be surprised if technology more advanced than this has already been developed and as usual...suppressed
Not suppressed by kept secret for military purposes. That's what usually happens
I used to work for Hughes Space and Communications. We had working Ion Engines on our satellites back in the mid-1990's. I didn't work on it myself, but a very good engineer friend of mine did. It has been used successfully on deep space probes as well. I don't know how this is "New".
Compare to rocket tech, as rockets are new relative to slingshots. Grand scheme.
This is such a great video 👍🤌🤙
No. Ion engines require little to no atmosphere to generate thrust. The laws of physics will prevent them from being used as launch vehicles from the surface of Earth.
The title is misleading. As if ion thrusters were competitors to traiditional heavy lift rocketry, which is not at all true.
The title is not misleading. The video mentions that ion engines can only be used outside the earth’s atmosphere.
I propose to enhance the advantages of ion and similar engines by placing fairly massive platforms along the trajectory of space transport. The task of these platforms is to collect, produce, accumulate energy to generate a powerful electromagnetic field at the moment of passage of transport, so that the result of the interaction of the fields of the platform and transport is the exchange of movement impulses, acceleration/deceleration/change of direction of transport. Approximately the same thing that happens during a gravitational maneuver when spacecraft fly near planets.
The big problem with space travel is that space is big, REALLY big. No matter where you are, everywhere else is a long way away.
Douglas Adams put it best, “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
Don't forget to smash that "like" button folks! Enjoy the video
How no one noticed that this video exists
What the actual fuck... How is this comment 5 hrs ago when the video was uploaded 1 min ago...
it came out less than a minute ago
Maybe they have access to a TARDIS? 😁😉
@@Deltexterity It came out 13 minutes ago. I was the first comment apart from this comment
Everyone chill the video was bugged for me and it said that it came 1 day ago
This video is great 4K content for sure.
Great topic, I wish you would have covered the difficulties of breaking once reaching a destination after all that time at those incredible speeds. Wouldn't you have to spend half of the trajectory thrusting in one direction and then other half thrusting in the opposite direction?
Yes, unless the goal was to simply whiz by and never return.
Spoiler Alert: Spoiler Alert:
This video will teach you absolutely nothing new!
Ion thrusters can not make chemical rockers obsolete.
Chemical rockets will be necessary to lift the ion thrusters into orbit. (Full Stop.)
"Ion thrusters can not make chemical rockets obsolete."
Correct.
" *Some technology* will be necessary to lift the ion thrusters into orbit. (Full Stop.)"
Fixed it for you.
Chemical rockets will be used until we come up with a better system of take off, but ion thrusters can not become that system. I was as confused as you were when they listed the reasons ion thrusters have not replaced chemical rockets completely. The only reason that matters is they simply cannot replace chemical thrusters because ion thrust does not work in the atmosphere.
Gee. It’s like all these people saying exactly what you did, didn’t bother to watch the video and just wanna try to say how the video is wrong; despite the fact that the video discusses these issues. SMDH
I dont like the increased sensationalism of your videos. Keep it to raw science and data instead! To answer the clickbait title; No. No they wont.
39 days sounds a lot better than the current 9 months for a one way trip. If something goes wrong, help isn't coming for at least 9 months, and that's presuming there is a rescue ship kept ready to launch in case of emergencies.
You forgot about orbital mechanics. 39 day travel is possible only in the Earth-Mars transfer window which comes every 26 months. So even if 39 day travel becomes a thing, in the worst case you wouldn't be getting rescue for 2 years.
Thank you!
I could imagine an ion thruster roacket being built and put in space - then a conventional rocket docks with it - the ion thruster transports to a planet and then waits in orbit as the traditional rocket lands. Its more a transportation device than a take off and land.
the best part about this video was the use of the stellaris OST. very fitting
Just need some element 115 and we'll be set.
I hadn't even thought about heat issues in space because it's so cold. I hadn't even thought about the lack of heat transfer in a vacuum until you mentioned the issue here. Wow. 🤘🏽
The cold part is generally an extremely common misunderstanding of how temperature works. Ice is cold, but as space is not an object, it's mostly without heat - neither hot nor cold. (A thermometer in space however might tell you it's extremely cold "outside" because the thermometer itself eventually loses its internal heat, especially when in shadow.)
While there is absolutely radiation including infrared in space, it's relatively sparse compared to the air and objects we're used to interacting with daily, and the heat that those things hold and share with us. Cold objects and gases will absorb heat quickly through both radiation and conduction, but a volume without much mass can't use conduction, so doesn't absorb nearly as much heat. Aerogel makes use of this principle (and complex molecular sponge-like shapes) to be an extremely good insulator against heat.
Despite _almost_ every sci-fi movie showing a body thrown into space immediately freezing, actual visits to space have to include refrigerators and radiators to prevent astronauts from overheating. If air was not an issue and you went to space without a space suit, your body heat would turn into a medically dangerous fever, similar to what you get if you're completely covered in thick insulating material and the air is not very cold around you.
@@VoltisArt Thats all so interesting. Thank you. Yeah, it makes sense when it's thought about but it's honestly not something that ever crossed my mind. Without the medium of material to be heated or cooled, its a near vacuum that can't carry that heat or cold. As you say, like being covered in a thick insulating material. So fascinating! Thanks for taking the time to type up all that you did. I appreciate the response!
@@VoltisArt I did the math: human body generates approx. 100W of heat, on its own. Surface area of a human body is around 2m^2, so assuming we're in Low Earth Orbit and half of it is exposed to the sun and has a surface with emissivity of 0.1 (highly reflective white color) it absorbs additional 70W of heat, the equilibrium temperature would be 77°C.
The best way would be to bring an umbrella that blocks all of the sun, and stay in its shade. In this case the equilibrium temperature would be only 33°C
Maybe by painting it with a with material that has selective emissivity vs wavelength we could maximize the heat radiated at infrared wavelengths where an object of this temperature would radiate the most while still reflecting most of sunlight. Might be worth looking into.
6 months of zero-g watching mars grow bigger and bigger will be the most amazing of journeys
I feel like this video is much more simplistic in it's explanations. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but I feel like in this video specially I didn't really come out with anything. As a space-centered channel, I'd assume that most viewers have watched at least one video on ion thrusters, and the level of information provided in this video is low such that I don't think a lot of your viewers will learn much. There are many fascinating things on the cutting edge of ion propulsion, but this video didn't really touch on any of them for very long. It feels like this video was much longer than it needed to be given what it conveyed, and probably could have gotten the same information across in a few slides, or a few minutes of video.
I love the channel! Thanks :)
There's going to be a breakthrough. We just have to wait! 😎
Alex, you make complex science seem simple and exciting. I hope the younger gen watches these videos and gets excited to join the firms that are working on these technologies.
The only qualm I have about faster space travel is tackling stray particles. A particular smaller than a penny can rip your spacecraft if it hits.
Interplanetary highways should be similar to cable cars, that's the only way you can avoid momentum based propulsion. I'm imagining a giant loop of cable in orbit around the sun, turned by a giant cogwheel running on solar energy. Or the wheel could be a planet itself.
Great show, great advance in technology is great for all our species
This is pretty cool
eye-on drive! gotta keep an eye on things!
Love this!
Until they replace propellant based thrust, you'll always need to carry fuel with you. With a propellantless engine, you don't even leave a trail of exhaust and all you are limited by is the ability to generate electricity at adequate levels.
Hey astrum it would be cool if you talk about other engines please
ty ver informtive. good vido
This very good news !!!
I was reading about ion engines many decades ago.
Good stuff
Star Trek Warp Engines are probably the right way to go, but the only problem with the warp field from Star Trek is that it had to be put on the back of the ship away from the rest of the crew because of its high energy level needed to produce the field that would push the ship like chemical reaction it works like creating a field that is larger in the back so that space and time moves faster in front of the ship. The Problem is in order to produce that type of field you need a huge reactor, Star Trek Engines used what they called a Matter-Anti-Matter Converter or reactor, they couldn't just put anti-matter matter reactor anywhere and control the explosion because matter and anti-matter will destroy each other creating their opposite which would lead to uncontained explosions that would slowly destroy the Universe, so they found a Crystal called Delithium, and they found it was made of something inbetween matter and antimatter, they put that in the warp core section of the engine room and inject small amountsof Anti-matter and Matter into the crystal, the interaction causes the crystal to resinate and slowly release the plasma from the small explosions, the plasma goes to the warp pylons where it is used to create the warpfield that pushes the ship along using the different electrically charged plasma fields, each smaller field is attracted to the opposite smaller field creating the propotion to move faster than light by expanding space and time in back to bring space and time together in the front of the ship. It works like a folded piece of paper instead of going to the dot on the far in of the paper straight, you fold the paper under or above you and take the path between the two dots. The rest of the Plasma from the Anti-Matter Matter reactor or converter is not wasted, the rest goes into powering ship systems and other drives thrusters the Impulse engines are considered Ion based drives, they use for maneuverability and other power systems including life support and food and plant production as well as part reproduction. The current 3-d printers are the first step in creating what Star Trek Called Replicators, theese things produced parts and food and water by taking the charged particals in the plasma and converting it to either a part or food or water, and when you are done with it the part you don't eat return it to the replicators and it breaks it back down into energy and sends it some place else. This is why Star Trek ships had no water tanks or food storage after the first serries and movies, water could be created whenever they needed it by combining the adams in different configuration they could get whatever they needed from the replicators.
Spaceships don't have brakes. I think it will take about as much energy and time to stop a spaceship at its destination as it did to make the first leg of the journey there. So positive acceleration halfway to Mars then negative acceleration the second half of the distance. Otherwise 39 days to Mars won't be of much use to do anything but wave as the ship flashes past the planet and on into the void.
you need to turn the engine to "break", long as much you put time to accelerate before, the more you accelerate, the longer you need to break (or accelerate opposite), dont forget this future space travellers before having fun achieving 10% Lightspeed and almost at destination :)
If the thruster produces an absurd amount of waste heat, but we can't power it effectively...sounds like we need a way to turn the waste heat back into energy.
With all the hype and promise, I hope this works out successfully, as did last transportation revolution, the Segway.
Going faster would lend urgency to better shielding especially as we get closer to the asteroid belt.
And why you think that? You think its like in a game that we will dodge astrroids there and if some hit us, doesnt matter because we have armor? 😀 Doesnt really work like that lol!
Also, you are probably not aware of it, but, those things are millions of kilometers apart, chances of hitting any of them is probably lower than hitting a piece of spacejunk on exiting earth orbit.
It's all within the range of a factor or so, until or if, we manage to resolve the limitations placed on us by the speed of light.
One glaring problem with going faster is that hitting something becomes exponentially more catastrophic. Space is not empty. There are small objects flying around everywhere. Imagine a collision at 300,000km/h! RIP