Ion Engines for The Solar Gravitational Lens and Beyond

[@bluesteel8376]

Fraser, I know you usually interview scientists not engineers, but I think it would be cool if you could get an interview with an engineer from NASA's marshal space centre that is working on rotating detonation engines. That would be a very interesting interview.

[@meesalikeu]

Marshall Space Center 🎉

[@harbifm766766]

The rotating engine is a bad design for hydrogen and in space engines...can only add effecincey with Kerosene and air intake

[@denijane89]

Dr. Dan is awesome! He really got me with the Kerbal illustration. I don't feel well today and this interview really made me stand up in bed and enjoy it. If he was doing cosmology, I'd invite him for an outreach talk. He's really good. And obviously, the idea of interstellar laser highways is super cool.

[@bobjackson6669]

I enjoyed the video. You always have interesting videos. Thanks Frasier Cain.

[@osmia]

Love this guest

[@KraussEMUS1]

There is an ion thruster called the Self-Contained Ion Powered Aircraft. It is patented for carrying its power supply onboard! There are more than 45 videos of it online as well as a website for it. The craft produces more than a 1 to 1 thrust to weight ratio along with its power supply. There are also videos of it lifting onboard propellant tanks. As the guest said, roughly speaking the speed of the propellant is proportional the potential (voltage). The SCIPA system also called the Ion Propelled Vehicle, utilizes very high voltages so its ISP would be very high in space. At a sustained greater than 1g acceleration it wouldn't take long to go anywhere in our solar system.

[@friendlyone2706]

Thank you for sharing that -- hadn't heard of it before.

[@FairyWeatherMan]

Captain: "we're running out of fuel" Me: "hold my beer"

[@charlespage8112]

I'm not dissing you....just need to FEED THE BEAST! Enjoy your work! Thanks

[@redcirclesilverx4586]

Properly good interview. Thanks

[@Thomas-gk42]

Thanks, interesting talk.

[@leonmusk1040]

"I just Wanna go fast"-Ricky Bobby knows. Cheers for the continued awesome Fraser.

[@JoelYancey]

great interview, very interesting

[@TommySaucierPlourde0]

@FraserCain Love that episode. I found it interesting in the bonus content on patreon the comment that spoke about his point of view that design by iteration would make it difficult for him to understand the dynamics and constant changes. Did I also understand correctly that his expertise makes him think that starship will be very difficult to make usable for several returns without resurfacing the ship? Must listen !!!

[@lyledal]

13 years to the SGL? I'll probably still be alive in 13 years! We need to do this quick!!

[@doncarlodivargas5497]

And as an astronaut you must have a working digesting system to supply the spaceship with waste products, if you become constipated it can take longer than 13 years

[@marting1056]

Sorry, the problem is to develop this 2nd gen small high efficient space travelling fusion reactor. seeing the working fusion reactor always 25 years away (since 50 years!) we will never see it

[@bluesteel8376]

Did you not listen to the rest of the interview? This concept relies on technology that is not yet developed and probably won't exist for several decades. I am 39 and do not expect to see this in my life time.

[@marting1056]

@@bluesteel8376 Yes Ive seen the whole video, but I answered to the comment above not to the video. and he hoped to be alive when this flight is happening! no way! (or he may be Kane from Karl Edward Wagners novels... you never know)

[@lyledal]

@@bluesteel8376 I just knew I'd come back and there'd be that one guy. Congrats! That one guy is you!

[@guyvandenbroeck8405]

Dr. Fusion from back of the future II !

[@fu4ow]

I'm curious about the beamed power idea. If we send a craft to the solar lens surely it will be too far to get much power. Would the engines work well enough with a small onboard power generator then? We'd need something that can operate at a wide range of input power

[@ElitePhotobox]

A photon rocket sounds like a laser rocket thinking Red Dwarf 🚀

[@vgamedude9811]

Kentucky and Kerbal Space Program mentioned? Based

[@timbrown9905]

I am curious about the gravitational lens concept, and I am instantly hit with one question: How long would it be between observations since positioning the scope would, I would imagine, be a large part of the process?

[@fu4ow]

It's often suggested to send several small craft at different positions. If we have really efficient engines like this video then moving a larger craft around might be better. There's probably also a lot of science that can be done with a single "pixel"

[@scottsilva2325]

Divert more power to the aft thrusters Scotty! Aye captain... Brrrrrrrrrr 🤣

[@michaelmcchesney6645]

Speaking of star destroyers, what type of ion engines are used in tie-fighters? They appear to generate pretty good thrust.

[@thearpox7873]

The fusion power part was kinda hand-waived, but seems like it could perhaps be the more important part of the system? For that matter, with the availability of such energy density, would plasma thrusters really be the best use for it, or are there other, better systems also enabled by the fusion power?

[@viperswhip]

We are very close to being able to generate fusion power, I have my doubts that we will ever get to net positive, but for space, we just need to be better than fuel.

[@fu4ow]

Fusion reactors are already very similar to plasma thrusters he mentioned. There are already some startups like Helicity more-or-less adding some fusion reactions to said plasma thrusters. It might open designs impossible without fusion though. I don't know how much work has been put there. A z-pinch like ZAP Energy has been predicted to have ~1mil seconds of specific impulse

[@thearpox7873]

@@viperswhip The design doesn't work without being net positive. If you need an external system to concentrate extreme power, you lose the 'high' thrust, and you're no longer running your rocket on fusion power, rather, it is now a questionable middle-man.

[@hive_indicator318]

Fraser, I know there's good reasons why spent fuel rods in aggragate aren't used for cheap RTGs. Please fill me in? (There, I actually asked a question)

[@rwarren58]

Early for a change. I hear about damage from micro meteorites but would such a particle simply be obliterated by our combined mass and energy?

[@FranOnTheEdge]

If this electric engine could have some kind of method for harvesting fuel, could it stock up on fuel on passing into a gaseous nebula?

[@greggoodson9849]

I sure hope that the use of fusion energy has finally moved away from using “steam engine” technology to convert all that thermal and EM energy into usable electrical and or plasma power. Any near-term prospects?

[@fu4ow]

Helicity, Helion, TAE energies (probably), Princeton FRC Direct fusion drive, Pulsar Fusion. any z-pinch like ZAP energy potentially. Lockheed Martin had a concept a few years back

[@jack504]

Is that 13 years to fly through the lens point (brief observations) or to loiter? Didn't catch it in the clip

[@harbifm766766]

A Nuclear thermal 3 stage on top of conventional scond stage for BFR plus an h8gh performqnce ion engine on top under the telescope can be done within 10 years if Nasa can easly, no new engineering or non exisoting tech..just the regs around Thermal nuclear engines need 5o be flexible

[@rulesofimgur]

Yay, early viewership!!!

[@MrSimonw58]

Some people like to go very fast

[@draco_2727]

30:25 So, you could make it (lets say) 65 ton payload, put it on Starship and off you go? how about ship the spacecraft with some fuel to make it up to the 65t and then lunch another 2 Starships with more fuel.

[@nicosteffen364]

This Thermal Electric Propulsion, isnt it close to the idea from The Expanse? They use Fusion as rocket fuel. We will need much more fuel than they did but its the same principal i think.

[@JohnPowell6]

Gray & Black water propulsion! No need to recycle water onboard, just add liquid and solid waste to your reaction mass!

[@transhumanisttv1771]

AIf two stars or other heavy dense objects were at the right distance from each other, could they act as a grravitational compound lens? Is that a logical notion? What are the limits?

[@caerdwyn7467]

45 tons. soooo Starship. Heck, if it's a one-way Starship, that's 40-50 tones more of chemical propellant to give it a better initial boost. Thanks for the answer!

[@davidsyes5970]

Poo to push a ship through space? Oh, the irony (and silky visualization in my mind)... Werner von Braun would be laughing so hysterically he'd generate gravity waves sufficient to push ships to the edge of the Kuiper Belt resources. Then, imagine someone, like in the 80s ad on US TV, soaring close aboard, hailing your ship, asking if you have a spare jar of Gray Poupon, saying "PSYCH!!", then accelerating or jumping ahead to plant THEIR flags before you arrive to claim some remaining patch of land or rock. But, if the waste tank blows, it might be like a lahar in space... (Think Mount Pinatubo blowing...)

[@Fiercefighter2]

Could you combine electro-thermal energy with the chemical energy of propellant like hydrolox to achieve exhaust velocities even greater than either of the methods on its own?

[@Fiercefighter2]

Not to answer my own question, but maybe regular combustion could drive the electric generation.

[@fu4ow]

idk about that but most electric engines can also have afterburners

[@fu4ow]

@@Fiercefighter2 the whole point of electric engines is chemical fuel has limited energy density. Powering an electric engine with chemical fuel would be worse than a chemical rocket

[@user-otzlixr]

In space….every night is taco Tuesday…

[@leonmusk1040]

Has anyone used liquid FOOF as a flow battery yet? It's 10.v electro galvanically, dense and extremely reactive so even if you can only run it once as an electrochemical source. You could use it as a pre reactant to get the plasma moving before giving it a squeeze with a magnetron to make a reaction engine boosted with electricity garnered from the fuel flow. Maybe liquid NaK and FOOF that would give you very dense exhaust stream. Basically make your chemical propellants a flow battery even if it only supplements the power requirements has the advantage it will produce more power and need less pumping the more power it puts out plus if you used a solar sail as a foci you could impart even more delta v into the exhaust stream giving you a huge vacuum optimised nozzle being plasma a coil on the throat would let you control the nozzle pressure regimes if you made it hollow cored you might even be able to use hamiltonian waves inside the plasma to get a percentage of the ions up to relativistic speeds using lasing,

[@SirLothian]

If you are zooming in on a planet with the Solar Gravitational Lens so that you can get a megapixel image, would you be able to track it's movement? What would the field of view be on this telescope?

[@YousufAhmad0]

Is that Henry Cavill's brother? 😄

[@JohnPowell6]

I'd like to have a outside expert analyze Pulsar Fusion's direct fusion drive concept. Is it flim flam, or a real possibility?

[@YousufAhmad0]

JWST is ~6 tons, and these guys had a payload of 18 tons, so that's ~3 JWSTs

[@PeacefulPatron-o5t]

1 million of us could donate $100 a month for a year give them 1.2 Billion to work with and use falcon heavy. 1200 just for a year. Let’s do it I’m down.

[@JayCross]

If we take the "Three Body Problem" answer to the Fermi Paradox seriously, we probably shouldn't use laser to project energy to spacecraft. It will make us too visible to somebody.

[@thearpox7873]

That's just shooting yourself in the foot coz sci-fi. And the current status of the Fermi Paradox is that our observation abilities aren't good enough to start asking it.

[@istvansipos9940]

if somebody out there is capable to target Earth, they are already advanced enough to see us.

[@fu4ow]

lasers get diffuse over long enough distances. If anyone could see it they could already kill us

[@DamianReloaded]

I once explored a concept for a space engine capable of generating forward motion without propellant. The idea involved using an electromagnetic mechanism to shoot an "anchor" backwards, tethered to the spaceship by a loose rope. As the anchor moved away, the opposing reaction force would propel the spacecraft forward, with the effect lasting as long as the rope remained slack. When the rope eventually tightened, it would be connected to a generator that converted the tension from the rope into electricity. This energy conversion, along with the losses in the system, would shift the balance of forces, causing the spaceship to slowly gain velocity over an extended period. But I am not entirely sure it would work. The electricity generated could power some sort of photon thruster. Probably the energy required to launch the anchor would be more efficiently used to power the photon rockets directly. It's a thought experiment in the direction of having some form of energy conversion that could lead to acceleration without shedding mass.

[@UnknownUser-rb9pd]

How comfortable would (for example) the United States be if China launched very powerful lasers into orbit or into some LeGrande point for these ion engines. Or vice versa. I suspect that's why powerful lasers will not be used for this sort of mission.

[@fu4ow]

just put it on the other side of the moon

[@nias2631]

This was not poopulsion!

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Year 2100 - “Ion engines… zero progress in the last century…”

[@mooferoo]

The new poop-ion drive.

[@junkmail4613]

Fraser, it seems the excitement of this interview existed only inside your head but honestly very little of it reached outside toward me. All the scientific word salad was tintilating, but I found it had little to say to me, inside my head, and had little astronomy . SORRY...

[@frasercain]

No problem, it wasn't for you.

[@sinukus]

Dr Dan Fries sounds like he is in an argon chamber :-( Good content tho!

[@SoctuvasTheGreat]

Okay I'm going to say it: McPoopy Poopface Propulsion 💩💩💩💯

[@Hoodlum555]

Hopefully Dr Fries will invent our Epstein drive

[@kkgt6591]

These things will probably never happen.

[@frasercain]

There are already ion engines operating in the Solar System. Starlinks use ion engines.

[@martythemartian99]

When talking about an Ion Engine being fueled by human waste, please don't use the word flavor. 🥴🤮😵‍💫

[@ilkoderez601]

Fraiser seemed offended when the guest was explaining things.... Just let the guest talk.

[@normanwolfe7639]

You are obviously watching a different video. Didn’t happen on this one.

[@tf1090c]

A little disappointed that you didn’t respond other than to delete my comment

[@tf1090c]

I thought you were better than this, Fraser.

[@frasercain]

I'm not deleting comments. Maybe KZbin did?