Marohki@aol.com wrote:
Hey.. I'm hoping for some help here..
I've been working on and off during my free time on a BGCFic.. the
prologue requires that a Boomer operated spcecraft go to Mars and
back..
My question:
Can anybody give me an estimate of travel time for a fusion engine powered
spacecraft with a boomer crew to and from Mars..?
It's tough to say in so many days. It's not so much a matter of using a
fusion engine, but how much propellant you can carry. Current NASA plans
call for a manned mission in 2018 of 500 days there and back. It will
take approximately 200 days to get there, the crew will land and spend
somewhere between 50 and 90 days on planet, and the remainder of the 500
days getting home. This is with currently existing and long-proven
chemical rockets.
However, the new ion engines used in the space probe _Deep Space One_
proved reliable and several times more efficient than conventional
rockets. This enables you to achieve more thrust with less energy, and
more importantly, less propellant.
Given the fact that a boomer crew would need considerably less in the
way of life support, and would not need large amounts of radiation
shielding due to their mostly mechanical composition, more of the ship's
mass would be available for propellant. More propellant means longer
acceleration burns, which means less transit time. This is pure
speculation, but you could probably get there in perhaps half the time
of the NASA mission, possibly even less. How about 90 days to get there
for a ball-park figure, and if this is too long, you can easily change
it to suit your story.
Jamie
--
"I choose you - PIKASPEW!!!"
Jamie to 2 month old daughter Madeline,
shortly after being spat up upon...
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