[extropy-chat] Fly Me to the Moon

[Dirk Bruere]

BillK wrote:

>On 6/5/05, Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>This is wrong. Ion thrusters have been in use since the 1970's on
>>non-American spacecraft. Deep Space 1 was the first deep space craft
>>whose primary propulsion was an ion engine.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>
>SMART-1's Ion Drive: From Fiction to Fact (launched Sept 2003) 
><http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_smart-1_041119.html>
>SMART-1, the European Space Agency craft currently in orbit around the
>moon, makes use of a technology that was pure science fiction until
>the 1960s - the ion drive. An ion drive is a method of propulsion that
>uses electricity to create charged ions and then accelerate them with
>a magnetic field, pushing them out the rear of a spacecraft.
>SMART-1 has a stationary plasma thruster using xenon gas with 1190
>watts of power available, giving a nominal thrust of 68 mN. The
>spacecraft contains 48 liters of xenon gas at 150 bar. The lifetime of
>the thruster is 7,000 hours at maximum power. The thrust is equivalent
>to two pennies resting in the palm of your hand.
>
>  
>
Planet Earth had a greater space capability in the 1960s than it does now.
The moon race utterly screwed the entire space program.
The way it should have been done was the way it was done in SF. Namely, 
a fully reusable spaceplane followed by a space station and then moon 
landings and onwards to Mars. The past 30yrs has been a waste of time 
and money.

-- 
Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millenium
http://www.theconsensus.org



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