VOA科学技术2024--New Rocket Engine Could Cut Travel Time to Mars from Years to Months

A private company is working with the American space agency NASA to develop a new rocket that could greatly reduce space travel times.

The engine for such a rocket will be designed to sharply increase the amount of thrust to speed up space travel and improve rocket efficiency.

Thrust is the force that pushes a spacecraft through the air. It is produced by a propulsion system. Generally, a gas or liquid fuel is burned to produce thrust from the back of a spacecraft to propel it forward at high-speed.

The new design, called Pulsed Plasma¹ Rocket (PPR), is being developed by Arizona-based company Howe Industries. The company is currently in the early stages of studying the technology before building working engine models.

In a recent statement, Howe Industries said such rocket technology will be needed to support NASA's plans to return humans to the moon and after that, possibly Mars. The space agency has also set a goal to build a long-term base in space. But one barrier to all these plans is the long travel times necessary with current spacecraft systems.

NASA estimates the moon sits an average of about 382,500 kilometers from Earth. The exact distance changes because of the moon's orbit around Earth. The average distance from Earth to Mars is 225 million kilometers.

NASA says a trip to Mars with existing spacecraft would take at least 200 days each way. Developers of the proposed Pulsed Plasma Rocket have said it could reduce travel time to the Red Planet to about two months each way.

Howe Industries said its new design gives the rocket the ability to reach extremely high speeds to complete "reasonable" space travel times. The development team estimates its PPR system could produce up to 100,000 N of thrust. The 'N' at the end of the number stands for Newtons, a unit of measurement for thrust.

NASA has described its Space Launch System (SLS) as the most powerful ever built. The agency has said the SLS rocket system is expected to provide nearly 53 N of thrust during space travel.

Developers of PPR say that in addition to a huge increase in thrust, the new design also provides a "specific impulse" rate of 5,000. Specific impulse is a method for measuring - in seconds -thrust and efficiency levels of rocket engines. The higher this rate is, the more efficient the rocket system is. By comparison, the SLS rocket has specific impulse rates below 500.

Officials at Howe have said the PPR is based on another plasma-based technology known as pulsed fission² fusion³. NASA says this process involves quickly pressing plasmas into high pressures to produce thrust. But the developers say the PPR system is smaller, simpler and costs less to operate.

Howe's statement introducing the technology said the combination of extremely high thrust and higher specific impulse rate "holds the potential to revolutionize space exploration."

The team said such a system should be able to propel much heavier spacecraft and support much longer trips to more distant areas of space. The planned system could also make it easier for spacecraft to be equipped with heavy shields to protect traveling astronauts from Galactic Cosmic Rays. These are highly energetic particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. The rays can be harmful to humans in large amounts.

The PPR project is one in a series of NASA development projects that recently received additional financial assistance to keep running. The projects are part of a NASA program called Innovative⁴ Advanced Concepts (NIAC).

PPR is currently in Phase I of development. The team said if chosen by NASA to continue with Phase II, it will be centered on improving the performance of the proposed engine, as well as carrying out experiments on major engine systems. The last phase will involve completing a spaceship design for carrying humans to Mars.

Words in This Story

efficient - adj. working well and not wasting time or energy

propulsion - n. a force that pushes something forward

plasma - n. a collection of charged particles

potential - n. possible

phase - n. a specific period during which something happens

1 plasma   

n.血浆，细胞质，乳清

参考例句：

• Keep some blood plasma back for the serious cases.留一些血浆给重病号。
• The plasma is the liquid portion of blood that is free of cells .血浆是血液的液体部分，不包含各种细胞。

2 fission   

n.裂开；分裂生殖

参考例句：

• The fission of the cell could be inhibited with certain chemicals.细胞的裂变可以通过某些化学药品加以抑制。
• Nuclear fission releases tremendous amounts of energy.核裂变释放出巨大的能量。

3 fusion   

n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc. 黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• This alloy is formed by the fusion of two types of metal.这种合金是用两种金属熔合而成的。

4 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。