Franklin Chang Diaz, NovaScience Now, 2/2

[wilbursalazar]

Thumbs up if you're related to him!!!!

[cloakster]

Bob Zubrin, a rocket scientist, is the one who called VASIMR out as a hoax.

[DougWardBlammo]

Good ole You Tube.A bunch of American experts, who aren't even capable of voting, telling a rocket scientist he's on the wrong track.

[cloakster]

Btw, 200 megawatts comes from Chang-Diaz himself.

[cloakster]

Google "The VASIMR hoax".

[cloakster]

for some reason, long comments are not working. Censorship?

[cloakster]

test- YouTube seems to be having problems adding comments right now

[cloakster]

I think Chang-Diaz is a great role model, and is to be admired.

That said, he's hopelessly optimistic/wrong when he says his VASIMR engine can get people to Mars in 39 days. The numbers simply don't add up.

The problem isn't the engine, it's the tremendous amount of electricity needed, i.e. 200 megawatts for VASIMR to do the 39 days. That would require at least 4000 TONS of nuclear reactor + cooling equipment, i.e. many times the size of the spacecraft.

That much weight = not gonna happen.

[PsionNinja]

@cloakster the International Space Station's solar panels can produce 250kw. This is very doable-

[cloakster]

@PsionNinja No, I'm afraid it's not. Your own numbers showcase why.

The International Space Station's solar panels are pretty big, yet they only produce 250 kilowatts. But Chang-Diaz says "Just give me 200 MEGAwatts" for VASIMR. That's *800 times* more power.

Now ADD to this that solar power FADES the further you get from the Sun. At Mars orbit, you only get 40% as much power as you do at Earth's orbit. So now you need panels TWO THOUSAND times larger than the ISS's.

Good luck with that.

[PsionNinja]

@cloakster The current VASIMR peaks at 200KILOwatts and would be enough to get us to mars in 39 days. I seen it before where people mix up kilowatts and megawatts. Even then 200KW can be produced by a 268HP car engine hooked up to an electric generator. Though I don't know if they'd want a car engine in space. Better get to work on fusion.

[cloakster]

@PsionNinja You're under a false assumption. The 'test' VASIMR engine may be 200 kilowatts, but the one that could actually get us to Mars in 39 days would require 200 MEGAwatts.

They're NOT the same thing.

Again, the PROBLEM: VASIMR, while very fuel-efficient, doesn't generate much thrust. To scale up enough to provide enough thrust to get us to Mars FAST, VASIMR needs LOTS of electrical power.

But said LOTS of power requires LOTS of HEAVY nuke reactors. Which renders '39 days' impossible.

[PsionNinja]

@cloakster starting at 3:20 it turns out he is a bit vague on how powerful a plasma rocket would have to be to get to mars in 39 days. I know that the 200kw design has a positive thrust of about 1lb (0.46kg). I would suppose you'd need more than that to accelerate and decelerate for that 39 day run to mars. But the question is exactly how much? where did you get the 200 megawatts numbers at?

[THEELVISAQP]

He is a great model to follow

A latin can do all things that he/she proposes

[aamarin84]

A real pride to Costa Rica and latinamerica!!

[amoohjob]

no engines on the next levelle space xploratione depends on sats whye go there when all you neede is find out whates there and there is no life for us excepte heare on earthe so all that we neede is all heare

[TheBigD50cal]

39 DAYS!!!! That's amazing. He seems like a awesome guy as well. I wish more funding and people power went into the mission to mars. With technology likes this it seems so much more realistic to say "lets go to mars".

[tostrong4you]

Lol I want to see more, thank you so much for these kind of uploads and notices, I think Im gonna go watch some Startrek now