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on Twitter At 54.6 million km away at its closest, the fastest
travel to Mars from Earth using current technology (and no small
bit of math) takes around 214 days — that’s about 30 weeks, or 7
months. A robotic explorer like Curiosity may not have any
issues with that, but it’d be a tough journey for a human crew.
Developing a quicker, more efficient method of propulsion for
interplanetary voyages is essential for future human exploration
missions… and right now a research team at the University of
Alabama in Huntsville is doing just that. This summer,
UAHuntsville researchers, partnered with NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center and Boeing, are laying the groundwork for a
propulsion system that uses powerful pulses of nuclear fusion
created within hollow 2-inch-wide “pucks” of lithium deuteride.
And like hockey pucks, the plan is to “slapshot” them with
plasma energy, fusing the lithium and hydrogen atoms inside and
releasing enough force to ulti