One of the biggest obstacles facing a proposed manned mission to Mars is the amount of time it would take a modern spacecraft to make the journey, but one NASA scientist says the agency is working on ways to significantly reduce how long it takes to get to the Red Planet.
As Philip Lubin, a physicist at the University of Santa Barbara Experimental Cosmology Group, explained in a recent NASA 360 video, researchers can propel particles at near light speed in laboratory conditions, but currently, spacecraft can only travel at a fraction of that velocity.
As a result, it currently takes the agency approximately eight months to send unmanned vehicles from Earth to Mars, forcing them to investigate whether or not the human body would be able to withstand such a long voyage. However, Lubin said, NASA is also working on new methods of propulsion that could theoretically cut the travel time to as little as three days.
‘No reason’ why the technology won’t live up to expectations
According to ScienceAlert, Lubin and his colleagues are developing a system where a spaceship with giant sails would be propelled to Mars using lasers. This “photonic propulsion” system would be similar to the solar sail concept proposed by The Planetary Society, but would harness the momentum of photons to move the craft through space.
Listen to Lubin explain the technology in this video:
Instead of relying on particles of light from the Sun, the design proposed by Lubin would use large Earth-based lasers as a source of photons, and while this might sound like something from a science-fiction movie, the UCSB physicist emphasizes that the system would use technology that is already readily available, and that the system would not be hard to upscale.
“There are recent advances that take this from science fiction to science reality,” he said. “There is no known reason why we cannot do this. There’s a road map… [and] the system is completely scalable, modularly. You can build it any size you want, from a tiny one to a gigantic one.”
Lubin, who authored a paper on the topic entitled “A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight,” said that such an engine would be able to propel a 100 kilogram robotic spacecraft to Mars in a matter of days, and that a manned mission could potentially be completed in one-eighth the current time. The system could even be used to travel to exoplanets up to 25 light years away, he added.
So how does it work? Even though photons lack mass, they possess both energy and momentum, the researchers explained. When they bounce off of an object like a big, reflective sail, some of the momentum is transferred. That momentum could be used to accelerate a spacecraft – at least in theory, as Lubin and his colleagues have yet to actually put their technology to the test.
However, we shouldn’t have to wait too much longer to learn if the photonic propulsion system can deliver on its inventors’ claims. NASA awarded a proof-of-concept grant to Lubin’s team in 2015 so that they could demonstrate whether or not the technology could be used for space travel and ScienceAlert is confident that they be able to deliver some results in the near future.
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Image credit: NASA
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