The Humans 2 Mars conference will be live streamed.

[Exoscientist]

The Humans 2 Mars conference will be live streamed over the internet on LiveStream April 22nd to April 24th:

http://new.livestream.com/viewnow/exploremars

I'll be attending hoping to get feedback on the possibility we can do short travel times to Mars using solar powered plasma propulsion:

Short travel times to Mars now possible through plasma propulsion.

http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2014/03/short-travel-times-to-mars-now-possible.html

Bob Clark

[Streetwind]

Nested hall effect thrusters, huh? That's the first time I hear about that particular concept. Very interesting, the performance numbers are quite decent. The paper with the development plan is from 2011, I wonder if they've actually built one yet.

EDIT: Okay, found a paper detailing a successful intitial test firing of the triple-channel NHT at 30 kW in Fall 2013. It mentions several future "shakedown runs" as they slowly increase power before they will even start measuring performance data. So technically they built one, but it's not yet been operated at the target power and has not yet demonstrated that it actually produces the projected performance. Still, the initial test firing looked good, and I wish the team much success.

Ultimately, such a thruster doesn't really bring down the power required per N of thrust (and thus the mass of power generation and processing), but it does handily keep it from going up as higher power and thrust ratings are built. That's definitely a start, moving high power electric propulsion from "infeasible" to "inconvenient but feasible". I have a feeling NASA is pushing for this one, as their Asteroid Redirect Mission outline calls for a hall thruster powered capture vehicle with around 3000 Isp... which seems to fit the projected full-thrust performance of the X3 NHT in an uncanny manner.

Maybe if that works out for them, the ARM mission could validate this kind of technology for future Mars travel.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Streetwind