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Feasibility study of a mission to Sedna – Nuclear propulsion and solar sailing

(arxiv.org)
200 points speckx | 1 comments | 01 Jul 25 14:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.271s | source
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myrmidon ◴[01 Jul 25 15:08 UTC] No.44434668[source]▶
This direct fusion drive is a really interesting concept. Maybe something like this could be used for interstellar travel in a century (or five), it is very encouraging that there is active research on it. ~5kg of thrust is not a lot, but over time...

This sounds significantly more feasible than nuclear pulse propulsion ("project orion" style) which I used to think was the only feasible approach to get to another star.

One thing that was unclear from the paper to me: How does the fusion drive "pick" D/He3 fusion over D/D? Can this be "forced" by just cranking the plasma temperature way up? Or do you still just have to deal with a bunch of neutrons from undesired D/D fusion?

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1. topynate ◴[01 Jul 25 15:27 UTC] No.44434890[source]▶
The easiest way (perhaps the only practical way) to favour the aneutronic reaction is to run a helium-rich mixture. The trade-off is lower power density.