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Title: Could We Reach Mars Faster With Nuclear Fusion-Powered Rockets?

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/04/06/2...

Nuclear fusion - which releases four times the energy of fission - could
theoretically happen sooner in space than on earth, reports CNN. "And it
could help spacecraft achieve speeds of up to 500,000 miles (805,000
kilometers) per hour - more than the fastest object ever built..." With
funding from the UK Space Agency, British startup Pulsar Fusion has unveiled
Sunbird, a space rocket concept designed to meet spacecraft in orbit, attach
to them, and carry them to their destination at breakneck speed using nuclear
fusion... For now, Sunbird is in the very early stages of construction and it
has exceptional engineering challenges to overcome, but Pulsar says it hopes
to achieve fusion in orbit for the first time in 2027. [Pulsar's founder/CEO
says the first functional Sunbird would be ready four to five years later.]
If the rocket ever becomes operational, it could one day cut the journey time
of a potential mission to Mars in half. CNN says the proposed Sunbird process
would use helium-3 - which may be abundant on the Moon - to generate protons
which "can be used as a 'nuclear exhaust' to provide propulsion". (And
without generating any dangerous radioactive material.) "It's very unnatural
to do fusion on Earth," says Richard Dinan, founder and CEO of Pulsar.
"Fusion doesn't want to work in an atmosphere. Space is a far more logical,
sensible place to do fusion, because that's where it wants to happen
anyway...." Sunbirds would operate similarly to city bikes at docking
stations, according to Dinan: "We launch them into space, and we would have a
charging station where they could sit and then meet your ship," he says. "You
turn off your inefficient combustion engines, and use nuclear fusion for the
greater part of your journey. Ideally, you'd have a station somewhere near
Mars, and you'd have a station on low Earth orbit, and the (Sunbirds) would
just go back and forth...." Initially, the Sunbirds will be offered for
shuttling satellites in orbit, but their true potential would come into play
with interplanetary missions. The company illustrates a few examples of the
missions that Sunbird could unlock, such as delivering up to 2,000 kilograms
(4,400 pounds) of cargo to Mars in under six months, deploying probes to
Jupiter or Saturn in two to four years (NASA's Europa Clipper, launched in
2024 towards one of Jupiter's moons, will arrive after 5.5 years), and an
asteroid mining mission that would complete a round trip to a near-Earth
asteroid in one to two years instead of three. Other companies are working on
nuclear fusion engines for space propulsion, including Pasadena-based
Helicity Space, which received investment from aerospace giant Lockheed
Martin in 2024. San Diego-based General Atomics and NASA are working on
another type of nuclear reactor - based on fission rather than fusion - which
they plan to test in space in 2027.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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