100-Year Spaceship Program

At a news conference held in San Francisco on Saturday, NASA Ames director Simon Worden talked about what his division was doing with funding from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Something he called the "Hundred Year Starship" project.

The project has been given $1 million dollars from DARPA and another $100,000 from NASA in the hopes of utilizing new propulsion ideas. One of which is familiar to Star Trek fans the world over: Electric propulsion.

Quoting Mr. Worden, “Anybody that watches the (Star Trek starship) Enterprise, you know you don’t see huge plumes of fire," he said. "Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds.”

The Hundred Year Ship Project is now aimed at settling other worlds.

Mr. Worden is seeking out some billionaires the likes of which include Larry Page-Google founder, to help get the idea off the launch pad so to speak. Quoting again, "You don’t have to carry all the fuel," he said. "You use that energy from a laser or microwave power to heat a propellant; it gets you a pretty big factor of improvement. I think that’s one way of getting off the world.”

This news dovetails with a recent article published in the latest issue of Popular Science (November 2010), the cover article entitled "39 Days to Mars." It was an article that focus on former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz and his Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine.

The VASIMR uses a electrical source such as a nuclear reactor or a solar generator to transform hydrogen gas into plasma. Powerful magnets then force the plasma out of the rocket engine up to 123,000 mph.

One can suppose that Mr. Worden was indeed referring to the VASIMR in his talks with Larry Page and at the news conference.

UPDATE (October 31, 2010): Found this interesting take on this subject here (http://www.suite101.com/content/newly-revealed-nasa-cover-up-another-possible-future-ufo-a302707).

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Ref. "NASA preps '100-year spaceship' program to boldly go where none have gone before" By Peter Farquhar. October 23, 2010. (http://www.news.com.au/technology/nasa-preps-100-year-spaceship-programme-to-boldly-go-where-none-have-gone-before/story-e6frfro0-1225941547507).

image is Star Trek USS Enterprise pulled off of the net from Paramount Pictures.

Obama & Congress to Work on a Mars Plan NASA Chief Says

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden-a former shuttle craft commander, spared with senators concerning the agency's fiscal 2011 budget. Congress is pushing for specific missions and deadlines. They (the Obama administration) has drawn opposition for plans to scrap the Moon return and Mars mission for long-range goals.

So far, about all we got out of the administration is an expansion of robotic exploration of Mars.

I want to quote two sections from Seth Borenstein's article that was posted on comcast.net: And while the new NASA plan includes extra money — $6 billion over five years — for private spaceships and developing new rocket technology, NASA shouldn't be just about spending, the senators said. It should be about John F. Kennedy-like vision.

"Resources without vision is a waste of time and money," Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said, calling the Obama space plan a "radical change of vision and approach." He vowed to fight the plan "with every ounce of energy I have."

And former chief astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson said the new plan "has no clear path, no destination, no milestones and no program focus."

And this quote: That is why he said the new NASA plan invests in developing in-orbit fuel depots, inflatable spaceship parts, new types of propulsion and other technology.

Bolden would not even guess when NASA would try to send astronauts to Mars, but said the technology NASA is studying could cut the trip to the Red Planet from three months to a matter of days if it works.

"We're oh-so-close, but we've got to invest in that technology," Bolden testified. end quote of article.

New technology huh? Anti-matter? That's going to take longer to develop I afraid than conventional means of travelling back to the Moon and to Mars.

Maybe Bolden is hanging his space helment on VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket). I would if I was him. It would make for a quicker trip to Mars to go with that engine technology. In October 2008, the VX-200 prototype achieved ful power using Argon as propellant in the Ad Astra's Houston laboratory.

VASIMR video at full power in 2009.

But, just what are you going to hang the VASIMR onto? Now this is where Orion as a test vehicle makes sense to me.

Or, another off-the-wall idea I had was to convert one of the space shuttles into a deep space exploration craft. Basically, you cut the wings off since the vehicle will never again return to the surface of Earth. Instead, it will be "home ported" at the International Space Station. This new craft will be launched in the normal space shuttle fashion and dock with the ISS. Replacement (fully fueled) fuel tanks will be launched up to the ISS and mated to the shuttle where the wings used to be, whenever it needed for a mission. The payload bay will contain the docking adaptor, airlock, and the pressurized mission module. The flight deck would be gutted and all the avionics developed for Orion will now be installed in this new exploration craft.

Now THAT type of craft I envision would benefit from the VASIMR technology.

UPDATE: February 26, 2010- Blue Origin, the outfit that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos created announced on Space.com additional information on their New Shepard, a Vertical Take-Off and Landing rocket. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35603622/ns/technology_and_science-space/).

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Ref. Business Week. February 24, 2010. "Obama Will Work With Congress on Mars Plan, NASA Chief Says" by Jeff Bliss.(http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-24/obama

-will-work-with-congress-on-mars-plan-nasa-chief-says.html).

comcast.net, February 25, 2010. by Seth Borenstein (AP).

(http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20100224/US.SCI.NASA.Hearing/).

NASA website, anti-matter (http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/antimatter_spaceship.html).

VASIMR (http://spacefellowship.com/news/art7153/plasma-rocket-engine-vasimr-vx-200-first-stage-achieves-full-power-rating.html).