VASIMR to Mars

[czokletmuss]

Here's presentation by AdAstra:

217 tonnes of propellant alone, almost 3 years in space and 30MW (!) required. Looks like pure fantasy to me

[DerekL1963]

Yeah, the power requirements have always been the killer for VASIMR.

[Nuke]

we need a serious breakthrough in space reactors to pull it off with a vasimr engine (or better yet an mpd thruster). were talking something like a polywell with at least a 100MW output or greater.

[Thaniel]

30 MW of power from solar panels today, the kind used in satellites, would weight some 100 ton and cover some 100 000 square meters. That´s large, and that´s just for the power for the engine. And not including any support for that large an array, nor any subsystems for it.

Ofcourse, that is utilizing only 22% of the suns energy. Lab tests have confirmed efficiency of over 44% these days, so the weight and area needed should be considerably less when and if such a vehicle is built. But still, we´re talking massively large areas for that kind of power.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Thaniel