Futurismic

Physicist Friedwardt Winterberg has a new paper here on a possible fusion-powered spacecraft, with shades of Project Orion and Project Daedalus:

Large scale manned space flight within the solar system is still confronted with the solution of two problems: 1. A propulsion system to transport large payloads with short transit times between different planetary orbits. 2. A cost effective lifting of large payloads into earth orbit.

For the solution of the first problem a deuterium fusion bomb propulsion system is proposed where a thermonuclear detonation wave is ignited in a small cylindrical assembly of deuterium with a gigavolt-multimegampere proton beam, drawn from the magnetically insulated spacecraft acting in the ultrahigh vacuum of space as a gigavolt capacitor.

For the solution of the second problem, the ignition is done by argon ion lasers driven by high explosives, with the lasers destroyed in the fusion explosion and becoming part of the exhaust.

The key point is that it’s designed without $MAGIC_FAIRY_DUST technology and is intended to be feasible from a purely engineering standpoint.

[via Slashdot][image from SantaRosa OLD SKOOL on flickr]

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to our own but with a bonus: there are three stars rather than one. It’s also one of the best chances we know in the local area to have a planet similar to Earth capable of developing life like ours.

If any planet were to harbour earth-like life in the three-star system, it would likely be around Alpha Centauri A, which is most similar to the sun. However astronomer Javier Guedes and his coauthors believe that Alpha Centauri B is likely to have terrestrial planets in its habitable region. Based on computer simulations of planet formation, Guedes and his team found that no matter what starting conditions, a terrestrial planet always formed around the star. By studying the ‘wobbles’ the planet causes on its parent star, the team reckon they could find any potential planets within a few years.

[story via Daily Galaxy, image via Solstation]

The technical obstacles and logistical difficulties to sending a manned mission to Mars are large, but by no means insurmountable. One of the biggest issues is the launch from Mars and subsequent return journey … which is just one of the reasons former NASA engineer Jim McLane reckons a Mars mission should be one-person and one-way only. [via SlashDot; image courtesy NASA]

“When we eliminate the need to launch off Mars, we remove the mission’s most daunting obstacle,” said McLane. And because of a small crew size, the spacecraft could be smaller and the need for consumables and supplies would be decreased, making the mission cheaper and less complicated.

While some might classify this as a suicide mission, McLane feels the concept is completely logical.

“There would be tremendous risk, yes,” said McLane, “but I don’t think that’s guaranteed any more than you would say climbing a mountain alone is a suicide mission. People do dangerous things all the time, and this would be something really unique, to go to Mars. I don’t think there would be any shortage of people willing to volunteer for the mission [...] That will be the easiest part of this whole program.”

If you met the physical criteria for a mission like that, would you volunteer? I’d certainly consider it, I think, but in truth I don’t think I’m quite that brave.

And while we’re on the subject of planets in our solar system, there may be another one to add to the list. Via Warren Ellis comes news that Japanese astronomers believe they have located an as-yet undiscovered planet that is half the mass of our own Earth.

Of course, this “Planet X” is way out in the Kuiper Belt and orbits the sun about once every thousand years, so it’s not a very likely candidate for exploration. But it makes you wonder how much more stuff there is lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system waiting to be discovered.

If you’ve watched Deep Impact and Armageddon a hundred times and still want to know what a real asteroid impact would look like, mark January 30th 2008 on your calenders. On that date, the path of Asteroid 2007 WD5 passes perilously close to our neighbour Mars and may or may not hit it.

The NEO (near-earth object) was found in November and marked because it also passes close to Earth. Analysis of its path say there’s a 1 in 75 chance the 50m rock will impact on the red planet, causing a crater up to half a mile wide.

[via Chris Mckitterick, image by NASA]

Astronomers have discovered a planet in the 55 Cancri system that orbits constantly in what is know as the ‘habitable zone’ of the solar system. Although the planet is a gas giant some 45 times the size of Earth, there’s a good chance one of its moons might have liquid water and hence encourage the development of earth-like life. Planets are found by studying their transits across the light of a star. By studying the amount the star dims when the planet crosses, the size of the planet can be estimated. This is limited to larger planets currently but future missions like the Kepler and Darwin projects may be able to find rocky planets like our own.

The search for ‘exoplanets’ outside our solar system is hitting its stride and regularly more are found. Whilst the planets found to date are all ‘Jupiters’ like the gas giants further out in our home system, we know that Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus all have large satellites. If any of these were in the habitable region where Earth is, the possibility of liquid water and hence bacterial life would be likely. If 55 Cancri did support life on one of its moons it would resemble the world of Coyote in Allen Steele’s excellent series.

[via the guardian, image of Darwin project via Astronomy Online]