JSC is Funding Aneutronic Fusion Power Studies
NASA JSC Solicitation: Development of Aneutronic Fusion Power for Spacecraft Applications
“NASA/JSC intends to purchase research and development services from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for a continuation of an aneutronic fusion research project currently being conducted at the Johnson Space Center.”
Aneutronic Fusion Spacecraft Architecture, OCT
“The proposed design is based on neutron-free nuclear fusion as the primary energy source. An innovative beam conditioning/nozzle concept enables useful propulsive thrust directly from the fusion products, while some fraction of the energy is extracted via direct conversion into electricity for use in the reactor and spacecraft systems.”
A Fusion Thruster for Space Travel, IEEE
“Instead of using deuterium and tritium as the fuel stocks, the new motor extracts energy from boron fuel. Using boron, an “aneutronic” fuel, yields several advantages over conventional nuclear fusion.”
The boron-11 + proton -> 3 Helium-4 cycle is favored by Dr. Brussard. Interestingly, the boron-11 cycle is a competitor of another proposed approach to aneutronic fusion, the helium-3 cycle. A proposal by Geral Kulchinski, that helium-3 could be extracted from lunar surface dust and returned tro earth as a fuel for fusion was widely discussed as a rational for lunar base and used in a movie, “Moon” http://www.thespacereview.c…
however in reality the lunar extraction proposal seems illogical as helium-3 is easily produced on earth by the decay of tritium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
OTOH if there is one place ordinary DT fusion could be more reasonably safe, it is in a spacecraft far from earth.
Burning He3 is only two orders of magnitude more difficult than lighting off DT, and we know how easy that is… The presumption that He3 is interesting means that DT would be economically unfeasible, but the only way we could ever get to He3 is by learning how to do DT…
I choose to believe that the late Dr. Bussard’s designs would have worked /
will work (they are still in an uncertain state of development by the US
Navy) and it pains me to think where we would be in solar system
exploration if NASA had spent a little on his ideas many years ago.
For up-to-date news on LENR, etc, try:
http://www.talk-polywell.or…
Curious you mention LENR and that site (Talk-Polywell) in the same sentence.
Most people there assume LENR is mostly a bad scam for the believers, and even the undecided go there to learn more about inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC, or Ploywell in other words), not “pie-in-the-sky” cold fusion ideas.
Those two, in case you don’t know, are VERY different ideas. For one, IEC is based on known physics and has had machines producing verifiable fusion for decades (the kind that produces measurable neutrons and such).
For everybody really interested in this kind of stuff: google “QED ARC engine”. From Bussard’s own pen, a fusion-electric rocket engine powered by its “famous” polywell machine. I hope NASA put some money into it if they are really interested on aneutronic fusion, since I know of no other concept that promises to be able to handle the p+b11 reaction, even in the best of cases and at humongous sizes.
The main points: ISP “only” 1500-5500s without radiators (just regen cooling), ridiculously large with them (on the order of 10^6s), T/W of 2-6 without said radiators, can be made to airbreathe, can be run on water… Yeah, it looks like a magic wand, and I thought that earlier than you did.
As an example of what you might find on the internet on this beast:
http://www.askmar.com/Fusio…
Isn’t it MSFC’s charter to work on propulsion systems research?
Or will each center have their own nuclear propulsion program?
Why do you care? Why does anyone care if centers run parallel research programs? It’s RESEARCH. The more investigators, the more likely the field is actually advanced. That’s a good thing, right?
Why do you care? Why does anyone care if centers run parallel research programs?
Try to think about it.
Given limited resources, which will become even more limited over the coming years regardless of who wins the next election, having multiple centers conduct duplicate research is just not a viable model, especially when the research is not in the center’s area of expertise.
JSC’s expertise is in operations. I don’t see how this research is even close to that strength.
Actually Glenn RESEARCH Center’s chrter is to do propulsion research.
“Any man who could perform such a feat, I wo’d na dare
disappoint. She’ll launch on time. And she’ll be ready.”
— Scotty, Star Trek: The Motion Picture
But I have the feeling its more like…
“She’s supposed to have transwarp.” — Sulu, “Aye. And if my
grandmother had wheels, she’d be a wagon.” — Scotty, Star Trek
III: The Search For Spock
Sorry about the silly quotes but discussions of fusion bring them out in me.
I think the Boron-11 approach has potential for use in off-Earth spacecraft, much more so than other fission or fusion schemes. The neutron, gamma ray, and x-ray byproduct levels are less than with other nuclear possibilities, but would still have to be either shielded against or deflected, or some combination. This shielding job looks, to me, less formidable than for other nuclear propulsion systems, but still will require considerable added mass relative to spacecraft dry mass. I think its definitely worth investigating further, although I would not want to see it used for launch or landing on an inhabited surface, unless there is a major breakthrough in shielding technology.
Steve
I hope this doesn’t turn out to be like a cold fusion thing or something. Especially when the Chang-Diaz drive is definitely possible.
If it works, it might form the power supply that Chang-Diaz’s design needs so badly.
The Vasmir Plasma Thruster works and will be tested on the ISS in 2015 if all goes well. Fusion power is interesting and needs to be looked at. The problem I see with both propulsion systems is the very low efficiency. kWs of power are required to produce milliNewtons of thrust in the case of Vasmir. One can only speculate on the efficiency of a fusion thruster that uses a megaWatt laser, for starters.
It’s not a matter of efficiency, it’s a matter of jet power. Reading about this a bit, it looks like it’s going to be powered externally by a laser, and getting energy out of the fusion process is a “maybe if we can work out how”. Same thing as the VASIMIR.
So, how the hell are you going to provide the power to provide meaningful thrust at such great isps? Because 1 GW at 10^4 sec is about… 2 mT of thrust. 200 kg if you increase isp to 10^5. And space electrical power, right now, is measured in kWs, not GWs. Since power is directly proportional to isp times thrust, what
would happen if you multiply isp by any given amount is that, at the same jet
power, thrust gets divided by that same amount.
For a comparison of scale, good old NERVA delivered 1.35GW of jet power at ~825s.
Is there anything new to report on this project, or just a repackaging of the research group perhaps for budgetary and private industry prerogatives?