NASA is looking at flying a plasma-powered rocket to survey an asteroid

[bananas]

http://news.discovery.com/space/plasma-rocket-asteroid-mission.html

Plasma Rocket May Shorten Space Voyages
If tests prove successful, this innovative new rocket could one day take astronauts to Mars in a little more than a month.

Irene Klotz
By Irene Klotz
Tue May 4, 2010 07:00 AM ET

THE GIST
* NASA is looking at flying a plasma-powered rocket to survey an asteroid.
* The rocket is a twin of one being developed for testing aboard the International Space Station.
* This new rocket could shorten the time it takes to get to destinations in our solar system.

An innovative plasma rocket being built as a spare for one heading to the International Space Station may have a space mission of its own: visiting an asteroid.

Equipped with an electric propulsion system, the rocket, known as Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), is being developed to one day transport astronauts to Mars in 39 to 45 days -- a fraction of the six to nine months the trip would take with conventional chemical rockets. Shorter travel time greatly reduces astronauts' exposure to potentially deadly cosmic and solar radiation, currently a show-stopper for human missions to Mars.

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WATCH VIDEO: Plasma propulsion experts are trying to develop a way to travel around space extremely fast.

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While the space station's VASIMR can draw power from the outpost, a free-flying engine will need its own source. As part of the proposed asteroid mission, NASA and Ad Astra would team with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to use its super-efficient, 200-kilowatt solar array currently under development.

Once the rocket reached its target asteroid, the power would be available to operate science equipment and other gear.

"You could do an extraordinary mission," Chang-Diaz said. "You don't need the power system for the rocket. Once you're there, you turn off the engine and you have 200 kilowatts to do anything you want to do. You can do all kinds of unheard of things with that level of power."

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