To send humans to Mars, we need a revolutionary
rocket technology. This is the Saturn 5
rocket that launched astronauts to the moon. It
is the largest rocket ever built
Larger than even the Statue of Liberty.
This rocket requires an enormous amount
of fuel in order to launch this relatively tiny
spacecraft into orbit. And from there
it requires even more fuel to get the spacecraft to
the moon. As you can see, traditional
rocket technology is not very fuel efficient. So how
do we get to Mars, which is 200 times
further away than the moon. The answer is
an ultra fuel-efficient technology
called electric thrusters — or Plasma
rockets. By replacing the old rocket
technology on this spacecraft with a modern
plasma rocket, this spacecraft can get to
the moon with one-tenth this tank of fuel.
Or seen another way this tank of fuel
can get you to Mars. So why haven't we
gone to Mars yet?
Well, this thruster must operate for
many years for a Mars mission. Imagine what
would happen if you left your car
running for a few years. It would break
and so will your plasma thruster if you run it long
enough. So what's the solution?
Make sure it doesn't break.
To do this we have to understand how a plasma thruster works. The thruster
creates a plasma, which is a soup of positive
particles called ions and negative
particles called electrons. These Ions are shot out
the back of the thruster, pushing
your space craft forward. Simple enough, right? But what happens when this plasma gets close to
the walls of the thruster? When an ion
hits the wall
a piece breaks off. And if enough ions hit that the wall,
Eventually the wall will completely break.
Potentially causing your thruster to explode. But what if there was an effect
where the pieces that break off turn around
and go back to the wall
repairing itself? Could something like this
actually happen?
Turns out, yes, this effect called plasma
re-deposition can magically repair
the walls of your thruster
making them unbreakable. For my research I create a
plasma and smash it against different
types of advanced thruster wall
materials in order to maximize this
plasma re-deposition effect. So far I found
that I can double the lifetime of
current thruster materials. That can make
the difference between getting to Mars
and getting stuck halfway. My end goal is
to design a thruster that lasts ten times as long,
making it, effectively, immortal. Such a thruster would solve the fuel inefficiency of traditional
rockets and enable us to travel to Mars.
Thank you.
