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Fusion, Antimatter & the Space Drive Fusion, Antimatter & the Space Drive:JBIS, Charting Vol. 62, a pp.xxx-xxx,Path to the Stars2009 FUSION, ANTIMATTER & THE SPACE DRIVE: CHARTING A PATH TO THE STARS K.F. LONG The Tau Zero Foundation, City Mills Lock Cottage, 3 Blaker Road, Stratford, London. E15 2PY, UK. Email: [email protected] Human and robotic exploration of the solar system is under way with a return to the Moon and future landings on Mars determined to be near term goals. But the true vision for space exploration is interstellar travel to other stars and habitable worlds. This paper will discuss some of the historical propulsion concepts, which aim to achieve this stated mission. This includes fusion, antimatter, solar sail and more exotic concepts like the space drive. Historical design studies like the British Daedalus project have made progress towards defining the technical challenges and will be discussed. Research management techniques are discussed for appraising realistic and credible proposals for research. The launch of a new private venture to begin this process is highlighted. Supporting private ventures will be the way to bring imaginative theoretical proposals to reality in the long term and provide for conditions where the defined mission will become more attainable. The provision of vision, leadership and courage by international partners is seen as essential components in interstellar space exploration. Keywords: Interstellar flight, space drive, fusion rockets, antimatter propulsion 1. INTRODUCTION In the last century human kind has accomplished some great From this basis and motivated by many different factors, our milestones in spaceflight. This began in 1903 when Konstantin society has made great strides in space exploration. We have Tsiolkovsky published his paper ‘The exploration of cosmic built the international space station, walked upon the grey space by means of reaction devices’ which first discussed barren face of the Moon, launched spacecraft to nearly all of reactive propulsion and interplanetary travel using liquid Hy- the solar systems planetary bodies and landed robotic probes drogen and Oxygen as a fuel. In the same year the Wright Flyer on several. Future missions to these mysterious worlds are achieved the first powered heavier than air flight, reaching an likely to make great discoveries worthy of our efforts. The altitude of 3 m over a distance of 37 m for around 12s, powered pictures taken of the Earth from the Moon have a stirring by a 12hp engine. This truly was a remarkable year. influence on our consciousness. So it was that the Astronomer Carl Sagan suggested and finally achieved that most breathtak- It was in 1919 that Robert Goddard first published ‘a method ing of pictures taken by Voyager 1; ‘Pale blue dot’ from of reaching extreme altitudes’ and in 1926 launched the first 6.4 billion km away. liquid fuelled rocket using Oxygen and gasoline. This rocket was around 3 m long, reached an altitude of around 56 m and The latest phase in this story was the announcement in 2004 attained a maximum speed of 27 m/s. Around the same period, of the NASA Vision for Space Exploration [1]. This is a short extensive rocket research was taking place in Germany, stem- but inspiring document that sees a return to the Moon by human ming from the publication of ‘The rocket into planetary space’ beings by 2020 and eventual manned missions to that ever by Hermann Oberth in 1923. This led to the development of the present red planet – Mars. Exciting times lay ahead in both V2 rocket powered by liquid Oxygen and alcohol fuel. This robotic and manned space travel to near orbit and our neigh- was around 14 m long, 1.6 m in diameter and weighed around bouring worlds. However, the true promise of spaceflight is 12 tons. The first was launched in 1944 and it was the first travel to other stars, to see other planets and potentially find vehicle to fly outside the sensible atmosphere at 50 miles new habitable worlds for future generations of human explor- altitude and 200 miles in range, achieving a speed of 1.6km/s, ers. Astronomers have already identified around 300 exo-plan- nearly 5 times the speed of sound. The world space community ets. Future telescopes may be able show us actual images of has built upon these foundations, derived from the original what these worlds look like. Only then can we start to assess the organisations such as ‘The German Society for Space Travel’ orbital, planetary and chemical conditions and judge the poten- formed in 1927, ‘The American Interplanetary Society’ formed tial for life. in 1930 and ‘The British Interplanetary Society’ formed in 1933. International space organisations have flourished since, This life may be simple single cell organisms or indeed have most of which are supported as government funded administra- all the richness and diversity of chemistry that is present on our tions. own world. The universe may be teeming with life and we can only ascertain the answer by going out there and exploring. It is entirely possible that other intelligent civilisations may choose This paper was presented as a highlight lecture for the 59th to come and visit us first. It was Arthur C. Clarke who said that International Astronautical Congress, Glasgow, 3rd October 2008. “I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering 1 K.F. Long from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are • We must become an outward looking society. coming...I do not think we will have to wait for long” [2]. We • Scientific advancements. are now in a position where technology has advanced so much that we can begin to design an interstellar mission without • Potential cultural interactions with other intelligent life requiring new physics. The biggest obstacle is the engineering. forms. In this paper, we shall explore the technical challenge of inter- • Understand our place and purpose in the wider universe. stellar travel and the basic aim here is to demonstrate that ‘interstellar travel can no longer be considered impossible’. Interstellar travel is just one form of space travel as defined This is what one may call ‘Clarke’s vision’ for the future of by typical distance scales in the cosmos. Because scales in the humanity. Our main focus will be on the propulsion engine that universe are very large (astronomical), we must turn to defini- we can employ for such an ambitious mission. tions used in astronomy to comprehend the vast distance scales involved. We note that an astronomical unit (AU) is the dis- 2. THE CHALLENGE OF INTERSTELLAR FLIGHT tance between the Earth and the Sun. 1AU = 1.496x1011m. We also note that 1light year = 9.46x1015m = 63,240AU. Different Many believe that interstellar travel is impossible. But those forms of space travel can then be categorised as follows: who are familiar with the technical challenges have a different opinion. Robert Forward said that “Travel to the stars will be • Near Earth Travel: ~0.003AU, ~10-8ly (ISS-Shuttle, difficult and expensive. It will take decades of time, GW of satellites, Lunar exploration) power, kg of mass-energy and trillions of dollars...interstellar • Interplanetary Travel: ~40AU, ~10-5ly (Mercury-Pluto) travel will always be difficult and expensive, but it can no -5 -2 longer be considered impossible” [3]. • Extraplanetary Travel: ~40-500AU, ~10 -10 ly (Kuiper belt) It is also worth quoting Arthur C. Clarke once again to show • ~500-50,000AU, ~10-2-0.8ly (Oort Cloud) clearly where his opinion was “Many conservative scientists • Interstellar Travel: ~271,932AU, ~4.3ly (nearest star α- appalled by these cosmic gulfs, have denied that they can ever Cent) be crossed.....And again they will be wrong, for they have failed to grasp the lesson of our age – that if something is • Intergalactic Travel: ~108-1010AU, ~2000-160,000ly possible in theory, and no fundamental scientific laws oppose (Milky Way) its realisation, then sooner or later it will be achieved” [4]. • Extragalactic Travel: ~1011Au, ~106ly (nearest galaxy M31 Andromeda) Let us first examine the opinion of the negativist and con- sider the reasons given as to why interstellar travel could never Assuming that we can develop the technology to visit our be done: stellar neighbourhood, where would be like to go? Our Sun is a • The nearest stars are too far away. G2 yellow Dwarf type spectral class, and perhaps stars of similar type may have solar systems like our own. Within a 20ly • Travel times are too long. radius of our solar system, there are around 6G-class stars [5]. • Fuel requirements are too high. Within a ~70ly radius, there are ~100G-class stars. The G-class stars in our galaxy amount to ~3% of the total stars. If the • Long periods in the vacuum of space and zero gravity. galaxy has ~100 billion stars, then this amounts to a lot of • Requirement for closed cycle life support systems for potential solar systems. That is not to say that stars of other manned missions. spectral type will not necessarily have solar systems, it’s just • Radiation hazards. always a good bet to start with what you know. The search for extra-solar planets has become a dominant research field in • Dust and micrometeoroid impact hazards. recent years, but most of the worlds discovered are giant Jupi- • Why bother launching, when any vehicle could be ter like planets. The discovery of an Earth like world is yet to be overtaken by a later launch, which is faster? made. • Even if we could go extremely fast, relativistic effects The obvious first stellar candidate is the Alpha Centauri for any crew would cause them to be separated in ‘time’ system located at 4.3ly away, that’s ~272,000AU or 40,000 from their families back home.
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