A VASIMR space tug cannot land on the Moon. Will some form of chemical propellant cargo lunar lander be needed?
A VASIMR space tug cannot land on the Moon.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 01/30/2010 12:10 amA VASIMR space tug cannot land on the Moon. This has nothing to do with landing on the moon. It is just a test vehicle.
if nasa likes so much vasimr maybe its better to give it a lift to Iss with the shuttle?
Following the December 8, 2008 agreement, activities with NASA are also underway to develop the configuration for the 2013 space flight test. Five “gates” or milestones are identified in the document, which both Ad Astra and NASA must cross in preparation for space flight. Gate #1, the signature of the Payload Integration Agreement (PIA), was crossed on June 3, 2009. Gate #2, the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) is planned for mid 2011. The other gates are: #3, Critical Design Review (CDR) in early 2012; #4, Certificate of Flight Readiness (COFR) in mid 2013 and #5, Flight Readiness Review in late 2013 at the launch facility just before launch.
If that works, and someone gets smart and develops a space reactor powerful enough to power 2-3 VASIMR's and one of those artificial magnetospheres that were being worked on, it might even be useful for flying humans around the solar system and even through those pesky Van Allen belts.
... it appears that this is asking for a "cryocooler for conduction cooling" to replace their current liquid cyrogenic cooling system...It goes on to say: "In addition, Studies will be conducted to evaluate a Lunar Tug concept utilizing Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-plasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine capabilities from Low Earth Orbit to Lunar Orbit and libration points." ...
Quote from: docmordrid on 01/30/2010 05:56 amIf that works, and someone gets smart and develops a space reactor powerful enough to power 2-3 VASIMR's and one of those artificial magnetospheres that were being worked on, it might even be useful for flying humans around the solar system and even through those pesky Van Allen belts.A tug for the outer planets may use nuclear but ones to the Moon are going to be solar powered.The video shows a VASIMR with semiconductor solar arrays. If the tug only goes through the Van Allen belts 4 or 5 times in its life a radiation protection coating may work. An alternative is a mechanical heat engine. Possibly liquid filled pipes heated by parabolic mirrors feeding the gas or liquid into a Stirling engine. The liquid could be water, LOX, hydrogen, freon or helium. Many rocket engineers can probably make a space solar heat engine using nitrogen.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 01/30/2010 11:09 pmQuote from: docmordrid on 01/30/2010 05:56 amIf that works, and someone gets smart and develops a space reactor powerful enough to power 2-3 VASIMR's and one of those artificial magnetospheres that were being worked on, it might even be useful for flying humans around the solar system and even through those pesky Van Allen belts.A tug for the outer planets may use nuclear but ones to the Moon are going to be solar powered.The video shows a VASIMR with semiconductor solar arrays. If the tug only goes through the Van Allen belts 4 or 5 times in its life a radiation protection coating may work. An alternative is a mechanical heat engine. Possibly liquid filled pipes heated by parabolic mirrors feeding the gas or liquid into a Stirling engine. The liquid could be water, LOX, hydrogen, freon or helium. Many rocket engineers can probably make a space solar heat engine using nitrogen.Funny, I was just thinking about the parabolic mirror heat engine in the context of the 200MWe VASIMR we were talking about in another thread, wondering how big something like that would have to be, as an alternative to heavy nuclear reactors and parking-lot sized solar panels. It's the technology was visualized for in-space power generation pre-photovoltaic, on, for example, Von Braun's original space station propsoal.