darkSpyro

So this guy, Patrick Neumann, invented an engine which uses the velocity of metal ions released by a pulsed electric arc for thrust. Different metals yield different results, and the velocity of titanium ions measured at 20 km/s. To attain higher thrust you just ionize the metal faster, essentially "burning" your fuel faster.
By all estimates it will beat NASA's thruster efficiency record, held by the "High Power Electric Propulsion" system.

So simply put it's an engine that uses a chunk of metal as fuel. Initial calculations showed that approximately 20kg of magnesium could take 100kg vessel from Earth's orbit to the orbit of Mars and back, though it would take about 3-5 years. It also presents a lot of options for possible ways to refuel the craft on the fly.

A cool invention, I hope it will see use. What do you think?

Quote: Camo22

Sound pretty cool! I'm not into stuff like this but the technological terms make it sound like we could go to space soon!

The whole long distance space travel (relatively long, that is, because all distances in space are huge) thing is still in it's baby shoes. As for something like going to Mars, we've had the technology to do that for decades now.

Sure, it would costs a monumental amount, but money isn't even the problem here. What we lack is a reason to spend such money on going to Mars.

Let's say China or Russia announced that they had serious plans to colonize Mars, and that they're already working on making that plan a reality.
I bet that it would probably take the USA three months to fund, plan and build a suitable vessel for that purpose, seven months to get there, and they would have some sort of basic systems installed on martian soil in ten months. Very rarely are any huge, costly projects started for scientific purposes only.

Quote: katkerrykat

Sounds pretty interesting..is the design limited to certain metals, or can the majority of metals be used (if you know, sorry!)?

This would be quite an interesting concept, and would be pretty cool to see a smaller scale being used on cars/trucks in the future..

By my knowledge, all pure metals would work for this engine, but I doubt that all metals would work well for the purposes of this engine.

I also highly doubt that it would work for automobiles. From what I understand the machine provides a relatively low thrust (you'd need the help of conventional rockets to put this thing in orbit), so it only works well in zero G where there is nothing continuously slowing the vessel down and it weighs next to nothing.

On Earth the traction caused by the air and the bearings of the tires would probably be too much for a miniature version of this engine to handle, not even mentioning having to push the mass of the vehicles uphill.
It is also not exactly environment-friendly. Instead of carbon dioxide that ends up in the atmosphere it would just (possibly, since I don't know the how this thing works, I just know the general idea) produce a lot of metal ions that end up on the ground. That could actually be way worse since they would just stay where they land, or flush into the oceans, lakes and other bodies of water. At least CO2 gets filtered by plants.
People don't often like to look at it that way, but gasoline is a very efficient, good fuel. The problem is that we use too much of it. Electrical cars are still the best option that I can think of for an environment-friendly automobile that is also a good automobile.

Besides, have you ever heard of a car that uses a rocket propulsion system? That would be pretty hazardous for everyone else in the near vicinity of the vehicle.

Quote: StriderSwag

I'm actually really excited to see this implemented in different modes of transport in the coming decades.

Reveal Spoiler

In other news, strap two on a spaceship and we'll have one of these puppies.

Pretty much.

The beginning of an empire.