December Test Flight Huge for NASA's Next Manned Spacecraft

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

for the Tardis note:

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Last calculations for a Mars trip I saw was about 14 days one way...if there's been engine advances, it may be less, this info was dated..

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Positive attitude...ALWAYS a good sign..

a reply to: stormbringer1701

A good solid Steel industry intrest would do wonders, I think..
Very good points in this , though..

a reply to: liejunkie01

Humm...
I see nothing wrong with an occasional race , though....competition can be a powerful motivator..

14 day to mars propulsion schemes are not mature and really no where near mature. the current near term limits are between 6 months and nearly a year one way. there are a couple of possible 29 day technologies but they are not mature. VASIMR, M2P2. VASIMR is the closest rapid transit technology that is actually about to enter the testing phase. M2P2 has gone silent of late.

after that some sort of fusion rocket or NTR (Nucler Thermal Rocket) would be the nearest thing to the type of trip time you cited. NTR was tested on the ground and they do work but there are treaty problems with any use in space and severe consequences for the environment if an open cycle NTR is every used in the atmosphere.

Fusion rockets are a puzzle. we have a few fusion schemes that look like they are about to come to fruition. but some are not easy to translate into a rocket. some are. but all of these are just "on the brink" of being real. so they may be finished tomorrow or they may be finished in 30 years or never. at any rate the first generation fusion rockets derived from most of these will probably only slightly exceed the speeds of our fastest probes like voyager, helios and new horizons. but when fusion matures to the point we have steady fusion going on then fusion will potentially have speeds up to .35 light speed with an optimized engine.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

may have been just old data based off planteary tajectories in years gone by. orbital positions would have been , and still is, key. I'm a bit behind and trying to catch up.