Word: spacecrafts
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...same. (On the surface of Mars, tanks of water or even dirt berms could serve the same protective purpose.) The best way to limit the radiation dose on the way to Mars is simply to limit the transit time, and that means improving on the conventional engines all spacecraft have carried up until...
...propulsion engines--in which a portable nuclear reactor heats charged gas and then fires it out the rear of the spacecraft--already exist and are capable of accelerating ships to very high speeds. But the stream of ions the engines produce is a thin one, and even a small ship requires a long time to accelerate--a problem when time is the very thing you're trying to limit. Another possibility is nuclear thermal propulsion, which uses a larger reactor to superheat traditional propellant and blast it out the engine nozzle. Things move a lot faster with such a system...
...simple. An Apollo astronaut confessed that after his lunar module landed on the moon, he had the sobering realization that before he could return home, he would again have to get the ship moving very, very fast. As any astronaut knows, the two most challenging tasks in operating a spacecraft are starting and stopping it. If it's possible to avoid additional stops and starts, it's best...
...what Mars planners are really after is a stable, low-gravity place where spacecraft could be assembled and missions could begin, they might do a lot better to fly out to Lagrange point L1--a spot about 200,000 miles from Earth where the gravity of Earth and moon are in relative equilibrium. Gravitational forces essentially cancel each other out at such cosmic odd spots, making them easier to leave than the low-gravity moon and entirely eliminating the need to ease hardware down to the surface and then wrestle it back off again...
...with NASA's astronauts reduced to hitching rides on Soyuz modules, the private-rocket crowd is fired up because a privately funded ship might be ready for takeoff within a few years. Since 1996, several teams have been racing to develop a three-person spacecraft that could reach the edge of the atmosphere and repeat the feat within two weeks--the qualifications required to win the $10 million X Prize created by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis to encourage private spaceflight. Leading that race is legendary aerospace engineer Burt Rutan, who is gearing up for another test after his rocket plane broke...