Bless those people at NASA – no matter how much of a kicking their budgets take, they keep on dreaming real big. And they’re science fiction fans, too. How else would they have entertained the idea of building an antimatter engine to propel a manned mission to Mars? Apparently it would cost $250 million to manufacture enough antimatter to power the thing, but balanced against the hidden costs of normal rocketry solutions, that’s a pretty good deal. (Hat-tip to False Positives.)
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You’ve got to be kidding me.
It would cost more than that for just the power. The containment would be heavier than the rest of the spacecraft. Launch costs are $10k/kg on the space shuttle, the most expensive launcher. Improving rockets or using tethers can bring that down far faster than positron production costs.
Antiproton catalyzed fission->fusion is the only practical antimatter use.
NASA, you continue to embarrass me.