Precise Control to Enable Lighter and Stronger Construction
Making the car body via FDM [3D Printed ABS plastic via Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)] affords precise control that would be impossible with sheet metal. When he builds the aforementioned bumper, the printer can add thickness and rigidity to specific sections. When applied to the right spots, this makes for a fender that’s as resilient as the one on your Prius, but much lighter. That translates to less weight to push, and a lighter car means more miles per gallon. And the current model has a curb weight of just 1,200 pounds.
Radically fewer Parts for more Strength and Simplicity
To further remedy the issues caused by modern car-construction techniques, Kor used the design freedom of 3-D printing to combine a typical car’s multitude of parts into simple unibody shapes. For example, when he prints the car’s dashboard, he’ll make it with the ducts already attached without the need for joints and connecting parts. What would be dozens of pieces of plastic and metal end up being one piece of 3-D printed plastic.
More Aerodynamic Designs are Enabled
“The thesis we’re following is to take small parts from a big car and make them single large pieces,” Kor says. By using one piece instead of many, the car loses weight and gets reduced rolling resistance, and with fewer spaces between parts, the Urbee ends up being exceptionally aerodynamic.” How aerodynamic? The Urbee 2′s teardrop shape gives it just a 0.15 coefficient of drag.
The electric sail (ESAIL), invented by Dr. Pekka Janhunen at the Finnish Kumpula Space Centre in 2006, produces propulsion power for a spacecraft by utilizing the solar wind. The sail features electrically charged long and thin metal tethers that interact with the solar wind. Using ultrasonic welding, the Electronics Research Laboratory at the University of Helsinki successfully produced a 1 km long ESAIL tether. Four years ago, global experts in ultrasonic welding considered it impossible to weld together such thin wires. The produced tether proves that manufacturing full size ESAIL tethers is possible. The theoretically predicted electric sail force will be measured in space during 2013.
An electric solar wind sail, a.k.a electric sail, consists of long, thin (25?50 micron) electrically conductive tethers manufactured from aluminium wires. A full-scale sail can include up to 100 tethers, each 20 kilometres long. In addition, the craft will contain a high-voltage source and an electron gun that creates a positive charge in the tethers. The electric field of the charged tethers will extend approximately 100 metres into the surrounding solar wind plasma. Charged particles from the solar wind crash into this field, creating an interaction that transfers momentum from the
solar wind to the spacecraft. Compared with other methods, such as ion engines, the electric sail produces a large amount of propulsion considering its mass and power requirement. Since the sail consumes no propellant, it has in principle an unlimited operating time.
The electric sail is raising a lot of interest in space circles, but until now it has been unclear whether its most important parts, i.e. the long, thin metal tethers, can be produced.
The ESAIL EU FP7 project (2011-2013) develops laboratory prototypes (TRL 4-5) of the key components of the E-sail. The project involves five countries, nine institutes and has a budget of about 1.7 million Euros.
* Deploy and confirm the deployment of a 10 m conductive Hoytether from a 1U CubeSat
* Test of a 100 m tether deployment on Aalto-1 3U CubeSat (2014)
Solar Wind Electric Sail Test (SWEST)
SWEST (Solar Wind Electric Sail Test) is a proposal to the EU whose purpose is to build a flight-ready 60 kg satellite which is able to measure the E-sail effect in the solar wind with four 1 km long tethers. The satellite is mainly built by the Alta space company in Italy.
Kiva Goods to man process achieves 600 units per hour versus 160 picks per hour for Man to Goods
Amazon has and continues to lead e-commerce-driven distribution with their pick-to-cart method (otherwise known as man-to-goods) and their promise of speedy economical delivery. Workers run around and fill carts and deliver them to conveyors where they are transported to packing stations where individual shipments are processed and staged for pickup by FedEx, UPS, etc.. The metrics for this are 160 picks per hour. The video below shows that process.
Kiva Systems disrupted those metrics and increased worker productivity by reversing the man-to-goods process. This method brings the goods to the packer (goods-to-man). As Kiva's success became proven in the field, Amazon acquired Kiva for $775 million and is beginning to install Kiva systems in their new warehouses. It is estimated that the new Kiva metric for Amazon consumer goods is 600 items per hour.
Spacex's ultimate goal, and that of its founder Elon Musk, is to drastically reduce the current costs of space travel to get them closer to airfare costs — down from $1,000 per pound to $10.
After years of research, ABB has developed the world’s first circuit breaker for high voltage direct current (HVDC). It combines very fast mechanics with power electronics, and will be capable of ‘interrupting’ power flows equivalent to the output of a large power station within 5 milliseconds- that is thirty times faster than the blink of a human eye.
The breakthrough removes a 100-year-old barrier to the development of DC transmission grids, which will enable the efficient integration and exchange of renewable energy. DC grids will also improve grid reliability and enhance the capability of existing AC (alternating current) networks. ABB is in discussions with power utilities to identify pilot projects for the new development.
Overlay DC grids will be able to interconnect countries and continents, balance loads and reinforce the existing AC transmission networks. “
Winding of the superconducting coil, the largest component of the magnet windings, is well underway. The superconducting coil is wound with a cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC) that contains hundreds of Nb3Sn/Cu superconductor wires. The total length of CICC to be wound is 1.8 kilometers.
Four of 18 layers have been wound. The first three layers contained the largest “High-Field” CICC in the magnet. A complex structural link – a MagLab innovation – was successfully installed to connect the “High-Field CICC” of the third layer to the fourth layer, a layer that is the first in the winding of the smaller “Mid-Field CICC”.
After coil winding and installation of inter-layer joints, the entire coil will go through a reaction heat treatment to form the superconductor, followed by epoxy impregnation and final assembly.
Many turn to kerosene or paraffin oil. It is estimated that 88 billion liters of kerosene are burned purely for light. One liter of kerosene is estimated to produce 3kg CO2 when burnt.
Research has shown that basic oil lamps typically produce just 1% of the light of a 100W light bulb.
The N200 lantern made by another American firm, Nokero (for “no kerosene”), has a design inspired by a light bulb, and costs about $15. It worked well for cooking, cleaning and sitting around a table, but was deemed less suitable for studying. The Solar Muscle, a solar lamp made by Flexiway, can be used as a desk light. Its compact, square design, with a solar panel on one side and LEDs on the other, also allows several lamps to be snapped together to make a larger panel. The square design arose after an earlier, circular version was mistaken for a landmine, says James Fraser of Flexiway. The firm can pack 2,750 of its $10 lamps in a cubic metre—a plus in countries where transport is expensive. They are being distributed by NGOs in Papua New Guinea and several African countries.
The best solar lamp among those tested was the Sun King, produced by an Indian company, Greenlight Planet. It was purchased off the shelf from an African supermarket for $24. The Sun King’s almost dazzling light was appreciated by users, as was its seemingly unbreakable design. The awkward-looking wire stand worked well. The lamp’s only drawback was that its solar panel is separate, rather than being built into the lamp.
For the next decade the mobile phone will be joined by the solar-powered lamp, made up of a few light-emitting diodes (LEDs), a solar panel and a small rechargeable battery, encased in a durable plastic shell. Just as the spread of mobile phones in poor countries has transformed lives and boosted economic activity, solar lighting is poised to improve incomes, educational attainment and health across the developing world.
ARPA-E funded the wave disk engine for $2.5 million. In a traditional internal combustion engine, air and fuel are ignited, creating high-temperature and high-pressure gases which expand rapidly. This expansion of gases forces the engine’s pistons to pump and powers the car. MSU’s engine has no pistons. It uses the combustion of air and fuel to build up pressure within the engine, generating a shockwave that blasts hot gas exhaust into the blades of the engine’s rotors causing them to turn, which generates electricity. MSU’s redesigned engine would be the size of a cooking pot and contain fewer moving parts—reducing the weight of the engine by 30%. It would also enable a vehicle that could use 60% of its fuel for propulsion.
Late in 2012, the plan is to have just a wave disk engine generating power through a 25-kilowatt battery, which will be capable of driving a full-size hybrid electric-gas vehicle. The team will turn one of them into a 25 kilowatt wave disk engine and generator package. "We'll be able to drive a full-sized hybrid, or even a hybrid SUV," he predicts.
Nature Scientific Reports - Scalable circuits of organic logic and memory are realized using all-additive printing processes. A 3-bit organic complementary decoder is fabricated and used to read and write non-volatile, rewritable ferroelectric memory. The decoder-memory array is patterned by inkjet and gravure printing on flexible plastics. Simulation models for the organic transistors are developed, enabling circuit designs tolerant of the variations in printed devices. We explain the key design rules in fabrication of complex printed circuits and elucidate the performance requirements of materials and devices for reliable organic digital logic.
Microphotographs of (a) printed OTFTs and (b) via connections. (c) Schematic of an OTFT cross-section.
Nature - The invention of the laser has resulted in many innovations, and the device has become ubiquitous. However, the maser, which amplifies microwave radiation rather than visible light, has not had as large an impact, despite being instrumental in the laser’s birth. The maser’s relative obscurity has mainly been due to the inconvenience of the operating conditions needed for its various realizations: atomic and free-electron masers require vacuum chambers and pumping; and solid-state masers, although they excel as low-noise amplifiers and are occasionally incorporated in ultrastable oscillators typically require cryogenic refrigeration. Most realizations of masers also require strong magnets, magnetic shielding or both. Overcoming these various obstacles would pave the way for improvements such as more-sensitive chemical assays, more-precise determinations of biomolecular structure and function, and more-accurate medical diagnostics (including tomography) based on enhanced magnetic resonance spectrometers incorporating maser amplifiers and oscillators. Here we report the experimental demonstration of a solid-state maser operating at room temperature in pulsed mode. It works on a laboratory bench, in air, in the terrestrial magnetic field and amplifies at around 1.45 gigahertz. In contrast to the cryogenic ruby maser, in our maser the gain medium is an organic mixed molecular crystal, p-terphenyl doped with pentacene, the latter being photo-excited by yellow light. The maser’s pumping mechanism exploits spin-selective molecular intersystem crossing10 into pentacene’s triplet ground state. When configured as an oscillator, the solid-state maser’s measured output power of around −10 decibel milliwatts is approximately 100 million times greater than that of an atomic hydrogen maser, which oscillates at a similar frequency (about 1.42 gigahertz). By exploiting the high levels of spin polarization readily generated by intersystem crossing in photo-excited pentacene and other aromatic molecules, this new type of maser seems to be capable of amplifying with a residual noise temperature far below room temperature.
Anatomy of the maser. A crystal of p-terphenyl doped with pentacene is located in the a.c. magnetic field of the TE01δ mode of a microwave resonator and illuminated with a beam of yellow light from a pulsed dye laser.
Lasers and masers work on the same principle, amplifying light through a process called stimulated emission, except that lasers amplify visible light while masers act on microwaves. Light and microwaves are both forms of electromagnetic radiation, but microwaves have a wavelength 100,000 times greater than that of visible light. But although the maser has been used for deep-space communications and atomic clocks, lasers have always outshone their predecessors.
While the room-temperature maser is currently a solution with few applications, it may rise to prominence for its amplifying ability. Amplifiers are a vital component in any electronic circuit. The lower their noise, the better amplifiers perform—and masers have very little noise.
Into each mollusc, Katz and his team at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, have implanted tiny biofuel cells that extract electrical power from the glucose and oxygen in the snail’s blood. Munching mainly on carrots, the cyborg snails live for around half a year and generate electricity whenever their implanted electrodes are hooked up to an external circuit.
Katz’s snails, for example, produced up to 7.45 microwatts, but after 45 minutes, that power had decreased by 80%. To draw continuous power, Katz’s team had to ramp down the power they extracted to 0.16 microwatts.
Scherson says that he thinks he will be able to get a few hundred microwatts out of cockroaches (his biofuel cells feed on trehalose, a different sugar from glucose). Singhal reports similar results for beetles. Scherson, who is working with a large company to build microelectronics circuits for his cockroaches, points out that power need not be drawn continuously, but could be stored up in capacitors and released in pulses; he has already been able to produce and detect a radio signal from the cockroaches this way
Two devices together can serve a compact area such as a stadium or train station—handling just as much traffic, in that compact area, as a whole cell tower can serve a wider area. A cluster of 10 to 20 of them can form an array that replaces the transmitters atop a typical cell tower. They can boost capacity in part by collectively reshaping the radio beam in real-time toward the incoming signals to optimize performance.
The demands on mobile networks are expected to explode over the next four years. Bell Labs has estimated that traffic will grow by a factor of 25, while Cisco says it will grow 18-fold by 2016. Either way, the system will have to be remade to accommodate the traffic.
Radiohead: This cube, just six centimeters on a side, is a potential building block for smarter and higher-capacity wireless networks. Alcatel-Lucent
A new mechanism in quantum biology could be exploited to enable lossless quantum coherent energy and information processing devices at room temperature.
We give a new explanation for why some biological systems can stay quantum coherent for long times at room temperatures, one of the fundamental puzzles of quantum biology. We show that systems with the right level of complexity between chaos and regularity can increase their coherence time BY orders of magnitude. Systems near Critical Quantum Chaos or Metal-Insulator Transition (MIT) can have long coherence times and coherent transport at the same time. The new theory tested in a realistic light harvesting system model can reproduce the scaling of critical fluctuations reported in recent experiments. Scaling of return probability in the FMO light harvesting complex shows the signs of universal return probability decay observed at critical MIT. The results may open up new possibilities to design low loss energy and information transport systems in this Poised Realm hovering reversibly between quantum coherence and classicality.
Amerigon revolutionized seat comfort by introducing the Climate Control Seat in 1999, the world's first thermoelectric-based cooled and heated seat. They have a thermoelectric generator that was picked as a 2012 Car and Driver 10 most promising future technologies. One-third of the energy in every gallon of the gas you burn is dumped out your exhaust pipe as waste heat. Schemes aimed at recouping some of that energy include turbocharging, turbocompounding (exhaust-driven turbines geared to the crankshaft), and the steam generators investigated by both BMW and Honda. BMW wil be trying to use the Amerigon thermoelectric generator to improve car mileage by 5%.
Chamtech Enterprises has tested a spray on antenna on a tree, among other tests, and the team was able to send a VHF signal up to 14 miles away using only the treated tree. Rhett Spencer, chief technology officer of Chamtech, said the company’s spray-on technology could make cell phones work with 10 percent better efficiency.
The program envisions air, mobile and fixed assets, most of which are organic to the deployed unit, that provide a gigabit-per-second tactical backbone network extending to the lowest-echelon warfighters. To achieve this, the program seeks to develop advanced pointing, acquisition and tracking (PAT) technologies, not commercially available, needed to provide high connectivity to the forward-located mobile hotspots. Advanced PAT technology is key for connectivity to small UAVs, for example, enabling them to serve as flying nodes on the mobile high-speed backbone.
“While some advanced commercial millimeter-wave components can be leveraged for this program, the technical challenge is more complex given the infrastructure and terrain challenges of a forward-operating locations,” said Dick Ridgway, DARPA program manager. “Mobile Hotspots will require the development of steerable antennas, efficient millimeter-wave power amplifiers, and dynamic networking to establish and maintain the mobile data backhaul network. We anticipate using commercial radio protocols, such as WiFi, WiMax or LTE [Long Term Evolution], as a cost-effective demonstration of the high-capacity backbone. However, the millimeter-wave mobile backbone developed during this program will be compatible with other military radios and protocols.”
Additionally, the program seeks novel technologies to increase the transmission power to provide adequate ranges within the small size, weight, and power (SWAP) constraints required for company-level unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The current NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck had a paper describing a way to give cubesats over 2000 miles per hour of velocity change from one kilogram of water to go to the moon or near earth asteroids.
As CubeSats grow in both numbers and capability, the need to extend their reach with integrated propulsion systems is becoming clear. A water-electrolysis propulsion system for 3U CubeSats is proposed that could fill the gap in the available propulsion systems at this scale. Combining the advantages of electric propulsion with those of chemical rockets, the system is safe both to handle and to launch; it is lightweight, and it is capable of providing roughly 1000 meter per second, enough delta V to reach lunar orbit from GTO. The efficiency of the proposed technology is at least 75% for Cornell’s prototype system, consisting of Ni electrodes and 0.5 M KOH as electrolyte. With over 1 km/s of ΔV from 1 kg of water as propellant, sample missions include compensating for drag, orbit raising and lunar exploration.
Electrolysis propulsion system for a 3U CubeSat. The water tanks (A) store propellant and generate H2 and O2 through electrolysis using power from solar cells (B). The gases are combusted in the chamber (C) and expanded through a nozzle (D) to generate thrust. The spacecraft spins passively about an axis parallel to the thrust direction. For clarity, some solar cells are shown only as outlines.
The material provides exceptionally high dielectric constant compared with currently existing forms of hafnium oxide, which is already a key material in the electronics industry.
Hafnium oxide forms in different crystalline and polycrystalline structures: monoclinic, cubic and orthorhombic. However, an amorphous form is preferable to polycrystalline forms due to the absence of grain boundaries, the point at which two crystals in a polycrystalline material meet. Grain boundaries act as conduction paths through thin films of the material. They not only reduce the resistivity, but lead to a non-uniformity in conductivity over a large area, which itself leads to spatial non-uniformity in device performance However, until now amorphous hafnium oxide has had a relatively low dielectric constant of around 20.
The form of hafnium oxide developed by Dr Flewitt has a dielectric constant higher than 30.
“Most people thought that all amorphous hafnium oxide had to exist in the monoclinic-like phase,” says Dr Flewitt. “What we’ve shown is that it can exist and does exist in a cubic-like phase. This is similar to amorphous carbon, where you can get diamond-like properties out of amorphous carbon material.”
Although the nascent commercial space industry is focusing almost exclusively on chemical rockets, the inefficiency of chemical propulsion places serious limitations on orbital and extra-orbital activities. The most efficient liquid propellant combination, employing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, requires cryogenic storage and large hydrogen fuel tanks. Fission rockets are substantially more efficient than chemical rockets, are safe to operate, and could be used to send humans to mars. In an interview with Sander Olson, fission propulsion advocate Tabitha Smith argues that fission rockets could be rapidly developed and become the enabling technology for opening up the solar system for human exploration.
Tabitha Smith
Question: The U.S. had a nuclear program in the 1960s called Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA). Whatever happened to that program?
NERVA began in the early 1960s and continued until the program was cancelled in 1972. It met its goals and flight qualified the Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR) but President Nixon decided to pull the funding using NTR for a Mars mission to put it into the Space Shuttle program, using the Shuttle to launch large classified spy satellites into orbit for the US Air Force and other such missions. Some of the original plans using an NTR called for using NERVA rockets to put a human on Mars by 1978 and a permanent lunar colony by 1981. People who study the concept of lunar colonies and Mars missions in depth invariably come to the conclusion that nuclear propulsion (either thermal or electric) and electric propulsion powered by nuclear becomes the only technologically feasible options for propulsion, that have reached a stage beyond “theoretical” and/or that has actually be tested and qualified on a large scale.
Question: You have just participated in the creation of a new company, General Propulsion Sciences, LLC , to develop new forms of space propulsion. How is that going?
GPS, in addition to NTR R&D, does electric and plasma propulsion and also manufacturers microthrusters for cubesats and other small spacecraft. The company is also expanding capabilities to include Hall Thrusters. The aim of GPS is to hasten the furtherance of advanced propulsion R&D in order to enhance the capabilities of spacecraft (from very small spacecraft to very large, man-rated space craft). Although nuclear propulsion won't garner any profits in the near term, we believe that NTRs offer the only viable way to get to Mars, and that they would be nearly ideal for any missions beyond near earth orbit.
Question: Various proposals for employing NTRs have been discussed. Which one do you support?
The simplest (and most “near term”) mission architecture involves using the NTR as a second stage rocket with a chemical first stage to leave the Earth's atmosphere; then the NTR, carrying the payload, would activate its engine to take it beyond orbit, off to the particular mission's destination. In our opinion, and according to research, this is the most logical method, using readily available technology, (rather than using the conventional chemical rockets of today) for sending large payloads (involving people and their habitats) to destinations beyond the Earth-Moon system
Question: Could an active NTR be used, to launch directly from Earth to space?
It could, but due to the expenses involved with open-air testing, expensive potential lawsuits from anti-nuclear activists, and other variables that would subtract money from the mission and force the dollars into the courts, , it is unlikely that a nuclear rocket to orbit will ever be built, at least in the United States. So the plans of the NTR community at large envision using a conventional chemical engine for the first stage, and launching the NTR and/or the parts for an NTR-driven spacecraft in the upper stage into space, away from Earth.
Question: Could you use the Falcon 9 Heavy rocket to deliver an NTR to space in its second stage?
Yes, our NTR can be assembled in orbit, using one or two Space-X Heavys to deliver the parts. Using a modified Falcon 9 Heavy using only chemical propellant, at most only 11 tons could reach the Mars surface, and that would take at least a year. By contrast, an NTR powered spacecraft (delivered to orbit using a Heavy-lift rocket, though ideally the Ares V or SLS) could deliver more payload to the surface of Mars more quickly - in approximately half a year or less. Expedited flight time is more humane – it's better for the health of astronauts, which depletes rapidly the longer they are exposed to the natural radiation of space, low gravity and bone loss, and psychological harm caused by long-term spaceflight in cramped quarters. Also, an NTR can deliver a larger payload to Mars which means a larger habitat module – so you're talking about a small capsule with relatively cramped quarters (like the one or two room Orion capsule) versus an actual habitat that an NTR could deliver – like a Bigelow module with three stories.
Question: Is Elon Musk amenable to putting an NTR on the second stage of a Falcon 9 Heavy?
No, at this point Mr. Musk does not currently appear to be amenable to the idea. The concept is clearly feasible from a technical standpoint, and an NTR would expedite Mr. Musk's dream of sending people to Mars. It is Musk's job to focus on Space-X's current goals of building their chemical rockets, in order to satisfy their customers in the space community and NASA's other immediate missions and needs in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). We (the NTR community) would welcome an opportunity to present a detailed proposal to Mr. Musk on a private-industry partnership mission to Mars, using our NTR engines and spacecraft designs.
Question: What sort of ISP (specific impulse) could an NTR achieve?
Specific impulse refers to the efficiency of a propellant. There are a number of different approaches that could be used for an NTR. In a closed-cycle gas core engine, An NTR could achieve a specific impulse as high as 2,000 seconds. The most efficient chemical fuel combination, liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen, has a specific impulse of about 450 seconds. It is this dramatic potential performance improvement of nuclear over chemical that justifies the investment.
Question: Some are worried about radioactivity issues with NTRs. Are such concerns justified?
I like to use the barbecue analogy to answer this question.
If you see a picture of an NTR engine compared to a large chemical engine (like the one you'd need to go to Mars), in relative size comparison you'd see the NTR engine looks like a BBQ grill full of coals (the Uranium) and the chemical engine is about the size of a boiler room full of toxic chemicals and a web of metal piping and pumps.
So in the event of an accident, what goes “boom” is the propellant tank – which is used in both cases (or in the chemical rocket's case, the oxidizer is also there to go “boom”, additionally) – liquid Hydrogen (LH2) is extremely explosive. The resultant explosion of tons of LH2 separates the engines from the failed spacecraft – the boiler room full of pipes, toxic stuff and hazardous chemicals will more readily break apart and rain down upon people, while the BBQ grill will more-than-likely (as the RTG during the Apollo 13 mission) return, intact, with the BBQ coals contained within.
Even if some of the BBQ coals (the Uranium) were to escape the grill (the engine), they wouldn't be “hot”, because NTRs aren't designed to begin cooking (the fission process) until they have reached space to begin their mission, off to Mars or wherever their destination may be. The fission process requires a highly orchestrated sequence of control drums, reflectors, and other nuclear instigators, and it's basically impossible to have criticality without them in the right positions.
Question: Some have argued that fusion rockets should be used to put payloads into orbit and beyond.
Fusion rockets are a theoretical concept that will inevitably be the next advancement in nuclear rocket technology after fission rockets, but any discussion of using fusion for space propulsion is premature. No one has demonstrated a working prototype of a fusion rocket. By contrast, fission rockets have operated successfully for several hours. We know the technology works, and we know how to build it.
Question: Now that the lunar colony has been cancelled, is there any mission for an NTR?
No, the Administration of the United States has not formally given NASA a mission to use NTRs, even though NASA has been directed to develop NTRs within the Advanced Exploration Systems program, and the National Research Council (in Feb. 2012) has deemed NTRs of highest research priority to extend human activities beyond LEO. The commercial space market lacks the profit incentive (due to international UN regulation, forbidding anybody from “claiming” space stuff) to develop a project such as an asteroid mission, a lunar colony, or a trip to Mars. The Government (in particular, the international community collectively) has the resources for a mission to use an NTR driven spacecraft(s) but currently lacks the motivation for necessary political coordination and will. I want to see humans land on Mars in the remaining lifetime of the NERVA and Apollo community, but this will only happen with an NTR.
Question: How much would it cost to develop a fully functional, flight qualified fission rocket prototype?
It depends on the mission, but on average (across the range of missions), an NTR using NERVA technology could be designed, constructed, and tested for a few billion dollars (ranging from several hundred million for a small engine and old NERVA technology to several billion for a modernized, larger spacecraft). Current design techniques make extensive use of computer simulations, which substantially reduces development time. We also have materials that weren't available in the 1970s for NERVA. I'm confident that with an increase in funding and a mission written on paper we would have an NTR ready to go within five to seven years. This would probably happen after NASA is finished preparing for the SLS and the Orion-focused missions, or if the private space community were able to anticipate the need and prepare ahead of time.
Question: Your company is doing a project called Bifrost for Icarus interstellar. What will Icarus use NTRs for?
NTRs can be used like small boats attached to large
sailing vessels on interstellar missions to scout ahead to a
potentially habitable planet, be used as "life rafts", or to go
forward to harvest materials for the crew from the surrounding space
environment. There are other nuclear technologies that Bifrost focuses
on, such as surface power and Orion-boost phase.
Compared to earlier attempts to make high-temperature photonic crystals, the new approach is “higher performance, simpler, robust and amenable to inexpensive large-scale production.
A microscope image of the tungsten photonic crystal structure reveals the precise uniform spacing of cavities formed in the material, which are tuned to specific wavelengths of light. Image courtesy of Y.X. Yeng et al.
