Solar System Exploration and Future Propulsion Systems
- Paper number
IAC-07-C4.6.07
- Author
Mr. Philip Venturelli, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Human exploration of the solar system has been thus far limited to missions in the local vicinity of the Earth. In order to enable future explorers to visit more distant parts of the solar system, advances in propulsion and power technology are necessary. While it is possible that such advances may be attained by incremental refinement of existing technology, such an approach could require longer time scales than the development of technology driven by fundamental breakthroughs in human understanding of space travel. In this paper, we examine propulsion and power concepts relying on fundamental leaps in understanding of physics and consider their applicability to human exploration of the solar system. A series of missions will be examined, and methodologies for mission analysis will be proposed, driven by the particulars of the individual engine systems. Some of the possibilities discussed will originate in the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion study from 1996 to 2002, while others represent more recent developments in theoretical physics. An attempt will be made to assess the difficulty of reducing these breakthrough propulsion concepts to practice in the context of resources available to a small group of space-oriented entrepreneurs.
- Abstract document