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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: 0.359s | 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. voxleone ◴[01 Jul 25 19:46 UTC] No.44437383[source]▶
Project Orion was the promise of my youth [70/80s]. It speaks to both the technological courage and the philosophical optimism that once characterized space exploration — and how that momentum seems to have faded. By all accounts, it was technically feasible. And yet...

Of course there was 'the shadow of the Bomb'. From bold, almost reckless experimentation (Mercury, Gemini, early Apollo, things shifted to safety-optimized, cost-constrained engineering. And there was Cost and Politics; the post-Apollo world didn’t want to colonize the solar system. It wanted low Earth orbit, and safe returns. Budgets followed.

Kinda sad.