Achieving the required mobility in the solar system through direct fusion drive

Abstract

To develop a spacefaring civilization, humankind must develop technologies which enable safe, affordable and repeatable mobility through the solar system. One such technology is nuclear fusion propulsion which is at present under study mostly as a breakthrough toward the first interstellar probes. The aim of the present paper is to show that fusion drive is even more important in human planetary exploration and constitutes the natural solution to the problem of exploring and colonizing the solar system. Nomenclature

Stellar Gravitational Lens Engineering for Interstellar Communication and Artifact SETI

“…Modern orbital spacecraft are almost entirely propelled by chemical rockets and electric ion engines, though after the Apollo programs NASA built a prototype nuclear thermal rocket (called NERVA, see Ludewig et al 2006) which used a nuclear reactor to superheat hydrogen as exhaust. Futuristic modes of propulsion, such as nuclear fusion engines (Genta & Kezerashvili 2020) or antimatter reactors (Holmlid & Zeiner-Gundersen 2020), are included only with order-of-magnitude guesses for efficiency .…”

Exploration of the solar system and beyond using a thermonuclear fusion drive

“…The purpose of PPPL research project is to find solutions for the critical scientific and technological problems related to fusion technology. The DFD concept suits several kind of space destinations, such as Mars manned and robotic missions, heavy cargo missions to the outer solar system or the near interstellar space [1][2][3][4]27].…”

“…This section following Refs. [2][3][4] we focus on the missions design for Mars, Saturn's largest satellite Titan, trans-Neptunian objects such as such as the dwarf planets Makemake, Eris and Haumea, and 125 AU destinations, respectively, using the direct fusion drive. For these considerations each mission is divided into following phases: i. the spiral trajectory to escape the Earth gravity influence sphere; ii.…”

“…It is considered and analyzed the Earth -Mars mission using the DFD. It is shown that one-way trips to Mars in slightly more than 100 days become possible and also journeys to the asteroid belt will take about 250 days [2].…”

Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion

“…In a larger sense, rapid missions to Mars have become a convenient metric in comparing different propulsion technologies [16], including nuclear thermal [17], nuclear electric [18,19], solar electric [20], and other high specific impulse and high specific power technologies such as fusion [21]. For this reason, we have selected a rapid-transit-to-Mars mission as the baseline design for this study.…”