Could We Be on the Verge of a Major Technological Transportation Breakthrough? 

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Conventional rockets are still necessary to take things from planetside into orbit. Ships that will rely exclusively on ion engines will be probably assembled in orbit.

I remember reading about ion drives in library books in the early 1960's. There development has been going on since then.

Considering how much technology has advanced in the last 120 years, I would be surprised if humanity hasn't colonised the Moon and Mars by 2120.

There is a classic mistake here: ion thrusters don't necessarily have "low thrust". In fact, in many cases there is literally no limit to how much thrust they can produce. The issue is the amount of power available - they produce low thrust simply because they lack the power to accelerate more propellant and generate higher thrust. So the issue is really not the engine, but the power source.

Thanks for another interesting video. But it was a little disappointing that there was no mention of the successful "Dawn" space probe mission, which visited both Vesta and Ceres in the Asteroid belt. Entirely powered (after leaving Earth's atmosphere), by an Ion engine.

There is a catch when it comes to travel times and achievable velocities: You can always only use half the distance to mars to accelerate. Because at some point you'll have to start braking. The weaker you thrusters the longer you have to brake unless you want to use gravity assisted deceleration again which brings you back to where you were with conventional propulsion. So the question is: How much is your actual net gain in travel time really if you have to brake half of the distance to your target?

You know what’s kinda neat? The pros and cons of ion thrusters discussed here are implemented in _Space Engineers_

I love everything about your videos, they are of the highest caliber in every way. However, one of the things that really makes them distinctive is the tone you're able to set with the combo of your narration, script, and aesthetic. Every time a new one is up and I see it, it's like when you would run into a dim air conditioned house after being in a bright and hot sunny day. Incredibly refreshing.

"It might one day be possible to pop over to Mars for a holiday." If you accelerate at 1 g for the first half of a journey from Earth to Mars and decelerate at 1 g for the second half, it'll take at least 1.7 days, with an equally slow journey home. Not undoable, especially for long holidays, but they'd have to make the vehicle feel more like a cruise ship than a plane.

I had a hand in manufacturing the Ion engines for SpaceX’s starlink satellites. They’re really neat stuff.

I think Ion thrust is going to be a major component of space travel in the future. I also think that they should be looking into developing nuclear fusion power as well. I researched that the potential top speed of a powerful and efficient fusion thrust would be 10% the speed of light but we need to get there technologically. There is also the potential usage of solar light sails than can also top out at 10-20% the speed of light! Imagine a wonderous spacecraft that combines all of these techs plus using gravity assists when needed.

“Epstien Drives”. yah im not getting on that spaceship…..

Our closest neighbour is not Mars, it's Venus or Mercury, depending upon how you measure it (look it up).

I wish NASA would do an orbiter around the far outer planets, like Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and other dwarf planets using Ion engines. Yes, it would take like 15 years, but still, it would be nice.

The true power of elastic bands needs to be explored more 😊

Beside the very interesting subject matter, I greatly enjoy your narration. You always sound so genuinely interested and enthusiastic, it makes your content incredibly enjoyable.

Glad you made a video about the 39 days statement. I would enjoy seeing more information about current ion drives technology attached to current nuclear power sources. Feels like technology we could put together today, just no one has yet.

love your vids alex. They always make my day

What a great topic for a video, Alex. Thanks for the upload! [4:32]

Thanks for this update on Ion engines. I designed the thrust vector actuators for the Deep Space 1 Ion Engine that chased down comet Borelli and took the first fotos of a comets nucleus. Kind of anticlimactic, though, it looked like a longish Idaho potato! I also co designed the electronic pressure regulator Xenon fuel feed for the 200W TacSat 2 Spacecraft First of a Kind US built Hall Ion Thruster System, for which I received a nice plaque from JANNAF. What we Really need, though, is Field Propulsion. No expendables. I use the moniker Iam Nobody to remain anonymous on the web. Thanks. Jerry

The biggest thing that will hold back space colonization is not the distances involved, but the fact that humans are not built to survive well in zero or low gravity, and, we all like to be in nature, and there isn’t any out there.

Ion engines only work in the vacuum of space ! Atmosphere is the limiting factor ion engines can’t overcome….

Almost perfect ion propulsion video, Thank you!! One thing everyone should know however, is that there is a series of ion thrusters that are patented for lifting their power supplies against Earth's gravity! The crafts are fully independently verified, since it is amazing that they have a high enough thrust to weight ratio. This series of crafts are called the Ion Propelled Vehicle or Self-Contained Ion Powered Aircraft. Some of the 40 or so flight videos available online, show the crafts lifting small propellant tanks for use in space. So far, all the flights have used ambient air/O2 as propellant. The velocity of the propellant for ion propulsion is proportional to the energy input as mentioned, however, high propellant velocities can be produced more efficiently with higher voltages and with different geometries and propellants. While not yet proven in space, the greater than 1 to 1 thrust ratio that this produces, is tremendously higher than for xenon thrusters.

Now I’ll just wait for the first Twin Ion Engine ship, can’t wait!

Ion thrusters have also been proposed as a means of deorbiting space junk, as the exhaust forms a beam that exerts force on objects that it comes in contact with.

If cooling is the issue, perhaps they could transfer the heat to the ions before they are ejected? If it's able to eject enough particles quickly enough that might work.

Thanks, Alex! Wonderful discussion.

If you use sodium as a reactor coolant, you could also use it as a propellant in an ion engine. It would be very cheap.

The biggest issue in space travel in the future will not be generating speed. It will be the ability to avoid collisions with rocks and particles as the space ship moves towards is destination. Some form of shield will have to be generated at the front of the craft in order to avoid damage. This could take up a lot of energy from the spacecraft.

Actually, the idea of thrust is much easier to understand that the archaic newtonian description. In fluid mechanics, the description is that when you create a pressure in a chamber, it presses on all walls equally. But what if you create a pressure along only one wall? It would accelerate in the direction of the pressure. So a thruster takes the easiest view of this - it solves the problem of "one-wall-pressure" by opening the opposite wall and making it into a nozzle. Thus, the measure of the exhaust coming out the nozzle is a measure of how much pressure is bing exerted by the ignited fuel mixture within the combustion chamber in the direction of motion. Its a more realistic description for large systems like a turbulent flow of gas than "throwing mass out the back maves you move forward" though this is a true statement, but only because the mass is exerting a push on you.

Gotta use Ion thrust for non-manned spacecraft part that can have extended acceleration time while human part (capsule that docks with "mother ship") could use "traditional" rockets to get on-board it (and separate before target, while "cargo ship" is using larger loop (like 2-3 gravity assists with small "normal engines") to slow down).

I love the amount of ion engine and space engineering experts watching this channel. If only NASA took notes from the RU-vid comments section im sure we would already be visiting the stars 🙄

With ion thrusters it's less about how far away they are as "how long you're willing to wait." Because of the low thrust.

Your video popped in my suggestions- I’m relearning as I’ve noticed some channels talk about the Pole Shift and so many years of darkness- would love your point of view on the earths changes and 5D ascension.

Liked came w/o even watching your video, as your subscriber. I was expecting your video to use MAGLAV kind off setup running in a loop in vacuum achieving the escape velocity and then shooting straight up. Further accelerating by running close circles around Earth then further using our Moon to do that(MAGLAV as well as circling) before starting it's journey to Mars and using Ion thrusters on it's way. The way back would be the same from Mars this time using one of it's 2 satellites and using our Moon as a speed breaker, further slowing down circling around the Earth. I see it happening in coming 40-50 years where humanity will achieve such pin-point accuracy and efficiency if, we don't destroy ourselves by then. Keep more videos coming! I eagerly wait for them.

For some who still don't get it fully is what Astrum means is Ion drives will be able to get used to other places faster by keep accelerating for years without massive amounts of fuel sure but they won't completely replace chemical rockets as they are too convenient to get stuff into orbit but having a higher delta V is very desirable

Seems to me that what will eventually become standard is a combination of different types of propulsion systems...solar sails, lasers, ion and rockets, depending on the application... Gravity wells need rockets to overcome, at least until some sort of "skystalk" is built but that's not going to happen anytime soon. So, the Moon is the best closest place to jump out there, imo... S.W.

Using this for people isn't as far off as you suggest. Here are some things to consider: 1. Say you want to move people to and from Mars. Back in the 1960's and early 70's NTP (Nuclear Thermal Propulsion) was developed and demonstrated here on Earth with the design goal this would be the 3rd stage to a Saturn V rocket. While they use hydrogen as propellant, which we use in the core stage of the SLS as it is so very light, the nuclear reactor can easily heat the hydrogen enough to have over twice the ISP (how fast it shoots out of the nozzle) while still having enough thrust to take advantage of the Oberth Effect to escape Earth's gravity. The reason NTP has such a high ISP compared to the SLS core stage is the SLS core stage combines hydrogen and oxygen and oxygen is relatively heavy and thus needs to be heated a whole lot more than what chemical heating alone can do in order to reach such a high velocity while elemental hydrogen is far lighter and thus needs far less heating to have the same high velocity. What you really want to do with this is to have a reusable booster that never really leaves Earth. This will allow a crewed ship to quickly get around Earth's radiation belt just like how Apollo skirted around Earth's radiation belts to get to the Moon and then return to LEO to be reused for the next mission. The initial escape from Earth's gravity well done and done quickly and done this way to minimize radiation exposure and thus less radiation shielding is needed for the trip. 2. Also going back to the 1960's and key components developed further for solar concentrating power plants with overnight molten salt storage in the 1990's, I mean we eventually circled around and tackled the chief problems with this technology when back in the 1960's the scientists were never given the chance to finish the materials science are LFTR reactors. These use a high temperature molten salt reactor core and breed thorium into uranium to use as fuel and burns nearly all of the uranium / thorium put into the reactor. These are passively / inherently safe unlike light water reactors and extremely compact and efficient, especially with a good space only design. You complain about heat dissipation in space, but actually we have space radiator science down pretty well. You do the right high powered nuclear - electric setup as it is called and the radiator space needed is a small fraction of the solar panel space needed for Earth orbital distance from the Sun, let alone farther out. I mean you can get rather good accelerations suitable for deep space missions getting you to Mars in short times allowing for minimal radiation shielding and in general minimal ill effect from being in 0 G as the trip will be quick. Then the ship that always stays in space can come back to Earth. Mars does not have radiation belts around it as it does not have a magnetic field and in general less gravity to escape from, so the nuclear - electric drive is more suited for getting you back from Mars. Once back to Earth, you could potentially aerobrake to help achieve LEO again and thus with the NTP booster already back in LEO a long time ago and serviced for the next mission, you have a complete system for getting people to Mars space. 3. For getting to the surface of Mars, when you have the transfer ships above put together, you use chemical to get down, which you don't need that much chemical to get down. With 1/3rd the gravity and almost no atmosphere, it is easy enough to get chemical back up. As engines tend to be a lot more expensive than propellant tanks, you could have some mostly cargo and passenger one way landing craft with some propellant to make the landing burns and some rockets designed to return to the mother ship in space carrying people, samples, and engines of the one way landing craft so that future missions can be cheaper by recycling the engines used for landing. You can also have a nuclear - electric focused cargo and fuel hauler to bring the bulk of your supplies and landing craft out to Mars space slowly, but efficiently doing nuclear - electric the whole way forgoing the NTP booster and launching before the crewed ship as maximum efficiency takes longer than a rapid, radiation minimizing crewed trip.

One thing to note when you talk about efficiency of fuel; there are two ways to think about efficiency. You could consider how much mass is required to get a specific change of momentum, in which case ion thrusters are way more efficient. Or you could think about how much energy is required to change a unit of momentum, in which ion thrusters are way way less efficient than chemical rockets. We can only bring a finite mass of fuel with us, and because of the rocket equation bringing fuel mass gives diminishing returns. For this reason, the limiting factor is generally the amount of momentum change per mass of fuel, and so ion engines are considered efficient. We can get energy for free using solar panels, but the power (energy per second) may be very limited and thus the thrust is very limited.

I know nothing much about all this but I find this quite interesting, but I was thinking, would it be possible to like cancel out or just to reduce the gravity a little? And have the rockets take off from there? Like a small area with low gravity? Can save lots of fuel to take off right, again its just a thought that occurred while watching this video

If only the Treaty of Moscow hadn't put a stop to the Orion Project. We might have a means of propulsion that far exceeds both chemical rockets and ion drives. Don't get me wrong. I agree with the Treaty of Moscow. Nobody wants random EMPs in the upper atmosphere. It's the ending of the Orion Project that I take issue with. They could have found a different fuel source, rather than simply abandoning the project. This would have ultimately led to Bussard's ramjet design possibly seeing the light of day.

Always fascinating!

Great channel I LOVE IT!!!

You could get to Mars in a lot less time than seven months using chemical propulsion by assembling in orbit a multi-stage rocket with jettison able external propellant-tanks.

The faster you travel to get to a planet the more you need to slow down to get into an orbit of that planet when you get there. This is one of the reasons why current rockets take slower orbits to get to other planets. An ion engine that takes a lot of time to accelerate will need to start slowing down much further away from the destination.

Great video, but ion thrusters' "fatal flaw" of not having enough thrust is moot because all space travel is the initial launch providing all the inertia needed, then slingshotting around stars or planets to return to Earth on the initial thrust only, that's how we've always done space travel here. That's exactly why Iron thrusters are so perfect. A single nuclear battery and over thousands of years, you can even drop the battery and recharge near suns, make minor adjustments due to solar winds or collisions and maintain trajectory without a need for finite, heavy fuels which are incredibly inefficient. As a metaphor for us, plants are way more efficient than we are in this way since their waste product is actually a highly energetically bondable gas that they could even use in an advanced biological system, but we use to breathe instead. As for atmospheric interference, all circuits can be altered by radiation so we shield them with a thin band of gold or cheap aluminum. As for fuels, there are many kinds as it simply pushes out electrons, something that any conductive material can do very well so we are not limited to any material. I love the air impluse engine, how fascinating thank you for sharing such wondrous knowledge I hope to see more of this everywhere! As for not making the trip, we can just use more launch volocity initially via gravity well slighshot drop, rockets, or space elevators. As for the heat sinks, have we looking into nigh-absolute zero conditions reapplied to be used as "shift in" advanced heat sinks like a key ring of variable heat-absorbing property barriers that open and close? It might be very nice in space for example.

I love looking up conversions, especially when you could just say it. Thank you for the opportunity!

Don’t ion engines have a very low specific impulse, like they are great and all but they take ages to do anything

I'm gonna bet right now that hybrid rocket ships will be invented sometime in the future. One that uses a super powerful initial push for the rocket to switch on its ion boosters to let us take a lap to Neptune and back

I don't want to be pedantic, but Mars is not our closest neighbor. At their closest distance Mars is 55.7 million kilometers from Earth while Venus is only 38.2 million kilometers. Love your channel

Rotating detonation engines produce more thrust than conventional engines with the same fuel. Depending on fuel you could at lest from an hypothetical view use a turboscramjet (similar to the J57 which was a turboramjet). Those would save enough weight to give you a much faster spacecraft, as for the same weight you could carry a significant amount more fuel, and you would get more thrust with that fuel.

Propellant, not fuel.

In 2006 I did my English essay on ion thrusters because I knew my teacher would be so lost she would pass me because she was so lost.

This was the coolest video I watched today. I dig👏👍

Thanks, good video🌎🔭

Mars is not our closest neighbour, Venus is...

I wouldnt be surprised if technology more advanced than this has already been developed and as usual...suppressed

This is such a great video 👍🤌🤙

I used to work for Hughes Space and Communications. We had working Ion Engines on our satellites back in the mid-1990's. I didn't work on it myself, but a very good engineer friend of mine did. It has been used successfully on deep space probes as well. I don't know how this is "New".

No. Ion engines require little to no atmosphere to generate thrust. The laws of physics will prevent them from being used as launch vehicles from the surface of Earth.

The title is misleading. As if ion thrusters were competitors to traiditional heavy lift rocketry, which is not at all true.

I propose to enhance the advantages of ion and similar engines by placing fairly massive platforms along the trajectory of space transport. The task of these platforms is to collect, produce, accumulate energy to generate a powerful electromagnetic field at the moment of passage of transport, so that the result of the interaction of the fields of the platform and transport is the exchange of movement impulses, acceleration/deceleration/change of direction of transport. Approximately the same thing that happens during a gravitational maneuver when spacecraft fly near planets.

The big problem with space travel is that space is big, REALLY big. No matter where you are, everywhere else is a long way away. Douglas Adams put it best, “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Don't forget to smash that "like" button folks! Enjoy the video

How no one noticed that this video exists

This video is great 4K content for sure.

Great topic, I wish you would have covered the difficulties of breaking once reaching a destination after all that time at those incredible speeds. Wouldn't you have to spend half of the trajectory thrusting in one direction and then other half thrusting in the opposite direction?

Spoiler Alert: Spoiler Alert: This video will teach you absolutely nothing new! Ion thrusters can not make chemical rockers obsolete. Chemical rockets will be necessary to lift the ion thrusters into orbit. (Full Stop.)

I dont like the increased sensationalism of your videos. Keep it to raw science and data instead! To answer the clickbait title; No. No they wont.

39 days sounds a lot better than the current 9 months for a one way trip. If something goes wrong, help isn't coming for at least 9 months, and that's presuming there is a rescue ship kept ready to launch in case of emergencies.

Thank you!

I could imagine an ion thruster roacket being built and put in space - then a conventional rocket docks with it - the ion thruster transports to a planet and then waits in orbit as the traditional rocket lands. Its more a transportation device than a take off and land.

Just need some element 115 and we'll be set.

the best part about this video was the use of the stellaris OST. very fitting

I hadn't even thought about heat issues in space because it's so cold. I hadn't even thought about the lack of heat transfer in a vacuum until you mentioned the issue here. Wow. 🤘🏽

6 months of zero-g watching mars grow bigger and bigger will be the most amazing of journeys

I feel like this video is much more simplistic in it's explanations. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but I feel like in this video specially I didn't really come out with anything. As a space-centered channel, I'd assume that most viewers have watched at least one video on ion thrusters, and the level of information provided in this video is low such that I don't think a lot of your viewers will learn much. There are many fascinating things on the cutting edge of ion propulsion, but this video didn't really touch on any of them for very long. It feels like this video was much longer than it needed to be given what it conveyed, and probably could have gotten the same information across in a few slides, or a few minutes of video. I love the channel! Thanks :)

There's going to be a breakthrough. We just have to wait! 😎

Great show, great advance in technology is great for all our species

Alex, you make complex science seem simple and exciting. I hope the younger gen watches these videos and gets excited to join the firms that are working on these technologies.

The only qualm I have about faster space travel is tackling stray particles. A particular smaller than a penny can rip your spacecraft if it hits.

Interplanetary highways should be similar to cable cars, that's the only way you can avoid momentum based propulsion. I'm imagining a giant loop of cable in orbit around the sun, turned by a giant cogwheel running on solar energy. Or the wheel could be a planet itself.

This is pretty cool

eye-on drive! gotta keep an eye on things!

Love this!

Until they replace propellant based thrust, you'll always need to carry fuel with you. With a propellantless engine, you don't even leave a trail of exhaust and all you are limited by is the ability to generate electricity at adequate levels.

ty ver informtive. good vido

Hey astrum it would be cool if you talk about other engines please

This very good news !!!

I was reading about ion engines many decades ago.

Good stuff

you need to turn the engine to "break", long as much you put time to accelerate before, the more you accelerate, the longer you need to break (or accelerate opposite), dont forget this future space travellers before having fun achieving 10% Lightspeed and almost at destination :)

Spaceships don't have brakes. I think it will take about as much energy and time to stop a spaceship at its destination as it did to make the first leg of the journey there. So positive acceleration halfway to Mars then negative acceleration the second half of the distance. Otherwise 39 days to Mars won't be of much use to do anything but wave as the ship flashes past the planet and on into the void.

Star Trek Warp Engines are probably the right way to go, but the only problem with the warp field from Star Trek is that it had to be put on the back of the ship away from the rest of the crew because of its high energy level needed to produce the field that would push the ship like chemical reaction it works like creating a field that is larger in the back so that space and time moves faster in front of the ship. The Problem is in order to produce that type of field you need a huge reactor, Star Trek Engines used what they called a Matter-Anti-Matter Converter or reactor, they couldn't just put anti-matter matter reactor anywhere and control the explosion because matter and anti-matter will destroy each other creating their opposite which would lead to uncontained explosions that would slowly destroy the Universe, so they found a Crystal called Delithium, and they found it was made of something inbetween matter and antimatter, they put that in the warp core section of the engine room and inject small amountsof Anti-matter and Matter into the crystal, the interaction causes the crystal to resinate and slowly release the plasma from the small explosions, the plasma goes to the warp pylons where it is used to create the warpfield that pushes the ship along using the different electrically charged plasma fields, each smaller field is attracted to the opposite smaller field creating the propotion to move faster than light by expanding space and time in back to bring space and time together in the front of the ship. It works like a folded piece of paper instead of going to the dot on the far in of the paper straight, you fold the paper under or above you and take the path between the two dots. The rest of the Plasma from the Anti-Matter Matter reactor or converter is not wasted, the rest goes into powering ship systems and other drives thrusters the Impulse engines are considered Ion based drives, they use for maneuverability and other power systems including life support and food and plant production as well as part reproduction. The current 3-d printers are the first step in creating what Star Trek Called Replicators, theese things produced parts and food and water by taking the charged particals in the plasma and converting it to either a part or food or water, and when you are done with it the part you don't eat return it to the replicators and it breaks it back down into energy and sends it some place else. This is why Star Trek ships had no water tanks or food storage after the first serries and movies, water could be created whenever they needed it by combining the adams in different configuration they could get whatever they needed from the replicators.

If the thruster produces an absurd amount of waste heat, but we can't power it effectively...sounds like we need a way to turn the waste heat back into energy.

With all the hype and promise, I hope this works out successfully, as did last transportation revolution, the Segway.

Going faster would lend urgency to better shielding especially as we get closer to the asteroid belt.

Which font do you use for your screen text? It’s great!

2:59 LOL not even a chuckle, fair to Alex for saying that with a straight face