SYDNEY: What does it take to boldly go where no man has gone before? Conventional rockets fire hot gas through a nozzle to get thrust, but that can’t get us to deep space.

Rocket scientists have come up with a raft of solutions to getting us to deep space – some remain in the realm of science fiction, others verge on reality. Here’s a selection that might one day carry us across the final frontier.

NUCLEAR PULSE PROPULSION
Propelling your spaceship by setting off teeny atomic explosions isn’t as crazy as it sounds, according to NASA. A pulse-propulsion craft would detonate small nuclear bombs behind it, and could surf the shockwaves all the way to Mars in as little as one month. Leaving radioactive debris as space junk in the vicinity of Earth (or other planets) probably isn’t a good idea, though.

SOLAR THERMAL PROPULSION
For this you’ll need some serious bling: NASA’s prototype uses a sapphire concentrator to collect light from the Sun or other stars and create a powerful beam to heat hydrogen gas, which is ejected through a nozzle to provide thrust. But it’s worth noting that this method would not work on the dark side of a planet or far away from a star.

VACUUM-POWERED SPACECRAFT
Arthur C. Clarke used “vacuum fluctuation” to send characters to deep space decades ago. But G. Jordan Maclay of research company Quantum Fields LLC in Wisconsin, USA, says vacuum-powered spacecraft are possible. His idea is to build a spacecraft that harnesses the Casimir effect: the attractive force between two uncharged metal plates set a few micrometres apart, caused by quantum vacuum fluctuation in the electromagnetic field. As the plates move closer together, the force gets stronger, and Macleay’s engine would use energy generated by moving the plates closer before separating them again. The catch? Materials engineers are still light-years away from making this technique practical…

 

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article